Bob Crum

"Musket Muzzle Blast" by Bob Crum.
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Exhausted, I am so ready for a three-month vacation in Hawaii. Too much to do when big events happen close together. At such extravaganzas I tend to shoot a ton of photos... as you now know. But unlike film where every push of the shutter button cost money, it costs nothing to delete the crapola. Oops... is crapola a word?

Speaking of words, most emails I receive are technical questions. Occasionally I get taken to the woodshed. Mr. X, who didn't provide his name, wrote a scathing email rebuking me for using the word 'photoing' declaring: “there is no such word in the English language.” Well, there's golf'ing', fish'ing', bowl'ing'... so why not photo'ing'?

Merriam-Webster website reports, in part: “The Merriam-Webster.com dictionary has gotten bigger, this time by over 250 new words and definitions. As always, the expansion of the dictionary mirrors the expansion of the language, and reaches into all the various cubbies and corners of the lexicon.” Mr. X, 'photoing' will be next!

The worst part of his email was saying: “There is no such thing as mermaids. Grow up. I mean REALLY – mermaids??? C'mon man. Anacapa Island eh? Didn't you mean Seals Sea Lions?” I suspect the writer also does not believe in Santa Clause. But about the Photo of the Week, he said: “Nice cannon shot photo.” Thank you, sir!

Cameras! At the Wings over Camarillo air show last year, a Canon camera photographer friend was trying out Sony mirrorless cameras. This year, at the L.A. County air show my friend showed up with 'only' Sonys. Sold all his Canon gear!

His photographic expertise & experience gives credence to his persuasive counsel to seriously consider mirrorless cameras, in particular, Sonys. However, conversion is neither easy or financially palatable. I previously mentioned that you don't just buy a camera, you invest in a system: Camera, lenses & accessories. Accordingly, I have a sizable financial investment in Canon gear & related accessories. Unfortunately, none of it is worth much on the used market. Furthermore, I'm not thrilled with the present lens selection for mirrorless cameras.

Faithful readers know that my main gear, though heavy, is a Canon 7D MarkII and a Tamron 16-300mm lens. It's a great combo for photojournalist's but I'd like to lighten the load. The lens is not available in a Sony E mount or any other brand of mirrorless cameras. If preventable, I'd rather not regress to carrying multiple lenses to cover the same 16-300mm range.

This week's photo of the week, and one other, is again from Moorpark Rotary Club's Civil War reenactment production. These are unique photos because, luck aside, the subject is substantially challenging to capture. Hello burst mode.

At the recent L.A. County air show, aircraft are flying all the time, as expected. Had I shot in burst mode all the time, I'd need a 3TB hard drive to hold all the photos. Muskets fire intermittently so shooting in 'burst' mode is feasible. So I did. The challenge is anticipating exactly when a musket will fire. Missed most times! In these two photos, the photo of the week is photo #5 of 10. The other photo is #8 of 10. I was shooting slow burst... not fast burst which fires off 10 shots per second. Brrrrt... done! At that speed, I would likely miss the capture moment before the camera's buffer filled. Slow burst mode expands the time interval the camera fires. The rest is up to timing... and 'luck'. Be sure to check fillmoregazette.com for color versions of photos.

As always, send your comments, questions or suggestions to bob@fillmoregazette.com

District Attorney Gregory D. Totten announced today that Los Angeles County residents Patrick Abrahamian (DOB 1/6/70), Michelle Abrahamian (DOB 5/27/71), and Taline Indra (DOB 2/29/80) were each sentenced to prison for their theft of a Bell Canyon home. Patrick Abrahamian was sentenced to 11 years 4 months in prison. Michelle Abrahamian and Taline Indra were each sentenced to 7 years 8 months in prison. In February, the defendants were convicted following a one-month jury trial. The case is the result of an investigation conducted by the District Attorney’s Real Estate Fraud Unit.

In 2012, Patrick Abrahamian approached the 65-year-old victim with an offer to help him negotiate a modification of his mortgage. In return, the victim agreed to move out and lease his home to the Abrahamians while Patrick Abrahamian supposedly negotiated a new mortgage for the victim. At the end of the lease term, the Abrahamians refused to vacate the home. After consulting with an attorney, the victim learned that a notarized grant deed had been recorded conveying his home, as a gift, to Abrahamian’s wife, Michelle Abrahamian. At the time of the offenses, Michelle Abrahamian was a licensed real estate agent.

The deed gifting away the victim’s home was fraudulently notarized by defendant Taline Indra, who is Michelle Abrahamian’s sister. Patrick Abrahamian subsequently impersonated the victim in a lawsuit filed by Abrahamian against the victim’s mortgage lender. This impersonation caused additional false documents to be filed in both the Ventura Superior Court and the County Recorder’s Office. Michelle Abrahamian was found in possession of notary acknowledgments that falsely claimed the victim had appeared before defendant Indra to have his signature notarized.

Judge Michael Lief noted that the sophistication and brazenness of the defendants’ fraudulent scheme “shocked the conscience of the court.” In addition to the prison sentence, each defendant was also fined $500,000 and ordered to pay $189,382 in victim restitution.

The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office is the public prosecutor for the county’s 850,000 residents. The office employs approximately 280 employees including attorneys, investigators, victim advocates, and other professional support staff who strive to seek justice, ensure public safety, and protect the rights of crime victims.

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