Blue Angels - El Centro, California

[Richard Crowe]

My Photo Club visited the Blue Angels practice at their home base in El Centro, California.

I shot with a Canon 7D hand held and mostly used a Canon 300mm f/4L IS lens.  I set the ISO at 400 and used shutter speed priority at 1/1,600 second in high-speed (8 FPS) bust mode.  Since I was in burst mode, I shot a lot of duplicates but, my biggest problem was the smoke from the planes obscurring the aircraft and making the sky look a dingy gray in some shots.

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Dingy gray smoke filled sky

Some of the club members climbed a ladder to the top of the stack of hay bales but, I didn't.  It wasn't the fall I was scared of; it was the sudden stop at the end of the fall...

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Richard, these are just wonderful photos!  Yes, it is that stop at the end of the fall that is worrying. :-}

[Richard Crowe]

Thanks Nancy, it was a fun shoot.  

[Elizabeth, Bailey & Bruin]

I love the Blue Angels...  The naval base here in Jacksonville, FL is home of the Blue Angels!  They have an original plane outside the base gates... 

[F, Calla & Luca]

These are great shots. I don't blame you a bit for avoiding the haystacks.

[Richard Crowe]

A really great facet of digital photography is the no cost shooting (after initial equipment purchase).  If I were shooting film, I would never have shot at high speed burst (8 frames per second).

Here are a few more of my Blue Angels shots on smugmug.com...

https://rpcrowe.smugmug.com/Blue-Angels/n-4kgqg9/

Traditionally, the rule of composition is to leave space in front of a moving subject. However, I like this image composed like this.  With the trailing smoke, it seems to have more energy composed like this. BTW: the plane was flying straight up just like this looks like...

[Linda, Charlie Brown and Beau]

Just saw your wonderful photos Richard.  I would be with you re the haystack! LOL

[Lauria Orr]

Incredible photos, Richard.  It looks like the perfect day!  And yes, the abrupt stop would be an issue!  Maybe not so much, if you were wearing a parachute!   :-)

[Ann Kendig]

Neat photos! Mike