More rain. More going out with the camera anyway.
At one point I lived in an apartment by the old dreaded job, that when we would go out for groceries we would drive near a small airport. The Dekalb Peachtree airport if anyone is curious. As my father was an aircraft mechanic for almost the entirety of my life, I do appreciate planes of all kinds.
Now the first mistake I made was trying to drive further into Atlanta, around afternoon/evening on a Friday.
But I found a parking lot across from the airport and hunkered down in the rain. I pulled up apps to try and listen to the radio tower so I could know before a plane takes off or lands, but didn’t have any luck there. I did look at live maps of air traffic. Although that was cool, it didn’t really help me predicate when to have the camera ready.
Another mistake was that I was hoping to be directly under the planes as they took off. But the angle didn’t line up to the parking lot, so they were off to the side. Also for some reason they don’t wait until the last second of runway before they take off, so they’re pretty far up in the sky by the time they get to where I was.
Canon T3i W/75-300mm - 1/800 Sec - F5.6 - 300mm - ISO 100
Canon T3i w/75-300mm - 1/400 Sec - F5 - ISO 100 - This one is weird because of those lights and the reflection. I don’t remember using any crazy filters or anything. And none of the other images made that kind of a pattern with the light.
Soon I realized this wasn’t what I was wanting. I was too far away to see any details of the planes, not in the right spot for an underbelly plane shot like I was picturing.
So I looked around on google maps for other areas, and as it would happen there was a park at the airport. With a viewing area!
Because it had just been raining I was alone for most of the night, a few people showed up after I had been out there maybe a half hour or so.
Canon T3i w/75-300mm - 1/400 Sec - F5 - 140mm - ISO 100
Canon T3i w/ 75-300mm - 1/400 Sec - F4 - 75mm - ISO 100
Canon T3i W/75-300mm - 1/500 Sec - F5.6 - 300mm - ISO 250
Then for some reason, I decided to really overexpose the next 15 or so shots I took. Thankfully I noticed and got it back under control. I probably switched to manual mode for a bit thinking I knew what I was doing. But I did not.
Canon T3i w/ 75-300mm - 1/640 Sec - F10 - 105mm - ISO 400
Some of these jets looked really cool. My guess is this was more of a private plane type thing. Considering at this airport there was a normal building and then I saw a special “executive” terminal. So private planes for the very rich is my guess.
Canon T3i w/ 75-300mm - 1/125 Sec - F9 - 105mm - ISO 160
This plane was taking off and landing repeatedly, similar to the next one as well. I’m assuming to get in the required amount of takeoffs and landings in order to qualify for a license or something. But the logo on the side brought me to researching the company, which is a non profit blood bank. I guess this is how they transport blood really quickly between these lower states. Really cool stuff.
Canon T3i w/ 75-300mm - 1/125 Sec - F9 - 300mm - ISO 100
Canon T3i w/ 75-300mm - 1/100 Sec - F20 - 120mm - ISO 320
Although I missed the focus to have both the plane and the buildings there, not really sure if I could have gotten them both in focus to be honest. Maybe with a wider angle lens and a deeper depth of field. Although I was already at F20, which may be the max for that particular lens. Either way, I still think this shot is pretty cool. I wouldn’t mind going back here to try again sometime.
And then this is the last shot I took, as I was getting heading out. It wasn’t some lucky thing, not a one and done. I have several with me trying to get things lined up with the sunset. Mostly I was taking shots of the tower with the sun behind it, not quite coming out how I wanted. But then the sun dipped behind a cloud directly over this hanger, and I got just a bit of a lens flare. Definitely one of my favorite shots from that week vacation.
Canon T3i w/ 75-300mm - 1/2500 Sec - F4 - 75mm - ISO 100