Sea Cobra

Marine Sea Cobra overflies the house

It's been pretty slow here what with most of the unit being off to Kosovo, and me working with the rear detachment.  Kind of quiet...  So when I heard that distinctive Huey "wop-wop-wop" I grabbed my camera and caught this guy probably headed to 29 Palms.

In non-military related news, the Missus and I just got back from a trip to Havasupai in the Grand Canyon.  Trip report here.

The Rockets Red Glare...

A star burst from the town fireworks display

When the Missus announced yesterday that she had always wanted to photograph fireworks and that the town show was only a couple miles away, my first reaction was something of an internal groan.  I've never been very fond of being in large crowds, so I don't have much desire to go to local events.  And having spent years on the outgoing and occasionally incoming sides of large ordinance has somewhat diminished the amount of charm the annual fireworks show holds for me.  However she clearly wanted to go and since the first rule of getting a good photograph is to stand in front of something interesting that became the plan for the evening.

Fortunately for me, the Missus isn't all that partial to large crowds either, so when we went out to scout the location in the afternoon we found where the public venue was being set up, and more importantly we found out where the fireworks were going to be launched from.  It turns out there is a large empty field with an unobstructed view of the launch site about a mile away, really a perfect distance to photograph from.  We also scouted out an alternate about two miles away in case the field was going to be closed.

The show was scheduled to start at 9:00pm, so we arrived about a half hour early to set up and found that there were several families out in the same field, but there was plenty of room and the session went well.  We both got some nice shots and it was a pleasant evening.

Settings:  Camera was on a tripod, set to ISO 200, 75mm lens (150mm full frame equivalent), f/8, 4 second exposures.  

Fly By

Marine AH-1 Cobras

This morning I heard the characteristic Huey thumping sound outside, and of course had to investigate.  It was a couple of Marine AH-1 Cobras, probably from MCAS Yuma.  When Bell made the Cobra, they used a lot of the UH-1 design to work from.  It could be said they took a Huey and shaved the fuselage down to 36" wide and started putting armament on it.  That would be a simplification, but isn't too far off the mark.  The Army retired the Cobra and Huey many years ago for the Apache and Blackhawk, but the Marines have stuck with it, with Bell still updated the designs.  I've always had a soft spot for the Cobra.

(Note:  It just struck me how much technology has changed since the Cobra was introduced.  I heard these birds, grabbed my camera and photographed them, downloaded, selected and post processed the image and posted it on the blog.  As I write this, they're probably still airborne.)

Tooling on by...

Our Border Collie Fly goes nuts when she sees one of these

OK, so not everything in our airspace is a fast mover.  On the bright side, when you sight one of these guys you have time to go get your camera, select the best lens and have a cup of coffee while you wait for it to get closer.

Olympus OM-D 75-300mm at 228mm and f6.3, 1/250 and ISO 1600.

A New Year

UH-60L

Since I've been been doing most of my posting over on the PhotoPogue site lately, I thought I'd put up a Blackhawk picture for the new year to let you know I'm still here.  We're in a reconstitution phase in our battalion, getting new people up to speed as some of the older hands move upwards and onwards. More to come in the near future, but for now I hope everyone had a safe and happy Christmas and New Years holiday!

A new location for Picture of the week

I've decided to create another blog for my photography jones...  You can find it at PhotoPogue.  Yeah, it's original, I know, but at least I can remember it!

I'll still be posting my occasional thoughts here as well.

Picture of the Week - 12/6/12

Spilling Water

Playing around with the flash a little this week.  Usually electronic flash is very, very quick.  Some flashes have a mode where the flash lasts longer allowing higher shutter speeds.  This is useful when you want to overpower the existing light with your flash.  Olympus OM-D with a 17mm lens, shutter speed of 1/4000 at f11.  Lit by two FL-36R flashes in Super FP manual at 1/8 power on either side of the glass.

Picture of the Week - 11/29/12

Her Accuracy

This one was taken at twilight using a single Lumopro LP-160 flash at 1/16th power shooting through a LumiQuest SB III softbox from camera left.  Olympus E-620 with a 14-42mm lens at a shutter speed of 1/250 and f 6.3.  Focal length was 18mm.

Picture of the Week - 11/21/12

"Lantern"

Today's photo was an exercise in lighting.  The camera was set to a shutter speed of 1/320 and f16 at ISO 200 to expose the lantern mantle properly.  An Olympus FL-36R flash in manual mode set at 1/64 power lit the chimney from the front, an a pair of Lumopro LP-160 flashes with grids to restrict the beam lit the base from either side.  These two flashes were slaved off the FL-36R and were also set to 1/64 power.  The photo was taken under normal living room lighting with an Olympus OM-D-E5 and a 12-50mm lens set at 22mm.

Picture of the Week

I've played with photography off and on over the years, and I'm starting to mess around with it a bit again.  So in an attempt to keep myself engaged I'm going to try to post a picture each week that I've taken in the previous week.  No particular theme or subject, just whatever strikes me.  We'll see how long that lasts....

This week I present our two Border Collies, Fly (front) and Whiskey.  They like to hang our around our chairs in the evening.