The Appeal of the Machine

Aircraft have a beautiful symmetry created by their aerodynamics. They must flow through the air as the air flows over them, the very embodiment of the laws of fluid mechanics. Here is an A400M Atlas of the RAF, photographed at the RAAF Edinburgh airshow, 10th November, 2019, and the sheer size of the aircraft, dwarfing the personnel and spectators, is a delightful commentary on all things mechanical. Machines can be big, which frequently offers aesthetic appeal, and when matched to their symmetries and grace makes for a certain emotional appeal. The craft is like a great bird—serving the humans who created it, in a poetical sense. A simple photo, it exploits the size of the craft to frame the image, with the machine dwarfing the people below. You could read all sorts of romantic of psychological notions into such imagery, if you were inclined. I just think it’s a dynamic picture! Minor adjustments to colour, contrast and sharpness in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

 

Giant Plane, Dense Crowd

I love airshows—so photogenic, so much to see, all manner of weather conditions and lighting angles. I’ve shot in everything from dust storms to overcast, and soaring temperatures too. But there’s nothing like the smell of burning kerosine when vintage planes are on the move! I took this shot at the RAAF Edinburgh Airshow on the 10^th of November 2019, my last airshow before the viral apocalypse took hold, and had the fun of airing two cameras on the day. The resolution is of course higher than the old S-5600, and the chip handles bight light very well, but I’m not sure this unit handles low light better than the older model. Here is a view from the stands across the apron to the RAAF C-17 Globemaster III transport plane, which I first photographed at Avalon Airshow in 1997. They’re gigantic and always very attractive for their dynamic appeal. The day was hot, dusty (very dusty) and quite taxing, but an unforgettable experience. Minor tweaks in Irfanview only. Fuji HS-10. Image by Mike.

Different Lens Coatings = Different Lens Flare

A few posts back I talked about the lens flare characteristics of different lenses, how when using the old, reliable Fuji S5600 I learned to shade the lens when shooting into the sun quadrant to keep the flare effect from occurring. This frame was captured with that camera’s later brother, the Fuji HS10, and here I was shooting toward the sun by default. I was high in the grandstand of the 2019 RAAF Edinburgh Air Show, and there was no shade at all. I remember shooting with this camera and the S5600 at the same time, both round my neck and being used for different subjects. I was eager to explore the HS10’s high telephoto range, as airshows are notorious for generating lots of pictures of bright skies with aeroplanes so far away and moving so fast they are mere dots, and I found I had plenty of reach with this one, without serious loss of smoothness in the image. Here I’m looking toward the assembly point where aircraft moved from the parking area to the runway. The Gloster Meteor classic jet fighter is frame against the fuel trucks, with a marshal alongside, radio in hand. It’s a closer angle on a frame up I had just done at a wider setting. There is no flare in the image (except around the actual reflection of the sun in the canopy) and I’m going to assume both a superior lens coating on this model, and some degree of shading—usually with my baseball cap. I remember being very busy working the pictures on that day (November 10^th, 2019, just before covid began to run rampage through the community.) Colour, contrast and sharpness were tweaked very slightly. Fuji HS10. Image by Mike.

Almost Air-to-Air

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The marvelous thing about shooting low-flying aircraft is that if you manage to exclude any background details, buildings, trees, you can develop an image which the eye has a hard time telling from a low angle aerial perspective. This is the Aero Delphin, a jet trainer built in Eastern Europe during the Cold War, photographed at the Goolwa Classic Airshow, February, 2007, south of Adelaide. The shot had plenty of telephoto factored in to create the illusion of closer proximity, and extraneous sky background was cropped to enlarge the aircraft in the frame further. The fast shutter speed of the bright conditions stopped the action, and I managed to hold the camera sufficiently steady to have an acceptable rotational angle without messing with it. Enhancements were the usual sharpness, contrast and colour. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

Catch the Flash

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Reflex shooting can give unpredictable results, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Here a Robinson R-22 helicopter is framed quite well, at a high telephoto value, as it passes obliquely, at the Goolwa Classic Airshow, February, 2007, south of Adelaide, South Australia. The short exposure time has stopped the blades and the timing of the shutter has also captured the strobing of the beacon on the aircraft's tail boom. The general grain of the image is an artifact of the telephoto setting, and the fact it was taken at only 2mp, a way of getting a large number of frames onto a flashcard in the days before really big cards started to become affordable. Sharpened and colour-enhanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Extreme Distortion

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This is the most extreme example of heat distortion I've yet photographed. My post "Unintentionally Artistic" looked at catching a stem of grass correctly in focus as a consequence of the chip being unable to focus on the heat-distorted aircraft in the background; this is the same aircraft, a T-28 Trojan flown by Wayne Pearce at the Goolwa Classic Airshow, February, 2007, heading in the opposite direction, further away and 100% masked by the heat haze rising from the runway. The photograph was taken at high telephoto, thus the distortion becomes the entire image. Colour-enhanced and contrast-balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

Characterising the Action

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This is a less-precise variation on "personalising the hardware," almost a crowd-scene, though the image tells a story. The sign on the truck sets the scene, the people are the personification of what's happening and the helicopter, stopped in flight overhead, is the "noun" of the narrative in the sense that it is the object, and the "verb" in the sense that flight is the action. This was one of a batch of similar shots taken at the Goolwa Classic Airshow, February, 2007, in which the close proximity of people and aircraft made for many interesting action shots. Trying to shoot aircraft devoid of passers-by is a skill all by itself, but when you combine them deliberately some engaging compositions result. Sharpened, and colour- and contrast-balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Precision Flying

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This is a high telephoto shot, and the lack of image resolution is at least partly due to that. But the shutter speed is very high, stopping the vortex of the smoke trail to show each prop-beat eddy perfectly. This is Chris Sperou, Australia's all-time aerobatic champion, in his trademark Pitts biplane, and Warren Stewart in the Beech B33, flying their super-close manoeuvres at the Goolwa Classic Airshow, in South Australia, February 2007. The shot was cropped close from a larger frame area before sizing for publication. The image was sharpened and contrast-enhanced very slightly. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

Focal Depth

A fascinating effect of telephoto photography is the available distance over which focus is sharp. Here the photographer in the foreground, inside the focal depth range, appears as sharp as the main subject, which is at least 20 to 30 metres further away. This shot was taken at the Goolwa Classic Airshow, February, 2007, and was sharpened, and colour- and contrast-balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

Crystal Clear Image-Stop

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This is an example of what a camera can do when there is enough light on the subject. I was shooting at high telephoto to close in on the subject, which would have been perhaps 100 - 150 feet above the ground at this time, and let the automatics handle looking into the afternoon sky, maybe 45 degrees of arc away from the sun. Extremely short exposure time resulted, stopping the spinning blades as if they were motionless, while the aircraft is perfectly exposed. This was part of my Goolwa Classic Airshow shoot from February, 2007. Sharpened only. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

Personalising the Hardware

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Hardware, machines of any kind, are always interesting textural and light-effects subjects, or of interest for their own sake, but to personalise the image creates another dimension. People depicted in promotional illustration or photography compliment the product by depicting desirable lifestyle, and this is the same mechanism at work. Here the telephoto medium close-up on this D.H. 82 Tiger Mother, at the Goolwa Classic Airshow, in February 2007, has the dimension of personalisation due to capturing the passenger looking toward the camera, creating an emotional exchange in which the viewer participates in the image. Photographically it was not a difficult shot, simply a composition which sought a close angle on subject matter which was being well-documented from all perspectives. The image was sharpened and balanced, and fine rotation was used to help to square up the horizon line, correcting the tendancy to rotate the camera to the right with the shutter release. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

Unintentionally Artistic

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When you're shooting on the fly you can only take advantage of what happens in front of you and see what comes out later, and sometimes the results are surprising, things the eye did not register at the time. This is an old T-28 Trojan trainer, flown by Wayne Pearce, at the Goolwa Classic Airshow, February, 2007, an aircraft I captured in many studies. The conditions were bright sunshine (exposure time is short enough to stop the prop) and a strong, buffetting wind, and by afternoon a lot of heat was reflecting from the landing strip, creating the heat haze seen here. I was tracking with the aircraft on landing, at maximum telephoto, and it seems the heat haze meant the sonic focussing beam could not find the subject. But it did find the strands of grass blowing in the foreground, generating an image that suggests I focussed deliberately on the grass to let the subject matter blur artistically. This is serendipity, I certainly couldn't have made it happen! Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Colour- and contrast-balanced. Image by Mike.

Ephemeral Subject

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Some subjects are there and gone in moments, and you need to anticipate their appearance to catch them on film (or in pixels). Fast-moving subjects fall in this category, and when an aerobatic plane trails smoke it makes pictures in the sky which have the beauty of the physics of fluid mechanics. Here I'm photographing the aerobatic display by the Extra 300s type, flown by Paul Andronicou at the Goolwa Classic Airshow, February, 2007, and while the aircraft itself is the subject matter it becomes visually conjoined with its smoke trail, so the corporate effect is the sense of motion the audience receives. In this sense, the smoke is as important as the aircraft in the aesthetic effect they generate, and the photographer must mot try to zoom solely on the aircraft and track its motion to the exclusion of all else -- it's not possible, for one thing, and you miss the visual suggestion of motion in the smoke if you do. This image was cropped to achieve composition, and sharpness and colour were enhanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, image by Mike.

Panning with a Moving Subject

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Sometimes the results of a shoot can be surprising. The Goolwa Classic Air Show 2007 was my first time shooting a flying display digitally rather than with the trusty Pentax K1000s and the manual zoom lens, and I was very pleased with the range of effects and benefits that came through. Here I'm panning with the takeoff roll of the restored WWII-vintage Russian Yak-9  fighter, flown by Jim Wickham, managing somehow to keep the horizon level (I think the camera was balanced on top of a fence post) and tracking left to right with the subject at high zoom. Oddly enough, though the shutter speed was fast enough to almost stop the prop, the background is attractively streaked while the subject is sharp and clear. I was not using sport mode, but the day cleared out to bright sunshine (and a buffetting wind) and the chip made great use of the faster available speed range. The image was sharpened only. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.