Capturing History

This is from the first flyby at Dulles Airport. The Space Shuttle Dicovery piggybacking on top of a NASA Boeing 747. A NASA T-38 Talon is flying above.

On Tuesday April 17th I had the chance to photograph a piece of history. The Space Shuttle Discovery made it’s final flight piggybacked on top of a specially designed NASA Boeing 747. It flew from Cape Canaveral Florida to Dulles Airport in Chantilly Virginia. Once it got into the Dulles Airport airspace it made a loop around the DC Metropolitan area and then landed for the last time at Dulles Airport to become part of the Smithsonian’s collection at the Udvar-Hazy Air & Space Museum annex located at Dulles Airport.

What made this event even more special for me is that I got to witness it from the ‘Front Row’ without having any type of media credentials. I was only 100 yards away from the runway that the Discovery landed on, and right across from the media  conglomeration situated on the adjacent runway which was there to video the landing. I was one of only a handful of people that were able to capture this historic event from the angle that I did.

From The first Flyby at Dulles Airport.

How did I manage such a feat? I was working at my day job at the time if you can believe this. I work for one of the top Power companies in the United States, and because we ‘feed’ the airport I need to be badged to have access within the airport property to help maintain our equipment and keep them ‘with lights’. It turned out that on that Monday we have a small project that needed to be done at our substation on the airport property, and that project would most likely take 3-4 days to complete. When I was told of this news I was ecstatic which surprised the two supervisors who had decided that this was going to happen because they had no idea that the Space Shuttle Discovery was going to be landing on that Tuesday.

On Tuesday morning I brought to work with me my Nikon D3S and my 70-200mm f/2.8 VR with a 2x tele. As I drove to work that morning I tried to keep my expectations low because I know that anything can happen when you work for a utility, and with the event of the day happening at the airport I didn’t know if the ‘Powers that Be’ had gotten wind of it and decided to keep us away. I also didn’t know if the airport security would be tightened down and try to keep the whole area ‘sterile’.

At 9:40am we decided to head out of our secure substation with our trucks to see what it was like along the road. That was when we heard the NASA T-38 Talon rocket by. We looked to our left and there they were making a flyby the airport. They were only about 150ft off of the deck as they cruised over top of the runway. What a grand sight that was! So as they flew off we all raced out to the road excited that we were mere moments from seeing them land.

A Fox New video grab. We are sitting in the background, see those for vehicles. LOL!

When we got to the main access road it turned out that few handful of Dulles employees were there parked along the side of road next to the runway, and so we drove to the middle-ish south end of the runway feeling relieved that we were not going to be bothered with the airport security (which by the way are Federal Police). Once parked we climbed on top of the trucks which gave us a great sightline above the fence and we were set to watch history happen.

At the time we thought we were going to see them land shortly, but it turned out that because they were almost a half an hour early it gave them time to give the DC region a better show. So they flew out of our sight for nearly an hour as they flew over the landmarks of DC. That gave me the needed time to situate myself and prep for how I was going to shoot this and remain safe without falling off of the truck. We were about 12-13 feet off of the ground and the wind was blowing at a good steady 15-20mph, and because I wanted to have a clear sighline of the entire landing it meant that I was going to be on the edge of the top of the truck. So what I did was wrap my leg around one of the secured ladders that was on the side of the truck. That gave me the needed security of safety and it allowed me to brace myself when I was shooting to help give me a steadier hand.

The Space Shuttle Discovery in its last moment of flight.

Then around 10:40 we saw them flying south of the airport making their way for a final flyby of Dulles before landing. Those final moments watching the 747 line up for the runway was amazing. Seeing the landing gear down knowing that “this was it” had my heart racing. I had gone over all of my settings and checked them 3 times so that I would not miss this opportunity.

Touching down.

 It was truly amazing. What a rush being there live to see this that I feel my words do not do it justice. I know several days afterward I was still floating around about this that it got me thinking. Why was it such an euphoric event for me? I grew up here and have seen many things happen, but what made this one so special. I believe it was because I had a special seat, which gave me a unique vantage point to photograph from. The only other images from this side of the landing that I have seen were taken by NASA. I know there were a handful or two of others who had their cameras out shooting, but I can pretty sure gaurantee maybe on one or two had the lens that I had to get the clear shots that I got. Then as I was thinking about this I realized why the real reason is that I loved this SO much. It is what I had always wanted to do, be a photojournalist. That gave me the greatest satisfaction, being there to capture the event.

 

Mission Accomplished. The Space Shuttle landing at Dulles Airport.

 

  

 

Dark Ride Shooting

I have been asked by quite a few people to share my Dark Ride Shooting Secrets, so I decided that I would put all that I know into a comprehensive post which I hope will help everyone.

Shooting on the Dark Rides is one of the toughest places to attempt to photograph. There is the combination of extreme low lighting and the fact that you are moving, and most of the animatronics are moving too. So there is a real challenge with getting the right settings for your camera to handle these extreme situations.

Even though the equipment you use does matter, it isn’t all about the equipment you have but it is also about how you control that equipment to make it work for you.

There are four areas that you need to focus on to be able to shoot well on the Dark Rides and get good images from those shots. They are your equipment, the camera settings you use, your shooting technique, and your post processing.

You can finish reading the rest of the post by clicking HERE. Thank you.

Luray Caverns

I decided to take my new Nikon 24-120 f/4 VR lens for a real test run today. So I put it on my Nikon D3S and headed out. I was hoping to get up to Skyline Drive and the Shenandoah National Park, but it was closed due to some snow and ice along the drive the sign said at the entrance station. So I decided to head somewhere I have been meaning to get to for a few years, Luray Caverns. It has been close to 21 years since my last time there and I have passed it numerous times on my drives out to Skyline Drive and Shenandoah National Park. 

I decided that Luray Caverns would actually provide a better testing ground for this lens than shooting outdoors, so happily off I went. Once I got to Luray Caverns I paid my $24 entrance fee and was soon headed down the staircase on one of the group tours. The tour is a guided tour of the largest caverns on the east coast. Luray Caverns covers roughly 64 acres and the tour walk is about a mile which takes around 1 hour. The tour guide reminded me not to lag behind as the lights will automatically go off shortly after the group leaves a certain area. I can attest to this fact as I got caught once lagging and all but a few walkway lights remained on. I was sure to keep up after that. 

I had brought along my Benro Travel Angel tripod hoping to shoot a few bracketed series for a few HDR’s. But once I realized that the guided tour was going to be at a relatively quick pace tour, like me trying to keep up with my family at Disney *LOL*, I just kept it folded up and bumped up my ISO to 2000 and handheld all of my shots. I believe a monopod would be a great alternative to a tripod here. 

Once I took a shot or two, I quickly realized that I would need to set me camera to manual versus aperture priority that I usually like to use and that I would need to use spot metering due to the wicked lighting that is there to get accurate readings. They use spotlights ALL over the place and due to the spaciousness of the caverns and placement of the lights you will get varying light so it was very important for me to be totally conscious of the highlights in each scene and meter them correctly. Also if I had shot on ‘matrix’ metering instead of spot I would have lost the nice rich blacks and shadows which gives an image depth due to the meter trying to average out all of the scenes.

 As the tour progressed the 24-120 on my D3S felt very comfortable and didn’t weigh me down, and I was glad I had that zoom range in one lens due to the over 50% humidity that is present in the caverns. I would have hated to have had to change lenses constantly in those conditions.  It was also refreshing to only have a fanny pack on with an extra battery, memory cards, and lens cloth.  I was so enjoying traveling light without a real camera bag of extra lenses. It also made it nice to be able to walk through the people on the tour too and not be worried about feeling like I may hit them with a heavy camera bag.

 As I had said, I bumped my ISO up to 2000 and was handholding all of the shots, so this was a great test for the VR capabilities of this lens. Well I am happy to report that it came through with flying colors. And speaking of colors, this lens renders some amazing color clarity. That must be due to the Nano coating on the lens. The colors are rich and accurate and the images also have a wonderful contrast to them too. But the biggest challenge was going to be the lens sharpness. That too is amazing. While it shows a little softness in the corners, I can easily live with that. Even though this lens is only an f/4 at its widest, shooting with it on a full frame camera with iso capabilities like my D700 and D3S offer more than make up for the lens speed.

 So to sum it up, I really am enjoying this lens for a nice walk around lens and one that I won’t hesitate to use in most shooting situations. It will pair nicely alongside my 16-35 and 70-200. And if you are ever in the Shenandoah Valley area I would encourage you to visit Luray Caverns too. It really is a sight to behold.

Expose for the highlights

Expose for the highlights and process for the shadows. This is what the Zone system taught us ‘old’ film photographers, well it is still true in the digital age. 

I have no problem sharing my exif info on my images, it offers a starting place for certain situations, but it doesn’t teach why those settings were chosen. This shot for instance, 1/250 sec @ f/2.8 with an iso of 1000. Yes you could set your camera to these setting and when you shot it you would expect a similar result…you would be disappointed. You would get a totally DIFFERENT result on your monitor than this because I shot for the highlights and processed for the shadows. So on your monitor with these settings this image would look very dark in the shadows, but Buzz’s face would look nice.

 Why did I do this? Because in some tough lighting situations such as this, if I just got an ‘average’ overall exposure the face of Buzz would end up totally blown out. Yes, the rest of the image would look nice, but you would have zero detail in the face to be able to anything with it. So I chose to expose for the highlight area which is Buzz’s face so I could keep the details in that area knowing that I could easily open up the darker areas and make a nice image.

 So understanding exposure and the basics of the zone system you can get a good starting exposure so you too can get wonderful images in tough lighting situations.

Benefits of Rim Light

With added rim light from the right.

Have you ever been discouraged when taking a picture with a flash because the subject, even though lit nicely, blends into the background? There is a way to seperate the subject from the background, and that is with Rim Lighting. Rim Lighting is a technique where you add extra light to the backside(s) of the subject which will add light along the ‘rim’ of the subject. By adding this extra light the subject is seperated from the background.

Read more about Rim Light.

Focus Stacking

This time of year I probably do more macro photography than any other time because I want to capture the fine details of the Christmas decorations and especially the Christmas tree ornaments. And while most times I love the shallow depth of field a good macro lens offers, sometimes it can interfere with the details of the ornaments themselves because of how big some of these ornaments are. Yes you could deepen the DOF by stomping down the f/stop, but that also takes away that wonderful Bokeh that separates the subject from the background.

 

Adobe CS5 offers a wonderful tool to help solve this problem and it is called FOCUS STACKING. By shooting several images of the same scene with different focal points you can combine them into one image where the subject will be in focus and you can keep the background out of focus.

Please read more about how to Focus Stack.

Shooting with flash

My son and I were heading to dinner this night when we saw they had lit the Christmas tree on the mall, so I asked him to pose in front of it so that I could get a picture of him. He of course went right up to it and started to make goofy faces, ha! This was okay while I got myself into place and set the camera to capture this.

Knowing that I was going to use a flash and that I wanted the lights from the Christmas tree to be exposed properly, as well as allowing for some of the background to be seen I knew I would be shooting in manual mode. So while my son was goofing I got a quick meter reading. I could tell that I would need to bump up my ISO to allow for a fast enough shutter speed to hand hold this shot, so I set it at 1000. This was going to be my baseline to dial in my settings.

After setting the camera to iso 1000 I decided to open the f/stop to f/4.5. This would allow me a little wiggle room with my aperture setting if needed. Then I pointed the camera at the scene and adjusted the only setting that I had left which was my shutter speed. Now here is where my cameras meter was telling me one thing due to the lights being bright, but my knowledge and experience kicked in. My meter was telling me 1/80 of a second was the “correct exposure”. So I took a quick test shot and just as I expected, the lights on the tree were the only thing visible. So I opened up the shutter speed and dialed it down to 1/13 of a second and shot another test shot- Perfect! The Christmas tree and background were in nice exposure. I was not worried about my son as he was very dark, actually almost a silhouette. But I was about to fix that.

Next I popped up my flash and asked my son to make another silly face for the camera and fired off a shot. Whoa! WAY too much light was on him, he was extremely over exposed. Because he was so close to me, about 3 feet, I knew that I would need to lower the flash output. So I pushed the FLASH COMPENSATION button and moved it down to a -1.0 output. I then took another quick shot and he was now slightly dark, so I opened up the f/stop all the way to 3.7 (my lens was a variable aperture lens) and took one more shot. Perfect. Now that I had the camera now dialed in it was time to try to get a good smile out of him. Good Luck on my part. Why do 5 year olds decide that a smile is gritting their teeth? HA!

As you can see, it really is pretty easy once you have an understanding of how to shoot in manual and how to read your cameras meter. Remember, you control the camera to create your visions, don’t let the camera control you. For a more in depth understanding on flash photography please read How To Shoot With Flash. Thanks.

This was shot with my Nikon D700 and the camera’s pop up flash. So like I said, you can do this too!