Message posted by Gary Sellani on July 29, 2000 at 03:49:02 EST:

You guys were pretty sharp to spot the 2 seater. I suspect one plane wasn't working. They always have the 2 seater as a back up.

The photos were shot on Fuji Provia 100F with a 400mm F5.6 prime lens. The photos were taken with aperture priority, with the setting wide open. This yields the fastest shutter speed. A slide scanner is used so that the images are first generation. I use a Canon 10S, not exactly the most modern EOS. The Thunderbirds do not have much constrast compared to the sky, so the Tbird photos were focused by hand. The photos of the other planes were doen with autofocus. A more modern EOS that had wide focus, like the EOS 3, would probably autofocus on the Tbirds.

You need to track the plane with the camera to reduce the effective speed of the plane (as far as the film is concerned). This is a case where moving the camera makes a sharper photograph. On photos where planes move in both directions, the plane in the opposite direction gets very blurry. There is no way around this. You can't compose the photo unless you track the plane.

In Reply to: Re: Identified Flying Objects posted by Magoo on July 26, 2000 at 21:26:25 EST:

Replies: