One of the most satisfying thing about my job is working with good friends!  I’ve already mentioned the great time I’m having with Bill Pekala.  I first met Bill at a Nikon School in the early 70’s.  It was those first few Nikon Schools with Bill and Fred Sisson that started me on the path I’v followed my entire career!  They inspired me to want to be a photographer!  So you can either thank, or blame them!!!  At Sun n’ Fun I alway get to work with José Ramos s terrific aviation photographer that I first met through Scott Diussa.  José is a NATOPS (Navy Air Training and Operating Procedure Standardization) photographer, in laymen’s terms he is qualified to ride in the back seat of Navy fighter jets.  though not a military person he is highly respected and accepted as part of the team.  His photography is spectacular, especially his air to air stuff!  I will feature some of his work below, but last and certainly not least I’m getting to, once again, work with our great repair tech, Francis Yeh.  Francis make a lot of photographers happy everywhere we go with great clean and check services!  He really knows his stuff and has become a good friend at these events!  This has been a  great job and theses people are alot of the reason why I will consider the last 11 years some of the highlights of my career!

And now, some killer shots from José!

 

 

Most of my stuff is shot from the ground, here is my jet in a box shot!!!  Made with the new 80-400, pretty dang sharp!  Since it is hand held, the VR works great too!

 

 

Below, José straps in for a flight!

 

 

Thanks guys for being a blessing to me, and blessings to all of you that come by to visit each day!

 

In Him,

 

the pilgrim

 

 

So the best self portrait of the week goes to José!!!!

 

 

Please come see José and I at Photoshop World

 

 

 

 

Some years ago I started a business called,  AVART.  AVART of course stands for Aviation Art. My reason was that I love airplanes, and love to photograph them as art rather than just as objects.  I am especially thrilled to find a wonderful aluminum skinned airplane in great light!  This morning Bill Pekala and I road around Sun n’ Fun in the golf cart in search of subjects!  It was a bittersweet morning, knowing this is the last big assignment where Bill and I will be working for Nikon together!  Bill and I have been life long friends and I’ve worked for him at Nikon for the last, almost, eleven years.  I don’t think a single month has gone by in the last eleven years that I haven’t told him, “thanks for the job!”  We’ve had a lot of fun….

 

Fortunately our search was successful this morning having found a classic Lockheed 12, (the same kind of plane that Amelia Earhardt disappeared in!)  It is one of the most graceful and beautiful of airplanes and the rivets, in the right light, can really be interesting!  This morning with threatening storm clouds we had a great sky to reflect in the skin of he planes.  The other being a beautifully restored P51 Mustang named Crazy Horse.  Hope you enjoy my take.

 

 

Couldn’t resist ending this with a little self portrait reflection in the Lockheed 12, that’s Bill photographing me!  Fun days!

 

Blessings.

 

the pilgrim

 

Photo Info.   All images made with the Nikon D7100 and 10-24 AF-S f 3.5 lens.

 

 

What you are observing in the image above is heated air rising from the runway and super heated air disturbed by the heated exhaust from the two jet’s engines above.  This is a condition pilots call, “Density Altitude”.  The density of the air is affected by the temperature and the altitude of the airfield.  On a hot day at any given altitude the less dense air will make take-offs longer , and climb rates, (the rate at which and airplane gains altitude), take longer as well.  As a pilot you must be very mindful of how density altitude will affect the performance of your airplane in taking off, and in your rate of climb.  While it affects all airplanes, the bigger, faster, and heavier your airplane, the more it will affect it’s performance.  When  I flew several different kinds of ultralights, all of which had great climb rates, and short take off runs,  I was less worried about density altitude, than say the pilot of a commercial airplane would be.  Never-the-less, it is a factor that will affect your flight performance, and has to be accounted for!

 

In life we also have and equivalent condition I will call it “Density Attitude”!  How many issues are bring forces to bare on you today?  Fatigue, illness, weakness, fear, anxiety, emotional pressures, financial concerns, family problems, loneliness, hopelessness?  Unfortunately that list could, and often does, go on and on!  The chances of your climbing up, above, your concerns is a factor of your faith.  Please let me draw an illustration.  Have you ever taken off in a commercial flight and experienced a lot of shaking, bumps, and sensations of being pushed around the sky?   That is called turbulence and it is most often caused by unstable moving, air pockets and wind shifts.  It usually dissipates when you climb above the clouds, but not always. When it does smooth out it means you’ve climbed to an altitude where the air is more stable.  In life God desires for you to fly (live) at an altitude (attitude) that is stable.  This is where faith comes in.  Life, no one’s life, is without turbulence, we all have fears, concerns, and problems to deal with.  The faith walk is when we recognize what we are dealing with, make what ever corrective actions we can, and then put our plane, (lives) in autopilot, (trusting God with what we can not fix ourselves.)!  Sometimes, we can deal with small problems and daily frustrations by simply remembering what He has taught us through the word, sometimes we can clearly see that a problem is bigger than we can deal with.  That is when He wants us to let go of the controls and trust Him!

 

When I was being trained to fly ultra-light airplanes, my instructor observed one day that I was gripping the control bar with a white knuckle intensity.  He reached forward and removed my hands from the controls.  He told me over the intercom, “trust the plane.”  The kind of plane I was flying was stable even with your hands off the control bar, in fact it was in calm circumstances, more stable without my control inputs. I was several thousand feet above the ground with a single seat belt on and could look straight down between my legs, it was scary, but over time I learned that I could trust the plane!   Over time we also come to know we can trust in Him.  When He promised us that He would never leave us, or forsake us, He meant it!  He won’t forget or get to busy to keep that promise.  He always knows where you are, what you are facing, and what the answer is for your circumstances, and He’s already working it out!!!!  That’s if you are trusting in Him.  He can’t (won’t) take over until you let go!!!

 

Give your life a break and the chance to be a wonderful flight, develop the right Density Attitude, Trust in Him! He’s more than up to the challenge!!!

 

Blessings,

 

the pilgrim

We hear a lot about resolution, mega pixels, pixel density, and sharpness, but the quality that I want the most is Gradation.  Gradation in color, a gradual change between hues, tones, or shades!  For me the most important quality of a sensor and lens is this critical property.  Images that come from cameras that have this extremely important quality produce images that just “have that look!”  A look of smoothness and richness.  It is a function of the sharpness, the lack of noise, and the smoothness of tones.  My very favorite cameras have this wonderful quality, and almost nothing looks as good as an image from such a camera.  I shot some great stuff today that I’m not allowed to show until later in the week.  I did however get to see a beautifully restored Mig 21.  It was a great  subject to test the 24 mega-pixel D7100!

I’ve been getting more and more fond of this camera, it is one of the few I’ve used that has both resolution and gradation to do this kind of work.  I test cameras to determine if they have this sterling quality and so far it is a precious few that exhibits it.

 

If you want to test a camera for gradation, photograph any smooth surface like a waxed car, or motorcycle, or a freshly painted airplane skin.  If the light shows the range of tones, you can see if the camera you are testing has this quality.  I hope it does!  My favorite cameras all do, in fact that’s why they are my favorite cameras!!

 

Below is a 100% crop of the above file.  Notice how smooth the tones are between the folds in the tail!

 

 

Should get to shooting some airplanes tomorrow, thanks for your patience!

 

Blessings,

 

 

the pilgrim

 

 

 

Of the cameras I’ve used or tested, the ones that have eliminated the Optical Low Pass Filter are usually the best, the Nikon D800e, the new D7100, and the Fuji X-Trans cameras.  That extra margin of smoothness seems to go along with that unobstructed path of light to the sensor.  Other cameras also have nice gradation, but these lead the parade of those I’ve tested.