Went to the Bolsa Chica Reserve a couple of weeks ago and was able to shoot some of the birds that were in the Reserve. Had a good time and these were some of the more successful shots that I had.






Photography
My Edits of the Ballerina’s on Battleships
Planes on parade
With the enforced solitude, I have been going back through and editing some of the plane photos that I have taken. Here are a couple that were dark and not good looking. So I went through and punched up the colors on them to make them look better. These were both taken during the 2017 Planes of Fame Airshow. Happy with how the end results have come out and what they look like.
Ballerina’s on Battleships
A few weeks ago I did a photo workshop with Samy’s called Ballerina’s on Battleships. We did a photoshoot on the USS Iowa. I learned a lot and we did a bunch of different shoots with different ballerina’s all over the ship. This was a fun time and it was a good experience. Here are some of the shots from the event.






Sony A9ii Settings for airplane photography
Here are the settings that I am using for my Sony A9ii for taking pictures of airplanes while moving through the air. The lens I use for this most days is the 100-400.
Aperture – F14 or below so that Phase Detect will still work for the auto focus
Raw or JPG – RAW, since the camera is so fast it can keep up with just about anything
Metering Mode – Spot so that I can capture the frame
Shutter Speed – Trying to get as low as 1/160 for prop planes for jets as fast as possible to catch them as they fly by.
Focus Mode – Continuous + Wide with Tracking, the camera auto focus is so fast that it catches the planes pretty quickly
Exposure Compensation – usually + 2/3 if it’s dark plane on a bright sunny day, this helps bring out the colors of the plane.
Frame Rate – Continuous Mid – I find that high fills the buffer and mid gets more than enough shots.
ISO – as low as possible, unless it’s an overcast day and then I will move it to Auto-Iso to maintain the shutter speed when needed.
F8F Bearcat Flyover
Post Processing on C-47
75th Anniversary VJ Day Flyover
On 9/2/20 was the 75th Anniversary of the VJ Day Flyover. They flew the WW2 planes over Souther California. Since I was working from home and was able to take calls from my car I went to the Chino Airport to stake out a spot to catch the planes as they flew over. It took a while, but I was able to get a couple of shots, I really hoped they were going to land, but they just flew over on their way back home. I shot the planes with my Sony A9II and the 100-400 lens. F16 at 1/320 ISO 100




More Hummingbirds
Continuing to get up close and personal with those that share my backyard with me. Don’t think I can get much closer without losing most of them. I had to manually focus on a stand-in flower to try and get the birds in focus. This time it worked out well and I was able to use a remote trigger to capture with the camera on a tripod.
Shooting Hummingbirds
Some more Hummingbirds from the backyard. Got up close and personal with them.















