Get ready for Bill Pekala!
I’m getting ready to join my team in Moab for the Arches/Canyonlands event next week! I’m honored and thrilled to have a long time dear friend, and my former boss at Nikon as a member of the team in Moab! Bill Pekala was the head of Nikon Professional Services for almost 4 decades and there is not a person in the pro community who does not know him and very few Nikon shooters he hasn’t pulled their fat from the fire at some time in their career!!!! Because Bill was hips deep in running our department he didn’t have a lot of time to shoot, but he always was, and when he got back in practice showed what an excellent shooter he truly was! I thought I would share just a few images he made when we did one our favorite assignments, the Reno Air Races!
Our favorite activity was dawn patrol, getting up before sunrise and shooting the fantastic planes on the tarmac in that great morning light!!! Here are just a few of his images I had in my files from our previous shoots togetherI know our group in Moab is going to enjoy his company, and learn a lot from him, I always did!! ….and if you are coming to Moab, get excited! Enjoy!!
I’m honored to get to work with such great shooters, and people as Bill, Jim, and Snake, can’t wait for Wednesday and our opening night!!!
Blessings,
the pilgrim
This entry was posted on Friday, March 21st, 2014 at 1:36 am
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Air show coming to the area and I’m wondering if you have any tips for it. I’ve been on bases a lot but when I was going all the time I only had a point and shoot. I’ve never shot them with a dslr. Special guest is blue angels this year. I’ve seen them lots but what’s not to love.
Shooting the Blue Angels is 90% shoot a lot and practice your timing! A 300mm to 400mm is perfect while shooting from the ground. When I did a lot of that my favorite set-up was a D7000 and Nikon’s 70-300 AF-S zoom. On the D7000 it was equiv. to a 105-450. It was light and easy to hand hold, and the VR helped you get tack sharp images. If you can shoot from an elevated shooting position and anticipate the passes, that will help a lot! A littlle practice and you’ll be nailing them! Go for the fastest shutter speed you can. You can shoot wide open as depth of field will not matter!
Enjoy!
Thank you. Only tele I have is 70-200 2.8 is. On crop acts as a 112-320. I was thinking maybe a teleconverter. It’s not til June. I’ve got a while to figure it out.
That would work, but 300mm might be enough!
These glorious shots remind me of your great generosity after the Sierras 2012 workshop — offering a few of us with flexible schedules a chance to get similar shots of aircraft at Reno for Pylon School. It was a wonderful time, regardless of whether the guy at the gate messed up! 😉
Yes it was!
Great tips Bill.. Anna you will find that your 70-210 will be good for catching the Blue Angels formations. This is when all 6-F18 aircraft are flying together and the same for the 4-ship formation.
Other tips are when shooting jets higher shutter speeds are best.. 1/1000 or higher depending on your ISO. When shooting props or slower aircraft start at 1/250 and once you have a few keepers then drop you shutter speed to 1/125 then 1/100 and so on.. But when you images are not sharp then rase your shutter speeds back up. The goal is to show movement and not stop the props of the airplanes..
Don’t give up if some of your images are not sharp it will take practice and the move you photograph aircraft in time you will have keeps you will be proud of. To practice you can go to your local airport or photograph moving cars.. this will help you with panning and working on fast and slow shutter speed. Good luck and have fun!
Great advice Larry!
Thank you for the extra advise. I have 2.5 months to play and figure it out.