U.S. Airways
Model: Airbus 319-112
Tail No.: N745VJ
Introduction
It's weird how spontaneity can take you to some of the most interesting places.One of my friends from college recently moved to Sanford, Fl, approximately 30 miles from Orlando. May was a photography major back at Florida State. I visited her once while she was living in Taiwan.
She recently acquired a Canon EOS 30D DSLR from craigslist, and we decided that whenever there is a chance, we would go do photo shoots together on the weekends. It is nice to travel and take pictures with friends. This past weekend a lot of spontaneous things happened. On Saturday we went to Downtown Disney and practised night photography.
On Sunday after having dim sum with a few friends, she asked me where we should go and what to do for a photo shoot. I casually mentioned a spot called the "fishing hole" near Tampa International Airport (remember that Tampa is about 70 miles away from Orlando) where one of the spotters A.net recommended to get great landing photos. At the time, I had never been to this special place. So far I've been planespotting alone and without any success, so I didn't expect her reaction: "Alright! Let's go!"
Model: Boeing 737-7H4
Tail No.: N265WN
Fishing Near The Runway
We had to loop around TPA's terminal twice because we missed the first turn, and when we saw a wide emergency lane we pulled in. On the side of the Memorial Highway, we found this secluded area on the side of an active highway with a river flowing into Tampa Bay. When we backed into this little opening, we saw several people sitting there, fishing at the river.Just across the river are the localizers and low flying planes on final approach. It was the most surreal and eerie thing I had ever seen. I called one of my friends in Melbourne to check the weather forecast for Tampa. He said that Tampa will just miss a really horrible rainstorm that was pummeling Orlando at the time. While the sun shone on my back, I could see this looming dark clouds in front of me, and it stayed that way for several hours.
One of the fishermen offered us some water to drink, and we stayed there until we ran out of space on our memory cards, taking photos of planes and this one enormous catfish that one of them caught at the end of the trip. I left Tampa completely elated. I really want to go back. It is a beautiful, peaceful place in the middle of the rush of human existence, where the fishermen watched the day go by between the fast moving cars and gliding aircrafts.
The Catch...
AirTran - Boeing 717!
Model: Boeing 717-231
Tail No.: N919AT
(Uni)TED
Model: Airbus A320-232
Tail No.: N401UA
Frontier Airlines - Racoon!
Model: Airbus A319-111
Tail No.: N923FR
JetBLOO! - Idlewild Blue
Model: Airbus A320-232
Tail No.: N606JB
Southwest Airlines - California One Scheme
Model: Boeing 737-3H4
Tail No.: N609SW
3 comments:
These are absolutely the best plane spotting pics you have taken! The images are so sharp, and the location is absolutely perfect. Maybe it's just your new lens, but the planes look much, much closer from your new location. You must go back there!
The lens that I use is the 70-200mm, which is the same range of zoom as my 18-200mm. However, since the base fstop value for the 70-200 is f2.8, I can achieve a faster shutter speed at higher zoom. So really there are several reasons for the good shots:
1.) I was much MUCH closer to the planes than I've ever been (you can't go wrong being several hundred feet from the runway).
2.) The 70-200mm lets in more light at higher zoom vs the 18-200mm, allowing me to have a faster shutter. The AF on the 70-200mm works really fast as well.
3.) Landing shots are much easier than takeoffs, because the planes are slower on final approach, and its slight pitch makes it easier to frame your shots (vs on takeoffs when the planes will climb sharply into the sky).
Btw I just want to say Adorama is awesome. They have the best used equipment inventory I've ever seen. ;) The 70-200mm was purchased used from them. Other than the dents around the body the lens itself is flawless.
I still have to practise a lot...if it wasn't for my Lumix I don't think I would know what to do with the settings. Thanks a bunch... :)
speaking of shutter speed.......... i recently heard in an interview with a famous photographer of early jazz performers that they way he was able to achieve such sharp pictures in the imperfect environment of smoky jazz bars was by soaking his film prior to use in mercury for at least 24 hours.
thought you might find that interesting.
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