Thanks, everyone for continuing on my Reno journey with me. From here we reach the meat and potatoes of my photographic adventure, shooting out at the pylons. This was difficult as you'll see and despite the quality of some of my images, they were hard to get for various reasons. Approach speed and height are the main difficulties to overcome. These aircraft were at times within a couple of hundred feet from us doing between 200 and 500 miles an hour, gone past within seconds. You have to be good at panning, while staying very still, with your camera gear set up absolutely right, otherwise you're just gonna miss everything fiddling about changing settings, as I found myself doing.
My first shots were okay-ish, but gradually I got better. I could not hold the camera still enough at low shutter speeds to get good prop blur, so my Unlimited shots, although sharp, were taken at high shutter speeds (between 1/500 to 1/800). All my attempts at lower shutter speeds were failures. I normally shoot at around 1/250 to 1/320 at airshows, often going down to below 1/100 for aircraft on the ground. There was no way I could do that here. Photographing the jets was also made harder because of their proximity and velocity and at nominally high shutter speeds I use for shooting jets I found some of my shots were blurred. Initial results were discouraging, but I did manage to get some gems...
Pylon Two. We took a bus to get here and we were out for six hours, so we had to take provisions with us. I took a fold-up chair and plenty of refreshments and sunscreen, which was liberally shared with others as there was no shelter from the sun. Luckily on Saturday, there was a bit of overcast, as we'll see. The vehicles and portaloos were the judges' who had to sit out here for the duration. We weren't allowed to go beyond the concrete block to the right.
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The airfield from Pylon Two. The pylon is located on a plateau, which offers terrific views, but the heat haze made photographing distances difficult. You can make out the P4Y Privateer's big tail to the right of the control tower at left.
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My first attempt at photographing aircraft in proximity to the pylon to get that classic shot. It was virtually impossible, so I gave up. The aircraft is blurred; not a promising start...
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It was easier to photograph the aircraft speeding away from us... This was a Sport Class heat, with RV-Super 6 Race 49 "Rocket Six" flown by Bob Mills.
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A good angle on Lancair Legacy Race 92 "Top Shelf" flown by David Robinson.
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Slightly blurred Lancair Legacy Race 52 "Aquila" flown by Colleen Sterling.
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Group shots are exciting. Glasair III Race 23 "Reno Bear" flown by Bijan Maleki leads Lancair Legacy Race 6 "Ramp Rat's Ride" flown by Joseph Corragio.
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Steady capture of Top shelf.
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Reno Bear overtakes Rocket Six against a dramatic cloud formation.
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Best of this lot so far, LEG-2 Race 21 "Blackjack" flown by Alan R. Crawford and F-1 Rocket Evo Race 96 "Sarah Smile" flown by William Christopher McMillan battle it out.
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Bear in mind, these are the best images I took. There are a lot I am not posting!
That Sport Class was a practise run. Now, my first taste of photographing the Unlimiteds. Cameras at the ready. This is Bunny heading straight at us, nice and low and real fast.
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Thunderbird. I missed quite a few shots fiddling with shutter speeds and this was done at the higher end. Dramatic clouds emphasise the speed factor.
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Sweet & Lovely looking, well, sweet and lovely...
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Man O'War.
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Lady Jo.
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Sweet & Lovely again.
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Rounding off this batch, a close-in shot of Bunny. My favourite shot taken on the whole of Saturday.
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Next up, T-6s and jets...