Shooting blue angels tomorrow: I'm curious I have an opportunity to shoot the blue angels tomorrow from either the marin headland's or near Twin Peaks show is at 3:00 p.m. Which...

dyximan

I'm curious I have an opportunity to shoot the blue angels tomorrow from either the marin headland's or near Twin Peaks show is at 3:00 p.m. Which location do you believe would be the best For this event at this date and time. I shot them this afternoon 3pm from Emeryville and the Sun was/ while looking at the Golden Gate bridge slightly to my left at about 11oclock in the sky.

rmorrison1116 Loc: Near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania

At 3pm the sun will be in the western sky.

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

dyximan wrote:

I'm curious I have an opportunity to shoot the blue angels tomorrow from either the marin headland's or near Twin Peaks show is at 3:00 p.m. Which location do you believe would be the best For this event at this date and time. I shot them this afternoon 3pm from Emeryville and the Sun was/ while looking at the Golden Gate bridge slightly to my left at about 11oclock in the sky.

My choice would be Marin headlands, or possibly Land’s End.
Even Baker Beach if you want to photograph in the raw.

Parking may be problematic at any suitable location, I would recommend arriving early to stake out your spot.

Good luck

dyximan

Peterff wrote:

My choice would be Marin headlands, or possibly Land’s End.
Even Baker Beach if you want to photograph in the raw.

Parking may be problematic at any suitable location, I would recommend arriving early to stake out your spot.

Good luck

I'm going to try to join a meet up group as there is a bus that meet somewhere in the financial district that will take us to the headland's, The other group was going to go to tank Hill near Twin Peaks but I'm sure parking's a bear nowhere I go,

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

dyximan wrote:

I'm going to try to join a meet up group as there is a bus that meet somewhere in the financial district that will take us to the headland's, The other group was going to go to tank Hill near Twin Peaks but I'm sure parking's a bear nowhere I go,

So how did it work out?

dyximan

Not bad but it was a little hazy and I'm not sure if it was the haze or my shutter speed 1/2000 that left the photos a bit hazy/not to sharp/out of focus. I will have to try and dehaze them in Lightroom. I may go back today and try some other settings perhaps 1/4000 or so. I was shooting in shutter priority.

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SalvageDiver Loc: Huntington Beach CA

I would find a location where the sun is behind me or to the side and behind me. I just shot here in Huntington Beach and the audience was on the beach. I was shooting into the general direction of the sun most of the time. As a result, I had a lot of washed out sky or underexposed planes. With the sun at your back, the planes are nicely illuminated and the sky will be darker providing more contrast between the plane and sky. Even nicer would be to have the sun behind you at about a 30-60 degree angle.

Not ever seeing the airshow in SF, but assuming the flight path is between the GG Bridge and Alcatraz, I would be finding a location along the beach near Crissy Field. The Marin Headlands would put you several miles from the show.

dyximan

I may try chrissey field and or the presideo I shot from the headland yesterday with so so results.

dyximan

Peterff wrote:

So how did it work out?

I went for 3 days and tried many of the suggestions posted here, here are some of the results of some 10.000 plus photos and yes I did say 10.000 plus. let me know what you think, feedback.

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CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

They're all underexposed. You could have upped the ISO, either manually or via EC (w/ AUTO ISO). The final Blue Angels would have benefited from a smaller aperture and more depth of field to better cover all the planes. At ISO-140, there was plenty of 'room' to use a smaller aperture, or some post processing to brighten the image taking the smoke closer to white from this grey. All four would benefit from some processing to brighten the image.

It can take multiple shows and subsequent edits to look at what you did, process and analyze the results, and generate better ideas for next time. Then, repeat the cycle. The final image is an example of where, in my ETTR-ized exposure, the white of the smoke is blinking in the highlight alerts for RAW captures. Whether you take the exposure to blinking or just 1/3 stop below, you have a sky that is brighter and smoke that is white. Having 1000 frames to get 10 to 20 insanely sharp is not unexpected. No one wants to see more than 20 anyways.

dyximan

CHG_CANON wrote:

They're all underexposed. You could have upped the... (show quote)

I shot shutter priority thinking the camera would make up for the changes in lighting As I panned and because of the cloud cover that day. Are you saying I would have been better say setting the shutter speed at say 1/2000. taking the F stop from say 6.3 to 11 or so. Where do you think would have been a good place for iSO. I have found in the past when shooting birds that because like in this particular case the lighting change show dramatically in a 180ﾟ I could be looking at the Sun one minute and away from it in a cloud in another. The I guess my question to you is would you have shot full manual and adjusted for a particular spot in the sky? How would you adjust for the changing light conditions? I did not do any post processing on those photos i figured I would be able to make up for a lot of the various conditions in post processing, as I'm not sure how I would have done it with such dramatic changes in lighting conditions otherwise. And you're right I did have in excess of 10000 shots over 3 days and 20 or so would be my limit to look yet although they were far more keepers than that.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

dyximan wrote:

I shot shutter priority thinking the camera would ... (show quote)

The camera will dynamically adjust to the light in Shutter Priority. But, you the human, still must tell the camera how to respond to light and changes in the light. In shutter priority, your camera will dynamically adjust to changing light faster than you can. If you use EC to 'tell' the camera what exposure you desire (+ or - relative to the 0-mark), the camera will open and close the aperture and /or adjust the ISO in AUTO ISO. My experience with Blue Angels in cloudless sky is that you need to be between +1 and +2 over the zero mark in setting your exposure, whether done via EC or completely manual.

The ideal camera is one that provides EC w/ AUTO ISO in Manual. I don't know that your D500 provides that feature.

I'm definitely not saying to increase the shutterspeed. Rather, in shutter priority, set the camera to auto ISO (possibly with limits on the max / min ISO) and use the EC dial to 'move' the exposure to a + value over the 0-mark until the whites in the test images are blinking. If shooting in JPEG or uncomfortable with these highlight alerts, back the EC off by 1/3 or 2/3 'clicks' to just remove the blinking. Then, start shooting.

dyximan

Good to know thank You my Camera does have EC and I will try that next year or at another airshow should I get there sooner. and will practice with it in the future when shooting BIF

BartHx

As a member of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, my crew and I used to help maintain the security box under the San Francisco Fleet Week air show. One year, we were assigned to the center of the end of the box toward the Golden Gate Bridge. At that location, there were several times that the Blue Angels passed over us low enough that we could make out the colors on the pilots' helmets. Unfortunately, we had a job to do and photography was not an option. That was the same year that, on Sunday afternoon, we were assigned as the port side escort to help get the Abraham Lincoln safely out the Gate. She is huge. We had to stand off nearly one-hundred yards just to be visible from her bridge.

dyximan

What do you think of this series, any better then the others

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