Photos from NZAA this morning

[Chairman]

Another day, another learning opportunity.

The weather forecast was good for this morning and the ATIS was burbling about ILS/DME runway 23L, which was perfect, so I grabbed the camera and headed out for round 4 of "I am going to take a good picture of a plane at NZAA if it's the last thing I do". In a fit of daring I threw the usual script out of the window and actually went in the morning. Take that, Sunset !

Well obviously it didn't work as well as planned. There's a big difference between a good forecast and a good sky for photographing planes against and there was so much haze laying on the ground that I could hardly see the other end of the runway (lesson 1, pay attention to the visibility in the atis), and somewhere between home and Puhinui Rd they'd changed the runway to 05 (lesson 2, take the scanner with you !!!)

But since I was there I started snapping away at the departing planes which first showed up just as a set of lights, then the planes appeared out of the gunge, then they flew away at just the right angle to the sun for the whole plane to turn into a shiny silver stripe.

Under the circumstances, I'm quite happy with what I got.

These have all been edited after originally being posted to give them a bit more 'pop', the original of the Air Vanuatu is here as well to show what they were like as originally posted.













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and this one I'm particularly happy with - the plane was just about to turn into the cursed silver streak when I caught this, the plane is crossing the coast climbing off the harbour towards Manukau as reflected on the mega shiny fuselage. I think I may have finally taken a good plane picture, under grotty conditions, shooting far to close to the sun for it to have worked Who'd have thunk it ...




After the 744 left the ground haze was dispersing but there was nothing else looking set to depart and you still couldn't really see anything of the arriving planes, so it seemed like a good time to call it quits. As I was driving away an A380 landed. Refer lesson 1 (take the scanner) and lesson 3 (check what's due before you go out there).

Not a bad morning, and there'll be other A380s .....

Gary

[AlisterC]

Nice shots. It sure is hard to get a good shot of an Air NZ plane against a grey sky

[d3fai13r]

QUOTE (Albatross @ Aug 29 2009, 01:29 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Nice shots. It sure is hard to get a good shot of an Air NZ plane against a grey sky

especially that AC that are without pacific waves... without them anz livrey is extremely boring. BTW nice shots!

[Chairman]

Oh DUH!!! I thought something looked different on those ones ...

Thanks, and Albatross yes they do have certain challenges on days like this.

Tomorrow is supposed to be pretty miserable, if they are using 23L I might head out and try some proper rain shots. At least they'll stand out against a black sky And this time I'll take the scanner !

Gary

[ardypilot]

I had to pick something up from the airport at lunchtime, and was considering stopping by the lookout carpark on the way home to see the A380 land before I realised which runway was in use and it would have been pointless- although much to my surprise there were tons and tons of people out there today. Well done for making the best out of the dull conditions Gaz, that haze certainly has been a killer this week.

QUOTE (d3fai13r @ Aug 29 2009, 03:37 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

especially that AC that are without pacific waves... without them anz livrey is extremely boring. BTW nice shots!

Why on earth are they removing the wave? Can't see any aesthetic logic in it at all??

[Chairman]

Thanks

I guess they're removing the wave to make room for whatever they're replacing it with. If they're going to relivery it will surely go faster if they don't have to start by getting rid of the waves, makes sense to get rid of them in the leadup to the rebranding while the planes are in for some other reason.

Gary

[greaneyr]

QUOTE (Trolly @ Aug 29 2009, 03:47 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I had to pick something up from the airport at lunchtime, and was considering stopping by the lookout carpark on the way home to see the A380 land before I realised which runway was in use and it would have been pointless- although much to my surprise there were tons and tons of people out there today. Well done for making the best out of the dull conditions Gaz, that haze certainly has been a killer this week.


Why on earth are they removing the wave? Can't see any aesthetic logic in it at all??

I was told on a forum somewhere that the pacific wave is being removed from a/c undergoing maintenance checks as it's no longer part of ANZ's branding. Can't remember who I heard it from, nor whether they are even a reputable source. I take anything to do with Air New Zealand livery with a grain of salt ever since someone on Airliners.net claiming to be a maintenance employee of ANZ told us we could expect to see a new logo "any day now" in May of 2006 and seemed to enjoy taunting readers by not revealing any details.

[benwynn]

Awesome shots mate, but...

Hope you dont mind, a little editing can really help!

[ZK-MAT]

I think Chairman cleaned up the pic quite well, considering that this was the original shot .....

[Chairman]

Gosh, that made it pop nicely. Don't mind at all, in fact it prompted me to actually do the edits

I'll replace the images on pbase so that the original post has the new sparklier poppier copies, except for the one you used to demonstrate - I'll leave the original of that one there as well so this bit of the thread makes sense.

Mat -

Thanks
Gary

[Ian Warren]

I prefer the original secret squirrel

[Chairman]

Was going to head out again this afternoon and see what I could do with the rain ... but runway 05 again, and somehow I don't think it'd be the busiest possible afternoon at Ardmore.

C'est la view ...

Gary

[Ian Warren]

Had a ripper afternoon in , at NZCH ..I think now to look for a good camera , guess it works both ways ..C'est la view .. always

[Chairman]

Glad somebody noticed it

As it happens the wind shifted and they changed runways so I did get out there, and I remembered the scanner which helped a whole lot. Photoshop is grinding away batch processing the folder at this very moment ...

Gary

[greaneyr]

QUOTE (Chairman @ Aug 30 2009, 02:46 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Was going to head out again this afternoon and see what I could do with the rain ... but runway 05 again, and somehow I don't think it'd be the busiest possible afternoon at Ardmore.

C'est la view ...

Gary

... And besides, Squirrels don't come out when it's raining anyway so there'd be nothing to photograph

[Chairman]

I wish there had been a squirrel, it would have been easier to photograph than silver and white planes against a silver and white sky. Especially that jetstar one !!!!!

Results were pretty ho-hum, these are the pick of them I think. I also think if I'm going to keep banging my head against this particular brick wall I need to start doing funky things with multiple exposures and photoshop ......... watch this space.

[d3fai13r]

hm... Qantas aka ATI is still on sundays afternoons... good, cuz originally they supposed to come at that time only for 5 weeks(21.06-19.07)
Hope that Jetconnect soon will recieve their first 738 with ptv etc(in the end of september its set in amadeus)

[deeknow]

QUOTE (Chairman @ Aug 29 2009, 01:20 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

These have all been edited after originally being posted to give them a bit more 'pop'

Hey Chairman, just out of interest, what sorts of things did you do, and with what tools (Photoshop? Gimp) to make the images "pop"?

[Chairman]

Done in photoshop. The first batch were easy, all I had to do was play with the levels. The second lot were tougher because of all the gray on gray, and because the camera darkened them up so much to compensate for the bright skies that all the undercarriage detail went south. Some of them were simple levels fixes, but most of them have had the curves tweaked to bring up the shadows (so you can see undercarriage) then the highlights dropped a bit to put some detail back in the sky, then been generally brightened. Plus of course they've been cropped.

Just for fun so those who are so inclined can have a play with it, here's the jetstar plane straight from the camera (resized).



Cheers
Gary

[ardypilot]

QUOTE (Chairman @ Aug 30 2009, 09:31 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I also think if I'm going to keep banging my head against this particular brick wall I need to start doing funky things with multiple exposures and photoshop ......... watch this space.

Or just wait until summer

Also is there any chance you will bring us some photos from Whenuapai, being a Westy and all?