Andrews Air Show 2015

[Hawkman]

Well, I made it out to the Joint Base Andrews Airshow today... oops... yesterday, after all. Got there late - traffic was backed up and lines for the buses in were packed. But got some good shots of an F-22 demonstration and the Thunderbirds.

And the A6000 performed like a trooper, almost as if the Continuous AF and Hi Speed drive mode were made for air shows. It was a blessing and a curse, but only a curse in that at 11 fps it chews through an SD card pretty quick - I shot over 1700 frames!

And I did learn a few things the hard way after getting home and reviewing the shots. First, for jet fighters, better to shoot at 1/1000 than 1/500 or even 1/800. Second, I should have set the minimum ISO to 200 instead of 100 in order to force the camera to stop the lens down a little more and open up the depth of field a bit to get more in focus. And finally, maybe I should have shot more RAW+JPEG rather than just JPEG.

Anyhow, here are some of what I consider the better shots of the day:

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DSC00415 by SRHawk64, on Flickr
Heritage Flight: WWII-era P-51 Mustang and present-day F-22 Raptor.

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DSC00460 by SRHawk64, on Flickr
Heritage Flight flyby

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DSC00194 by SRHawk64, on Flickr
A Raptor bares its "teeth."

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DSC00557 by SRHawk64, on Flickr
Kicking in the afterburner!

BTW, those are all straight-out-of-the-camera JPEGs. No PP at all.

 

[Hawkman]

A few more...

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DSC00860 by SRHawk64, on Flickr
Thunderbirds in formation

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DSC00849 by SRHawk64, on Flickr
Thunderbirds: Close crossing pass.

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DSC01324 by SRHawk64, on Flickr
Nope, not a multiple exposure or ghosting, that's four Thunderbirds stacked!

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DSC01724 by SRHawk64, on Flickr
Final pass... beginning to peel off, one by one.

 

[NickCyprus]

Pretty cool shots!

 

[roundball]

Neat shot of the F22 and P51 together

 

[davect01]

Some very respectable shots.

 

[Hawkman]

Thanks all! I suppose I may have been too hard on myself and the shots... expecting perfection in sharpness. One thing is for sure though, I know that there is no way I could have expected to get as many decent shots from my older a3000.

It was a challenge shooting amidst the rather large crowd for this show and remembering to watch the settings and exposure and all. And while the a6000 distinguished itself in its rapid-fire high-speed continuous shooting mode and did admirably in keeping up with the super-fast moving subjects, there were times when the bright sun made the LCD screen nearly useless. Thank goodness for the excellent viewfinder! And while I like the top control dial, the back one actually caused a couple problems, changing the shutter speed when I accidentally bumped it while shooting. All stuff I'll get used to or adjust in custom settings. And I know that I shouldn't second guess things, but I also wonder if perhaps my 55-210 is just soft under these types of circumstances.

I'll go back to my shots later and if there are any others worth sharing, I'll do so. And I might also share some of the "oops" ones as well, just to get your thoughts.

Thanks.

 

[Amin]

Very cool! Well done!

 

[fractal]

Very nice! I love the underbelly shot of the F-22.

 

[Hawkman]

Very nice! I love the underbelly shot of the F-22.

Thanks! Ya know, I didn't even realize it was doing that - opening its weapons bays - when I was shooting. But, lo and behold, I got the whole opening sequence captured and was amazed to see it when I went through the endless shots at home. +1 for photography.