Backyard Airliners-Bigma

Thanks for your kind words.

I was probably about 1/3 to a half mile away. There is a small strip of city parkland on a hill overlooking the southern runway complex at LAX. Since they don't generally use 25L (the one closest to that shooting spot), I am shooting one runway farther to 25R.

As an aside, 25L is the runway they landed that Jet on a few months ago with the nosegear problem...would have loved to be on the hill with camera for that one...The guy who took the best shot of it (IMHO), was standing at this same spot....Go on over to http://www.airliners.net for a look. You might even try submitting a few if you are interested, yours are good enough I think. They are pretty picky about what they accept these days, what with the boom in digital photography and all.

I think there are a few factors, one that you pointed out was the time of year, these were taken in July of 2004, it was probably 85-90 degrees when I started, so heat distortion is probably a factor. It was also my first attempt at airliner shooting, so in restrospect, there are a few things that I will do differently next time

As far as flare....I REALLY love that 100-300f4...It is big and heavy (though not so big and heavy as yours ;-) But it is really an excellent piece of glass and really controlls flare well.

Tom

cgjunk2 said:

TDH, those are some nice shots you have there! I can never get
sunset shots like you have without the sun blooming out all over.
The tripod can come in useful for the nighshots. How far away were
you from the planes?

I think a large part of why mine seem sharper is because I was very
close. My planes are about 3/4 of a mile away, and it was very
cold outside today (no haze, etc.). You seem to be a bit further,
correct?

At the distance I was shooting, I found it doesn't pay for me to
use a tripod because I was constantly panning to keep the plane in
the view finder to get as many shots as possible (increase my
chances of a keeper). That way I am also getting different
perspectives of the plane and can keep the most interesting ones.

Regarding tripods, frankly I am a bit afraid of them. I'm a bit
clumsy and can imagine myself getting tangled up in one and sending
my camera for an unscheduled flight

Click to expand...

I had the El Segundo police drive by a couple to times, and the airport police once, but they do this regularly and did not say a word to me, or even stop the car. This is a public park, and there are folks there almost all the time with all manner of camera. It's reason for existing is to view the airplanes at LAX, as it is only about 12 feet deep by about 300 or so feet long and has park benches sitting on the edge of the hill, looking down on the runway. I can understand where there might be some safety concerns, but really, this would be a poor location to try to do something stupid, as there are houses and people all around. But, I suppose that being stupid is not a consideration for these terrorists anyway. Sad, what the world has come to really.

I saw that very shot of the Jetblue Airbus with the cocked up nosegear. My jaw dropped, it was an excellent photograph. Tons of excellent photos on that site.

That does seem to be an excellent place to shoot from. Have you tried shooting with a teleconverter for a bit extra reach?

I have tried to upload to Airliners, submited 5, they accepted one ( http://www.airliners.net/open.file/966502/M/ ). I kind of can't seem to be bothered to try and fix the ones rejected. All the rejections were a bit tedious, like bad info (with no indication of what was bad about it, everything I saw was correct), distance (because it wasn't cropped to an inch of it's life), and quality (for some high ISO noise).

I've downloaded to jetphotos.net, but the popups are annoying to most. Here they are if you are willing to put up with 4 popups... http://www.jetphotos.net/showphotos.php?userid=18748

Thanks for the info! again nice images! keep shooting and sharing!

True true... My feathers tend to get ruffled a bit when I am confronted for doing something I like to do and is completely legal, so I have to calm myself a bit in my head when a police officer want to talk to me about it. Thankfully the officer that spoke to me was quite friendly and reasonable. I even offered ID and he refused. He hinted to me that I pack up and leave, but I stood my ground and politely said I would like to continue till I finished. He said it was fine, but would come back if anybody complained.

So in the end, I was allowed to continue to sit in a public park to take pictures of airplanes. Yeah, victory!!!

Wow, you certainly live close to the airport. Very nice pictures.

Pierre
http://www.pbase.com/northflyboy

It was likely that you had already been there, Nice shot though. They have accepted two of mine, and the interesting thing is that they have rejected far better. Oh well, there is no real consistency there, so be it. I dont hang around there anymore too much, but if there is an aircraft in the news, it's interesting to do a tail number search and see the aircraft in question. Quite amazing that I have never searched for an aircraft that did not return a "hit".

Anyway, here are the two of mine:
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/707390/L/

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/654763/L/

Tom

BTW...I did not, at the time have a TC to shoot with. Now I have the sigma EX TC 1.4 So let me see here, 300 is a 450 and rounding an extra half into that would give me the FOV of a 675mm @ f 5.6. While the TC is very good, it is a tradeoff in that it does, necessarily introduce a bit more softness. I will try it next time though.

Tom

A few of mine from LAX using the kit lens...

http://rossdillon.smugmug.com/gallery/786739

These were taken from an In-and-Out Burger NE of the airport.

--
Roscoe
Big ones eat the little ones, little ones got to be fast. - The Radiators
http://www.rossdillon.smugmug.com

I LOVE airplanes but not that much. Glad they aren't flying through my back yard. Excellent shots.

Very nice helicopter shot! Certainly has the WOW factor. Comes right out at ya with those nicely blurred blades.

The old 727 is just kind of sad. For subject matter that is. Neat opportunity to take a pic of it in that condition.

At airliners.net It seems like it is easy to get pics added that are very boring, but of high quality (kind of like my Contiexpress pic). High quality seems to be the ticket, as opposed to subject matter with slightly less quality. Judging from the ones I got rejected anyway.

These are great shots. They are very highly detailed. Very nice view!

Tim

LOL... I had some friends spend 250,000 building a nice house in a subdivision out in the country where it is nice and quiet. Problem is that there is a main railroad trunk a quarter of a mile away. First time I heard that bugger go by I almost jumped out of my shoes. By far, that train was louder (for longer) than all but the oldest jets taking off from near my home.

Thankfully, the airport has been a very good neighbor. With their noise abatement procedures and restrictions, I rarely hear any airplanes past 5 or 6 in the afternoon if they are taking off behind my house. If they are another runway further away, I usually cant hear them at all. I couldn't have said this 15 years ago though. They were just loud as hell back then. The newer turbine technonlogy is eerily quiet.

The economy has been slow for a while, and that cuts traffic too. Lately, I get excited when there is enough traffic for me to watch and take pictures of.

The only problem with living this close to a runway, is that I have to look both ways when I leave out of the back door to avoid traffic on the active....

near an air port. Mine has a WWI air museum. I took these with a Nikon 300mm f/4 from my front yard.







--
Edward



Lenses listed in profile

Is that a real Zero, a real reproduction? Kind of looks like it may be based on the size compared to the hellcat. It's my undertanding that there aren't many (if any) original Zeros around. A lot of the ones I've seen in the past were just built off of AT-6 Texans and dressed to look the part.

Those hellcats are awesome. I play Pacific Fighters flight sim, and they sure make those real planes look just like the ones in the video games

Actually, that is the only 100% original, flying, zero left in the world. It was a big deal a few weeks ago at the air museum.

cgjunk2 said:

Is that a real Zero, a real reproduction? Kind of looks like it
may be based on the size compared to the hellcat. It's my
undertanding that there aren't many (if any) original Zeros around.
A lot of the ones I've seen in the past were just built off of AT-6
Texans and dressed to look the part.

Those hellcats are awesome. I play Pacific Fighters flight sim,
and they sure make those real planes look just like the ones in the
video games

Click to expand...

--
Edward



Lenses listed in profile

they also had a P-38



--
Edward



Lenses listed in profile

Wow, a real Zero. Absolutely awesome to see it in the air with a Hellcat. I wonder how long it has been flying. I wonder if it ever gets around to going to Oshkosh?

Is that Glacier Girl (p-38)?

Wow great shots, very sharp! Love the Gulfstream V especially! I'm sorta a sucker to biz jets though lol

--
Please Visit: http://www.vanphoto.roxr.com

What was the metering you used, out of interest?

--
Guy

If you're really bored, you could visit my photo blog http://swarbrick.blogs.com
My 'work' photos are at http://www.swarbrick.com
The 'fun' stuff is at http://www.flickr.com/photos/swarbrick