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Time for another behind the EXIF data post…. This time taking just one of the shots of the Mark VIII Spitfire at Point Cook.

Firstly, Point Cook RAAF Museum do what they call Interactive Flying Days every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday at 1pm, so there is always one plane flying at the museum on these days.  Put that info in your diaries now if you are a plane spotter and either live or are coming to Melbourne.  I knew in advance that the Spitfire would be flying this day (by phoning the Museum they can often tell you up to a month in advance what planes will be flying).  Note there is very limited public transport to Point Cook, so far easier to drive out or get a lift from someone.

So once again like my last post a bit of research never goes astray.

The Spitfire is one of those must see aircraft – to see flying whilst you still can.  The purr of the Merlin Engine is one of the sweetest sounds you will ever hear.  Great aircraft like the Spitfire come to life when in motion, the pilot on the day describing the Spitfire as a temperamental race horse. Even if you’re not a plane spotter you’ll still love the sound and vision as the Spitfire goes screaming over head.

Sorry back to the photo…

I had my standard kit that I usually carry with me but could have just taken the D90, a fully charged battery some spare SD cards and my Nikkor 70-300mm, (because that’s all that I used).

The interactive day consisted of the pilot talking about the plane and what he was going to do, then a 10-15min flight followed by the pilot returning for questions and answers.  My shot was taken just after the intro as the Spitfire was warming up before taxing off.

The reason I only have a few in flight photos up on Flickr is that the lens is crap at doing panning shots with any movement at the longer end.  I have the non VR version and whilst it is great at steady long shots… get a long lens with VR if you are going to shoot planes in the air.  On my possible to-buy list is the new Sigma 50-500mm OS when it comes out and I have a spare $1500 or so… until then ground shots mainly for me.

I had two spots I could take photos from… one up high over the heads of people to get the in-flight shots and one where I could get right up close to the plane.  This shot was taken from the second of those spots.  As the plane takes a few minutes to warm up I could also try a number of settings to find the sweet spot especially for the prop blur effect I was after.

When trying to get a partial blur on the prop, the trick is to use a slow shutter speed of around 1/125 to 1/250.  Obviously if you want the prop to be a complete haze in front of the aircraft slow the shutter even more.  And if you want a frozen prop use a faster shutter speed.

With high speed jets you’ll want a fast shutter speed around 1/1600 to get the vapour off the wings during high speed banking, like this shot of a F-18 Hornet

The tone dropping was done in Photoshop CS4, even in the coloured shot the red of the prop and sharks mouth stood out so well that in my eyes this treatment just suited the shot naturally. This other blog post I did has the details on how to do the effect – Tone Dropping in Photoshop in 7 easy steps)

And the EXIF Data.

I was also trying to find the essence of the Spitfire in one shot and this really captured it.

This shot is also For Sale on Red Bubble.

Tags: General, Media, Missing from the Exif, Nikon D90, Photos, Redbubble by Me
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Thought I would add the some of the stuff from photos to my blog, the sort of stuff that you do not find in EXIF data… the stuff that really makes a photo.

First cab of the rank so to speak will be my sunset photo from the other day…. of course if there are flickr photos you want the story behind, just drop me a line.

The basic shot was planned 3 hours before hand, when I noticed the smoke around the city from the series of burn off’s that the DSE was conducting that day.

Now smoke in the atmosphere will ALWAYS give you a red sunset. And if the smoke is thick enough, you will be able to see the whole disk of the sun with the naked eye, let alone needing ND Filters.

So I know it is going to be a great sunset, so I get home from work grab all my gear and head to my favourite place where I know that I can get the sun setting over water every time. Before I go however I have I quick scan over my flickr sunset set just to make sure I have the approx F Stops and Shutter speeds for similar photos in my head.

When I got to my location, I like always fired up the GPS on my phone to create a log file so that I can tag the photos… and because I am shooting the sunset swap to my 70-300mm lens. I’m after the sun as big as I can get in the shot (well at least very large, so am looking at the 200mm+ range)

Also I have my Hoya 62mm Circular Polariser on my lens. Now I have the cheap 70-300mm which has the problem that the front element rotates on focusing, meaning that you have to tweak the Polariser every time focus changes.

So that kind of covers the technical side of things… then that bit of luck comes into play. There was a boat with a wake boarding moving up and down the bay right opposite the outcrop I was standing on. This shot was the 4th shot I took of them.

As this shot is all manual, this is what I did. I took a practice shot of the sunset to make sure that the colour and lighting were correct. Then as the boat passed left to right I got a focus lock (single point – centre left) on the wake board rider. This gave me the opportunity to check that the first time they went passed that I could get the shot I was after. By now I already knew how far they would travel and when the return trip would be.

Next is that moment of fear… will they pass through my shot again… will they fall off, will they do something unexpected.

Lucky for me…. They didn’t… it all went to plan. I’d also put the camera into highspeed burst mode so that I could shoot more frames that I needed to capture the action. Given that it took the rider less than a second to pass through the sweet spot of the image I wanted to give myself every chance. As the rider got close to the the sun I made sure that I had focus lock on him and just panned the camera as he moved from right to left.

The biggest piece of luck however was when the rider decided to jump. Just before the reflection of the sun from my point of view.

So that is how I fill a blog post writing about a lucky image that took a lot of understanding to get.

So look at the EXIF data of peoples shots to see how the shot was done.. but really… look at the photo and that will tell you how it is really done.

(also you will find this image on Redbubble, with the Lat Long on the final image, where you can buy it from a post card to a framed print)

(oh nearly forgot)

Here is the EXIF Data:

Tags: Missing from the Exif, Nikon D90, Photos, Redbubble, gps, nokia by Me
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I have always thought that “Bill Posters Prosecuted” was wrong!

Now it is time to take a stand Australia and get the government to free him…..

Tags: Funny, Redbubble by Me
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These are ideas that have been floating in my head for a very long time…

hope you enjoy.  Click on the Image to link through.

Tags: Redbubble by Me
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Of course Social Media is hot at the moment.  It is the buzz term covering everything from Twitter to Facebook , from real-time news to yesterdays memes.  You can’t go passed any of the major news outlets without seeing at  least one Twitter/Facebook does good and one Twitter/Facebook does evil  story, every day, in their online editions.

But what all of these stories miss is the “social” part of Social Media.  Most people think of the volume of traffic, the celebrities with over a million followers, the immediacy of breaking news or viral videos… but none mention the key part – the “social” part.

When I first joined my current work place some 8 years ago there were still smokers allowed on the premises.   Smokers were already relegated to the outside of the building when I joined, but they still could shelter from the rain.  (Note kids:  these people now hover around the back alleyways, at least 10 metres from the building, in slowly dying numbers). These smokers were never hanging around talking about what brand of cigarette they were consuming, they were discussing the day to day running of the corporation, the minutiae of the company and the projects they were working on.  These conversations were held amongst people from the different levels or divisions and from a wide selection of people across the organisation. Over a five minute smoko, frustrations would come out about how project X could not progress due to process Y.  Often something remarkable could happen out of these discussions.  Process Y was not always the bottle neck you thought it was and someone else may have a work around or have the connections to ensure that it wasn’t the problem that you thought it was.  Thus over a 5 minute smoko networking was utilised and sometimes a solution forthcoming.

Of course now we know just how bad smoking is for you, no longer seen as cool.  Certainly for the last 20 years it was never seen as productive.  The weak bonds that formed across the company through the smoko break have diminished greatly.  However the need for this kind of informal communication never did.

Now however, we all have a new tool on the block. “Social Media”, the quick update via twitter is still however like the smoko, frowned upon by those that don’t use it. More often than not just seen as wasting time, not head down bum up as it were.

The weak social bonds that a smoko gave can now be much stronger when using social media as the catalyst.  Unlike the traditional smoko bonds, (irl in one location) can now reach further; across a business or even the globe.  In my own work place I have discussions with everyone from the person working on a similar project to the managing director.

There are those people that will fret when the boss or even the competition starts to follow them on Facebook or Twitter.  What they don’t see are the opportunities the connections can bring.  That problem Y you are having is not going to be yours alone, nor your companies alone.  It is likely to be something that someone somewhere has already encountered and solved.  So talking about it gives people the option to help.   You can talk about a lot of problems without divulging confidential information or even bringing your company into disrepute and find the solution. There are tools like Yammer you can use internally to create a social network if you wish to limit discussion to an internal network and helping those not ready to step out into the big wide world.

The #spill tag showed how media organisations in Australia shared information.  The traditional rules of journalism, if only for a brief moment in time, were shaken as journalists and media commentators shared information retweeting each other, correcting, enhancing and distributing information outside the walls of their own institutions. This was the “social” aspect of Social Media coming into play.  These are people who traditionally in the old days, would have had private conversations over a smoke, out the back of parliament house. Now they could share what they’ve learned with not only those directly around them but with the rest of the world.

The times they are a changing, is not really what is happening.  The community where you talk over problems and information just got a whole lot larger and a whole lot faster.

And remember that person having a twito (a twitter smoko) is not always wasting time (though they may be ) they are collaborating solutions to problems across not only their organisation but the whole world.

It may just be time to put down the cigarette and get back to your desk and tweet someone.

Tags: General, Redbubble, twitter by Me
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