I’ve just got in from work so I’ll settle down and process my set, taken from Luggage Point at the mouth of the Brisbane River. I thought that the formation of 20 aircraft were very quiet compared to the F-111’s.
I saw a few commercial aircraft taking off from Brisbane airport a scant minute or two before and after the fly over – what close coordination of the air space!
Okay – here is my best for the day. I used the Canon 400mm F5.6L. It was a little tricky with the variable cloud, lighting and sun direction, not to mention the speed of the aeroplanes, but overall, I’m quite pleased with the results.
What a wonderful sight the formation was as the swarm of black dots grew in size!
Still think these are not as impressive as the F1-11,I prefer quality rather than quantity.These little ones just do not have the magic of the F1-11.
Great lens work Steven and Dennis,How on earth did you capture 2/3 Dennis?they must have been fairly close-was that at home or work? what settings used?.Yes-awful day with all that glare from the clouds-would have been a challenge to get these,the pilots did a great job with the formation flying-they really are the special ones here,not the planes.
Just looking at the right wing-looks like they got a dummy AIM 9L sidewinder?,cannot image it would be a live one,must be for some sort of training.
Last edited by hotspur; 21-10-2011 at 08:53 PM.
Reason: added a bit
Chris ... these AIM 9L Sidewinder Missiles were $250,000 a " pop " ... each that is ... and that price was about 12 years ago.
( no wonder some " dodgy " individuals become " Arm's Dealers ) ... thanks to the Military War Machine.
Flash
Yes-there not cheap,there is a couple pf versions of these ones that can be fired and track an aircraft behind them,and ones that only track in front of them (the cheap ones?),from what I remember the Brits had the better version in the Falkland conflict,and the Agentines the more basic version.
The old F1-11's occasionally used to be seen with a white 'harpoon' style missile on one of their under ports.Not sure these were live versions or practice ones.Along time ago there was some footage shown of an F1-11 firing a live harpoon at an old navy warship,and there may have been a camera in the nose of the harpoon.I'm not sure these new tiny hornets can carry and fire these harpoons-which would not be good if they cannot.
Anyhow these images of todays show of Two Billion dollars of planes are of a very high standard-well done to all who took them.
The old F1-11's occasionally used to be . . . shown of an F1-11 firing a live harpoon
Chris,
I know the name of the aircraft is said as F1-11 but it is actually designated as F-111.
Even though it is pronounced as F1-11 it is always written by it's true nomenclature system of F-111 (F-111C, F, & EF-111A).
Not trying to be pedantic, just letting you know because it looks weird the way you write it
Quite a sight in Australian skies, not seen since USN nuclear carrier "Enterprise" first visited Sydney in 1964 and put up over 70 aircraft, all in the one formation! That included the full spread from nuclear capable long range NA Vigilantes to F-4 Phantoms.
The flying armada tracked right above Sydney airport - a sight I will never forget. Somewhere in my archives is a slide - rather shabby I would think now.
Okay – here is my best for the day. I used the Canon 400mm F5.6L. It was a little tricky with the variable cloud, lighting and sun direction, not to mention the speed of the aeroplanes, but overall, I’m quite pleased with the results.
What a wonderful sight the formation was as the swarm of black dots grew in size!
Thanks for looking!
Dennis
Great shots Dennis! You picked up some nice detail with the 400mm. From my location the 70-200mm was just about perfect for capturing the whole group, but they were too high to pick up much detail on individual jets.
Your shots reveal the structure of the formation really well. From Luggage Point we got a side on view so although I could easily see the pattern; it wasn’t until I saw your photos that the true formation revealed itself.
Here’s a couple of more. The backgrounds vary quite a lot due to the variable cloud cover and the position/direction of the formation relative to the sun.
It was a tough shoot with the variable light, contrast and sun direction!
image 1 has a very good composition-the angle of the planes,and their poise.
Thanks for the details in the telephone conversation this morning.You certainly did extremely well in these 'glare' conditions.The use of the gimble sounds like it helped considerably.
What settings did your co worker have,as you mentioned his JPEGs turned out quite well too.You chaps had a very good position down there at the river mouth.
The 400mm really earned its keep in the tricky conditions, as I haven’t yet been to an air show to learn about the black art of aeroplane photography.
I arrived approx 10 mins before the scheduled time and quickly set up the tripod and Jobu Junior Gimbal Head. I managed to squeeze off a couple of shots of commercial jest taking off and metered of the dull, indistinct grey of some Port of Brisbane buildings that I judged to be approx mid-grey (i.e. 18% grey).
Then, it all happened so fast that you really had to have the settings dialled in (I used Manual) as it would be a bit risky to change too much in the relatively short time window – the jets were moving reasonably fast across the skies.
Not sure what settings the guy at work was using, although his jpgs looked really good.
Here is one where I have (slightly) exaggerated the gloominess of the day as the formation approached from the North, before circling in Moreton Bay to then fly up the river.
