Bob Crum

Faithful readers know that I planned to attend the L.A. air show the past weekend at Fox Airfield in Lancaster. I went but the weather was awful... extremely windy and very cold.

The show began with skydivers bringing forth the U.S. Flag followed by the National Anthem. Next, aerobatics. With pedal-to-the-metal they provided amazing demonstrations in aircraft that seemed to defy gravity. Also, following a speedy aerobatic plane is not only daunting, it often results in neck whiplash. Exactly why I prefer mermaid boudoir photography!

The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor was a show stopper. The U.S. Air Force single-seat, twin-engine, all-weather tactical fighter aircraft is a mean, awesome weapon. The combination of vectored thrust, range, and stealth capability makes it the world’s most feared combat aircraft. More later.

Now some provocative photography data: On SD card #1, 1,572 RAW photos. SD card #2, 1,147 RAW photos. Total photos made: 2,572 comprising 48.5GBs of digital data! Whew! That's just for one day! I didn't go on Sunday because of weather & my tush hadn't yet thawed. Of course most photos will be deleted. Then why shoot so many? The answer another day.

If you're thinking that 2,572 photos is excessive, whoa, no doubt you're overlooking the fact that aircraft-especially jets–move faster than a garden slug. Bidda-bing: See it! Bidda-bam: Gone! Only mere seconds for focus lock and compose... two essential ingredients for a successful photo. Also, leading a fast moving airplane to nail the composition is extremely vexing. Don't ask how many aircraft rear-end photos I captured!

I resisted using burst mode for fear that the capture count would triple. Mercy, imagine that! Instead, I fire off a batch of photos in single-shot mode. From the batch, I'll usually end up with 2 or 3 successful captures. More on a warmer day!

In the past, I rented a very heavy Canon 100-300mm “L” lens. Getting older, this time I rented a Tamron 18-400mm lens. Much lighter & longer reach. Speaking of 'reach', many times more is better. On one fly over, the pilot of the F-22 Raptor opened the armament bay doors. I was zoomed out to 120mm as the plane approached. Right as it was overhead I quickly zoomed in to 400mm and BINGO!... captured the interior of the open armament bay. Sweet! It'll be in the photo/video at a later date.

There's a huge difference between photoing propeller and jet aircraft. Because jets fly so fast, I increase the shutter speed to 1/800th of a second to frame-freeze while panning quickly. But shoot a prop plane at that fast shutter speed, and the propellers are frozen making the plane look like it's suspended in the sky on a string! A shutter speed of about 1/120th of a second shows propellers spinning.

The final performance of the show included fly-overs with a Lockheed P-38J Lightning paired with the F-22 Raptor. Awesome! I had just photoed the F-22 Raptor solo thus camera shutter speed was 1/800th of a second. I was so intrigued watching the pair I goofed. I forgot to reset the shutter speed to 1/120th for the P-38J. Yep, unusable photos because the props of the P-38J photos are frozen. So depressing but also so human. Maybe I should consider an assistant like pro golfers have caddies. Anyone interested?

Photo of the week is the F-22 Raptor approaching. See it one second... whoosh... next second gone! That's very fast! Because it was far off, I zoomed to 400mm to get the photo. Happy photoing.

Send your comments, suggestions or questions to: bob@fillmoregazette.com