It's a Wacky Business

Yesterday was just on of those days where you just have to chalk it up to... What ever! I must frost say that this is not a very photo centric blog post but I home you will find some humor in it eve though it's at my expense.

It started out at 5:30 in the morning when the alarm went off and I had to swap cars at the airport at 7:00. Then there was the two hour drive to meet a crew to do a check ride on the captain. The plan was to go to Pelston MI and get a car and drive to Grand Rapids. I would be home a day early, sweet!

I snapped a couple of shots from the airplane, here is Detroit Metro Airport and one of lake St. Clare.

Here is another from the airplane of one of the many proving grounds in the Detroit area.

Crew did a good job and we are in Pelston when I get a briefing update with the car information. Cool, the plan is coming together. So I go to the Avis counter to get the car and I get a message from our training scheduler asking me if I am on the road yet because she might have something for me tomorrow (read today). Now i could have just replied that I was on the road and that probably would have been the end of it. Thats just not right though. Besides, the Avis lady did not have the reservation. I giver her the number that I had from the brief and she finds it and a goes on to say that it was rejected. They are a franchise and not corporate Avis so they will not rent one ways to Grand Rapids. Nice! I checked with Hertz and they had a car so I called the company to advise and they said to give it ten minutes and I should get a brief update. So I walked around the vast Pelston terminal with my camera over my shoulder. I had already changed cloths for the drive home and was planning on making it a photo experience stopping along the way. So that's where I came up with the picture here of the Canadair RJ getting ready to leave the ramp.

Forty minutes later I finally get the update and it is still for Avis. Whiteout belaboring the point, it took a total of an hour and a half to Finally get a Hertz car that I could have set up in ten minutes. Isn't big business wonderful. The bad thing though was that I was no longer going home but driving to Pontiac MI. So the day ended up being one our in the airplane and six and a half hours of driving. I could have stopped k(and probably should have) on the way to Pontiac for some photos but it was now starting to get later in the day and I was no longer in any mood to enjoy much of anything.

My tomorrow (meaning today) was now going to be a check ride to Teterboro NJ and the airline home to GRR. So rather than getting home a day early, it is going to be a 9:45 pm arrival.

So when am I writing this post? Actually during a Checkride of some distance, I do have a chance to sit down so here you see my iPad out on the table and the headset that I use to monitor what the crew is saying between themselves and air traffic control.

We are currently at 35,000 feet and the WiFi is not on this aircraft so I am using BlogPress which is a very nice tool to work on posts while not online with Blogger. We are starting our descent into Teterboro so I have to go observe the crew I their descent and approach phase.

Just like any other passenger I have to be strapped in for takeoff and landing so here are a couple of shots of the New York area on our approach.

Closer shot of the NYC Skyline

Here is a shot of the Meadowlands

We are on short final for Teterboro here.

Take care... Doug

The Non Pilot

This is totally not a photography post but if you can make it through the post you will either be LOLWROTF or think pilots are a bunch of nut-jobs.

Anyhow, we are working on a project that has to do with resetting how we as a pilot group accomplish the many tasks required to accomplish a flight. We hit a slight roadblock in a meeting today that created more questions than answers (not having an agenda for the meeting may have contributed to the outcome). So later on this afternoon I received the following statement from one of the meeting attendees. With the "BA" in the intro, I will assume it is an excerpt from a British Airways manual. Enjoy if you can keep up.

The titles P1, P2, and Co-Pilot will now cease to have any meaning, within the BA operations manuals. They are to be replaced by:

Handling Pilot,

Non-handling Pilot,

Handling Landing Pilot,

Non-Handling Landing Pilot,

Handling Non-Landing Pilot, and

Non Handling Non-Landing Pilot.

The Landing Pilot, is initially the Handling Pilot and will handle the take-off and landing except in role reversal when he is the Non-Handling Pilot for taxi until the Handling Non-Landing Pilot, hands the handling to the Landing Pilot at eighty knots. The Non-Landing (Non-Handling, since the Landing Pilot is handling) Pilot reads the checklist to the Handling Pilot until after Before Descent Checklist completion, when the Handling Landing Pilot hands the handling to the Non-Handling Non-Landing Pilot who then becomes the Handling Non-Landing Pilot.

The Landing Pilot is the Non-Handling Pilot until the "decision altitude" call, when the Handling Non-Landing Pilot hands the handling to the Non-Handling Landing Pilot, unless the latter calls "go-around", in which case the Handling Non-Landing Pilot, continues Handling and the Non-Handling Landing Pilot continues non-handling until the next call of "land" or "go-around", as appropriate.

In view of the recent confusion over these rules, it was deemed necessary to restate them clearly.

Take care all... Doug

Hey There Big Guy!

It was not that loong ago when this view off your left wing would have been really bad. Today the Mikoyan MiG-29 has felt the effects of time and cycles of high G loading. Back in the 70's when the cold war was running strong Russia saw the release of the U.S. McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle make its way to the heavens giving the United States a new level of air superiority.

The U.S. had taken technology to levels unheard of in the area of target acquisition and engagement using the advanced radar/targeting equipment onboard. The Russians were not as technologically advanced, they build some really well designed aircraft. The MiG-29 was the lightweight design when compared to the MiG-27 but yet the MiG-27 had the most amazing capability. It was so strong (due to extensive use of titanium) it could handle aerodynamic forces other aircraft just could not. The primary maneuver it could perform than no other aircraft was able to was call the Cobra Maneuver (pictured below).

This is not unlike the famed maneuver Maverick (Tom Cruise) from Top Gun performed pitching the aircraft up and then jamming the power in allowing the aggressor to "fly right past" him and the could get in position for a kill shot.

Ok, I guess that is enough of the aviation talk but the intro photo was fun to build. I was on a trip to Quincy Illinois and while taxiing up to the Fixed Base Operator we say these two MiG-29 sitting next to each other a ways down the ramp. After dropping our passenger, I grabbed my camera out of my back and walked down to the MiG's. It was truly a sad sight to see two aircraft that had served their country so faithfully is a dilapidated state of repair.

This last one says it all. My First Officer asked when I got back to the plane asked if they were in good condition. I just showed him this image with the bird crap on it.

Anyhow, the image below is the basis of the opening image. I spent a little time tonight cloning a the image into shape. Dropped a cloudy background that I took in Phoenix AZ last year. A little bit of non-distructive burning to balance the image and I was ready to go. Here is the original image.

The thing about doodling in Photoshop is that it sharpens your skills while you are working on a totally unimportant image.

I am going to take next week off from blogging (like I was really consistent this week) for Christmas so I will say it early. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Tora Tora Tora

There I was flying along and all of a sudden I was joined by a rare bird. I had been transported back in time 70 years and a Japanese Zero had joined up on me. Ok so that really didn’t happen and while this aircraft looks very much like a Mitsubishi A6M Zero or codename Zeke but it was not either.

As noted by the markings on the side of the aft fuselage it was built by the Canadian Car & Foundry company as a Harvard Mk 4 in 1952 and used by the RCAF until 1988 when it was sold to private individuals.

It was eventually purchased by 20th Century Fox and was rebuilt as a replica of a Japanese Mitsubishi Zero from World War 2. Other markings on the fuselage indicated it was used in some well known Hollywood movies and TV show including Tora, Tora, Tora, and Bah, Bah, Black Sheep.

So how did I get the picture above. Well... It’s not exactly real either. The pictures are but the composition is not. The sky came from a time when I was in Florida last year and the airplane was sitting on the ramp at the Wichita KS Mid Continent Airport. Yesterday we took some passengers form White Plains NY to Wichita and as we pulled up to the ramp I noticed the “Zero”. I broke out the XTi and 28-135 and grabbed some shots.

A little CS5 work to make a prop look mildly believable and I had a usable image.


Thats it fro now as I am working on a stuffy nose. To the point, I will probably skip tomorrow and continue on Thursday with the Process Series.


Take care as I will try to... Doug

Unique Views

Today I was at the Los Angels airport to pick up a passenger and his entourage. Aircraft were landing on 25R and passing my vantage point. Yes I had to rake out the 28-135 lens on the XTi that I cary around as a gigantor point and shoot. An yes I cropped in Lightroom to get all these really cool pics of this American 767 arriving. Enjoy!

BTW the blurring of the aircraft as it got closer to the ground was caused by the refraction of light in the radiated heat off the pavement.


Have a great day and take care... Doug

Majestic

Early this morning I was on a flight from Seattle WA to Reno NV. This route is always spectacular when the weather is clear as you can see all the mountains from Rainier shown above. As we were climbing out of the Seattle area I knew the possibility of a really nice side shot of the mountain may exist. We were on the shadow side though which provides a different view of a traditional mountain shot.

The image below is of Mt. Hood southeast of Portland OR. We were somewhat higher and on the sunny side of the mountain. This angle though provides some interesting lines due to the time

of day. It was 7:15 pacific and as you can see form the long shadow, the sun was still working its way up in the sky. It really gives good definition to the ridges in the mountain.

Below is another shot of the same intro image only in B&W. I figured I would go Ansel Adams seeing as how our route of flight was going to take us over his infamous shooting grounds.

Tomorrow I am going to try and give an evaluation of Lightroom 3 as I have been using the fully released version of it for the bast few days.

For now though, take care... Doug

A Sentimental Journey

Yesterday I was in Mesa AZ to conduct a checkride to Santa Ana CA (The O.C.) and we were getting on the aircraft when we heard the tell tail sound of a radial engine. Not just one, but many in that rhythmic melody that makes the hairs on your neck come to attention. It was a Flying Fortress, a Boeing B-17G, S/N: 44-83514, it was Sentimental Journey in all its glory. 

I had made its takeoff roll and I was not sure if it was going to be returning or if it was gone and I missed the opportunity. I got into my bak and put the EF 28-135 f/3.5-5.6 IS lens on the XTi and waited. We watched as it turned on what would be a right downwind leg (parallel to the runway but opposite direction) of the traffic pattern. Sure enough, he was returning for a landing and we had a front row seat.

I grabbed a number of shots that all really turned out but these two where the best composition. The one below was cropped to get a little closer but still was a good size file. She is in the landing phase after touching down on the main landing gear, for which it is called a wheel landing (rather than landing on all three wheels which is not the preferred method in larger convectional landing geared aircraft).

At this point I am very happy to have started carrying a DSLR when I am out on a tour as I would never have been able to get this level of photography out of the G9. As nice as it is, limitations still exist.

Don't know if you are going to watch the opening to the Winter Olympics tonight but lets hope the death of the luge rider today will be the only tragedy in Vancouver.

Enjoy your weekend and I'll be back on Monday.


Cya... Doug


For more information of our photography, visit us at peekfoto.

Busy Busy Day

I say that title in a moment of shameless humor. I actually have not been that busy today but rather one of occupying my time. I did spend a good part of the early afternoon educating myself on iMovie and editing a wedding that was shot a while back. More on that at a later date.

My duty day started at 9:00 in the hotel this morning and my flight was at 5:00 pm... Yep wait all day and then take an airline to Phoenix AZ and then a taxi to some other location that has now been long forgotten because it all changed by the time I got to PHX.

Another night, another hotel... Tomorrow is supposed to be yet another airline to Burbank  CA and then a taxi to Santa Monica. Hmm... something must be up in SoCal.

On the very boring flight (guess that is better then it being exciting) the sun took about two hours to go down. Truly a two hour golden hour. With my Droid in hand I thought I would try some of those airplane photos that everyone takes and looks lousy because the plastic windows are so crazed and frosted, or greasy from Brylcream and facial oil. What have you, it's nasty most of the time.

So here is the first shot.

The second shot is when I set the cameras

color effect to Solarize.

I did bring them into Photoshop real quickly to run Noise Ninja on them to clean them up just a bit but that is all. It was a small pleasure in an otherwise agonizing full sardine flight.

Hey, it's up early again in the morning for the maybe flight to Souther California so it is adiós for now. Cya... Doug






For more information of our photography, visit us at peekfoto.

Just for Fun

Every once in a while you just have to have some fun with digital manipulation. Today it is turned towards aviation. All the terrorist threats and the reactions (sometimes knee-jerk) the government makes to make us feel safe have caused a catastrophe in the aviation industry. The airlines are just squeaking buy and many operating in and out of bankruptcy. Most people would rather drive five hundred miles rather than fly, not because they don't feel safe but because how they are treated. It starts when they get to the airport, charging for baggage, the intrusion of our privacy by the TSA and their rules (3-1-1). But enough of that!

One area of aviation that was not effected so much by the terrorist actions of 9-11-01 was business aviation. Yes it is those "Fat Cats" the President and the Press has called on the carpet recently. So who is feeling sorry for them? I am really trying not to get political here so I will continue. When Bernie Madoff brought the investment industry to its knees (in association with the banking failures) many of those they called Fat Cats went to liquify any asset they had, often an airplane.

So why is this post titled Just for Fun? From the image below you can see the front end of a large corporate jet on the ramp in West Palm Beach FL. The fun part was working in Photoshop installing the "For Sale" signs in various places.

From the original image, there were a total of twelve layers to create this effect before I flattened it for the blog. The window with the sign in it required to be disassembled so I could place the sign behind the glass, The Sign on the ground is completely created from within PS as is the sticker on the side of the aircraft. The warp option under transform was used to make the sticker look like it fits the curvature of the aircraft. Using a selected black to transparent gradient on the sticker allowed me to match the shadow of the fuselage. The opacity of that layer was reduced to match the shadow.

That will do t for me today so take care. 

Cya... Doug

Back to Work

Sorry about Thursday and Friday but it was the last couple of day of our son being home and I wanted to spend time with him rather than tapping keys on a keyboard blogging. So there!

Anyhow on with the show. A week ago Saturday we were up well before dawn in Chicago (actually it was 4:00 a.m.) to take an airplane down to West Palm Beach Florida. As we were ferrying the airplane (no pax), my first officer was flying from the left seat (don't freak out, we can do that under the rules we fly) and I took the opportunity to get a grab shot of the pre-dawn sun rise. Yes the image is slightly blurred and when you see the camera specs you will understand why. Canon G9 2 second exposure at f/5 and ISO of 100, and get this, hand held. Actually the hand holding was true but I was suspending my hand from the sun visor rail so the vibration from the aircraft would not shake the camera.

So you ask what I was doing shooting at ISO 100 in the light. Well the G9's noise level goes up exponentially when you get off the 100 setting. I was much more willing to have a little shake in this image rather than noise. So that is why.

Hey, I am in Louisville right now getting ready to do something for my day job so I am going to cut it loose right now.

Cya tomorrow... Doug

Day in the life...

Last week I had an early show in Scottsdale Arizona for a flight to Louisville Kentucky and onto Chicago's Midway airport. This image above is from my hotel room just before sunrise. This will not be a long post, but here are a couple more images from that flight.

This was while on descent into Chicago and taken into the sun. It could have been rather bright but I shot it through the sun visor we use in the cockpit.

I have been waiting to get a shot like the one above because it is just so cool. We are just about ready to enter the clouds and when the sun is behind you this is the view you get. It is actually a full rainbow as the light is refracted/ice crystals in the moisture within the cloud tops. I'll give you a couple moments to ponder on why the aircraft is not in the middle of the rainbow.

It is because the angle of the sun is crosses the counterpoint of the viewer on its way to the moisture. In this case I was in the cockpit. If the this had been captured further back in the aircraft cabin, the aircraft shadow would be more centered in the rainbow.

That will finish up today. Cya... Doug

Slow Day On The Road

This week started out fairly productive from a checkride standpoint. I drove over to Lansing MI to do a checkride on one of our Captains to Pittsburgh PA. Yesterday I took and airline to Midway (Chicago) to do another checkride. So far I am still in Midway and it looks like tomorrow may well be the same. With my XTi/38-135 combination in hand I have nothing but dreary cold parking lots to shoot. Not much fun!

Sooo, to brighten my day I will share with you the following image that I had taken a couple of weeks ago before we left Stuart FL. Much nicer than the drab weather I have today.

This was looking to the North and the wisps of cirrus clouds in the upper atmosphere looked like wonderful strokes from an artist brush. Which they are only the Master chose to paint the sky the way it was that day. At the opposite end of the meteorological spectrum are some lower lever cumulus on the right horizon starting to build for some afternoon showers that can be counted  on in Florida.

While my artist eye sees the beauty of the scene, my left brain sees ice crystals in the 35,000 foot range being blown by strong upper atmosphere winds creating the possibility of some turbulence. Possibly some sheer causing clear air turbulence. This last impression is based on the difference i the upper clouds, a combination of cirrus and cirrostratus indicating lessor winds. That wind shift in direction or speed can be the cause of clear air turbulence.

Hey, enjoy the image as it is and my apologies for the class in meteorology.

Cya... Doug

Time Flys

I really have not started on my fireworks montage but I have been getting some interesting shots which is more interesting than post processing a bunch of fireworks. The above image is one such image.

Again the back story is just as interesting as the image. In this case one of the other guys I am working with on a project had not flown in over 90 days which drops him out of currency to fly passengers. Earlier this month we both were notified that we needed our annual route check. Typically a single flight from point A to point B. As we wanted to get work done with the rest of the team during the day, we set up a night flight for the currency and checks.

So this shot was taken with the Canon 5D MkII with a EF 16-36 f/2.8L lens attached using available light. In this case I was running the ISO at 500 as the sun was really gone and the only light was very obtrusive quarts lights illuminating the ramp area. I put the camera in video mode to get live view and held it up as high as I could and dipped it down to pick up the nose of the airplane.

That kind of wraps up the week for me. Take care all and have a wonderful weekend.

Cya... Doug 

Tri-Plane Bi-plane

As I finish out the week, I wanted to get one more up for the Waco Fly-in last weekend. This sequence was shot with the Canon 40D / EF 70-200 f/2.8 L IS + 1/4 teleconverter in high speed drive mode. I was able to get about 7-9 shots per pass but there were some issues. First the light was wrong in that it was later in the afternoon which is normally totally sweet light but the wind was out of the east which caused me to have to shoot into the light. Sorry, no fill flash here.

As the camera was in AF-Servo and the panning of the camera caused every other shot to just be a little off in sharpness. Either that or I was just missing the focus point. As you can tell from the images it was really a beautiful day to be out shooting.

Hope you all have a great fourth of July and keep it all safe.

Cya... Doug

Lightroom Rocks!

ORIGINAL IMAGE

Last weekend at the Waco Fly-in I took about 180 photos. Many of these were sent to the bit-bucket because of blur. I had the Canon 40D on high speed drive mode at six frames per second, so there were going to be some slacker shots. The one above though was with an EF 24-105 f/4 L IS lens and those all turned out nice for the most part.

The word nice was used because this is all it was. A nice snap-shot but not a complete image. Shooting in RAW has its benefits in that there is so much more information available in post production that the image can be made to really pop and look as vibrant as you saw it at capture. Shooting in jpeg is a faster process to an image but does not allow the photographer the same flexibility in post than does a RAW file. Not to say the jpeg can not go through post production but rather if it does the file has already been compressed once by the camera.

The adjustment panel above is what was done to the RAW file at the top of the post. A well exposed image needs very little adjustment to look stellar. Typically the white balance is checked, clarity, vibrance, noise correction, and sharpening are all that are tweaked. The next most likely tool that is use would be a slight tone curve adjustment as this works over the contrast in a localized area.

So those items were done to the image above to end up with the image below. A vignette is not always appropriate in an image but after the above adjustments, the sky and grass area were a little brighter than I liked. Enter Lightroom 2.0 Graduated Filter. Pulling one down from the top deepened the sky and then another from the bottom darkened the grass. This was an artistic decision on my part in that by doing so I was able to focus your attention to the airplane and not other light objects in the image.

FINISHED IMAGE

All those adjustments become very tedious after the first 15 or 20 images. Adobe created a valuable asset in Lightroom that allows repetitive adjustment to be not so tedious. Lets all stand up and give a round of applause for the Presets Panel. Not only does Lightroom come with a good amount of presets, it allows users to define new presets.

These presets allow me to make a slider adjustment very quickly while still allowing me to adjust the slider manually. In my PDP Treatment presets I have at least two adjustments for my most common settings. Some even have a reset function so I can back out of that particular setting. The first adjustment is titled A-CV N75 S100 TC-S V20. With one click of the mouse I can make the following adjustments every time:

• A mild amount of Clarity and Vibrance
• An overall noise reduction of 75%
• A 66% boost in sharpness
• Slight S-Curve adjustment in tone curve
• A 20% vignette

Magic!

Hey, that's long enough for today so TTFN... Doug

Waco - Waco - Waco

I said on Monday I would have some more images from the 50th Waco FLy-in, from Mount Vernon, Ohio last Saturday. I originally found out about the Fly-in on Thursday night at dinner with a good friend from work in Columbus, OH. I had been working with three other guys on a project all week and asked if they were interested in going. Hmm... Saturday... Work or play... No Brainer!

The plan was to get some work done in the morning and head out to the Fly-in after lunch. More or less that is what happened. Actually getting something done in the morning was a little difficult, but the fly-in was very relaxing.

Here are some images form the afternoon. Shot using a Canon 40D with either the EF 24-105 f/4 L IS or EF 70-200 f/2.8 L IS with a 1.4 teleconverter. Hope you enjoy them as much as I had capturing them.

Take care... Doug

Traveling Pants

Again to day was the first day home and a bunch of stuff took precedence over editing. I did get images downloaded form the Waco fly-in we all went to on Saturday afternoon. I will fill you in on that story a little late this week.

The above image is one of a wheel cover or fairing from a restored Waco bi-plane. These were all beautifully restored and in pristine condition. The title of Traveling Pants gets its name from what these devices used to be called... Wheel Pants. Then the Traveling acme from... well... come on now, they are on an airplane and an airplane travels... Give me a break will ya!

Anyhow, I have a bunch more to put up on of these days this week so look for them.

That's it for today. Cya... Doug

Under the Wire

Hey all, I am going to chimp out today as I am just now getting to my laptop. And no, this image of a WACO ZPF-7 is not a photo I took. It may however, be one of many I am planning on seeing tomorrow.

Three of my associates here in Columbus, OH are going to run up to Mount Vernon, Ohio and visit the National Waco Clubs 50 Reunion. Weather is to be in the mid 80's so it should be a wonderful day of airplanes and sun. I have both my 40D and 5D2 bodies with me this week as I was going to do a portrait shoot. Unfortunately that fell through. This fly-in is a nugget that was totally unexpected. I will have my 40D as it has the cropped sensor and I can get an effective reach of 448 mm with the EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS lens with the 1.4 teleconverter attached.

Guess you will have to wait until Monday to what I come back with.

Take care... Doug 

Day In The Life

This post is going to be a day in the life of me while I am at work flying. I'm really not trying to be narcissistic, but I did not have a lot of shooting this week and I took these four images on the same day.

This first one was of the Hawker 800XP while sitting on the ramp in Vero Beach Florida waiting for our passengers to arrive. I removed the registration numbers just in case the company has a problem with the picture on the net even though you can go to Airliners.net to see the aircraft. But they didn't get it from me.

Here is yours truly in the front office. When we have two captains fly together we usually swap seats each day and the day before I was in the other seat. We were running along the east coast well clear of a bunch of weather approaching from the west. It was really a beautiful flight.

The northeast to Florida airspace is very busy and a few years ago the FAA expanded the usability of airspace by reducing the vertical separation of aircraft. In years past at altitudes above 29,000 feet, aircraft were separated by 2,000 feet. Now it has been reduced to 1,000 feet which is the same as the other altitudes. This was made possible due to the increased accuracy of todays avionics.

What does that mean to the crews. We get a much closer look at traffic as the pass by. Here a Southwest 737 is going the opposite direction. Closure rate is over 1000 miles per hour so the chance of capturing a real stellar image is very slim. This one is even blurred a bit. This was with the Canon G9 with the ND filter turned on, and shooting at f/5.6 and 1/160 second.

Finally this last image really does not belong in this series. In the eleven and a half years I have been flying for this company, only twice has this happened. Normally we end up getting on an airliner and making at least one if not two connections to get to where we need to be. So we count it a very nice treat when the company has an aircraft going to the same destination as some dead heading pilots. In this case four of us road in the opulent comfort which our aircraft owners treat themselves to. This is an interior shot of a Falcon 2000.

This was a very light day but it was a day in my life anyway. Hope you enjoyed it.

Cya... Doug