Rivets (And A Weld)

Rivets are a favorite subject of mine due to their ability to cast tiny shadows as well as display "primitive" technology from the first half of the 20th century. This is an extreme crop from a zoomed-in version of the AC-47 Spooky Gunship photo seen here recently.


Photographer Section:
This is the first time I've tried a crop that threw away the majority of a file, and am very impressed with the Sony Alpha300's detail and resolution.
With my old F717, an edit like this wouldn't have been as crisp and textured by a long shot.
This would be even more startling when you consider I was shooting handheld at just over 200mm-e, but then I received help from in-body IS and a fast 1/1250 shutter.
Iso 200 helped rather than hurt.

The new camera endears itself to me a little more every time I use it, even with the 2 budget lenses it came bundled with.
The widely extended range of apertures, shutter speeds and iso ratings are all positives with no apparent weaknesses in their ranges so far.
But I'll keep pushing the envelope until it disappoints, then back off and add light just like in the old days.

Airshow Favorites--Blue Angels

Flying very slowly directly right-to-left with their noses high in the air, this shot of two Blue Angels screamed for the silhouette treatment.



The one above is the most popular, but it reminds me of this Thunderbirds shot from 2006:

More Air Show Goodness

The Blue Angel's show is fairly long, so I have a ton of pictures do choose from.

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The new camera generally kicked the old one's ass at this task, although my autofocus made more than a dozen huge errors.
At least it made the errors very quickly!
Time to read the manual again.
Last time I switched my old camera to manual focus and locked it at infinity which worked very well since the planes are so far away, but the longer focal length lens and faster frame rate of the Alpha300 were great as was the physically much larger sensor with twice the pixels.
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Civil Air Patrol Cadets(?) put on some rifle drills using flashy but completely fake M1 Garands.

Makes you wonder where the nickname came from.
It was an F-5, the 3rd-world fighter version of our '50s-era T-38 supersonic trainer that still flies today.


I have my two favorites still to show you, and will look through the folder for any overlooked items of interest.

Air Fest 2008 At Lackland AFB

It was a great show, as always.
Two years ago The Thunderbirds performed, so having The Blue Angels this year was a nice change.










Back in the late '90s I partied with some Blue Angel pilots at a club in Corpus Christi--they even sent the band an autographed picture.

More to come...