Nate, how'd you get such great night shots of the planes? Almost looks like you set up lights!! (I'm thinking long exposure due to the background blurring)
One of the very cool features of the Sony ALT SLRs is they have a night shooting mode that incorporates the built in (or external) flash for the foreground but holds the shutter open for an extended period after the flash to bring in the background.
So it's essentially two shots in one. The low light performance of Sony's sensors is wickedly good, compared to DSLR's I've owned in the past. There are other downsides to the A55 body though...
If I'd remembered a tripod they'd be much better. Also using the built in flash means the foreground grass right in front of the camera is over-exposed. A remote flash stashed over near the aircraft pointed up would make those much cleaner shots. The on board flash is firing for all its worth in the dark like that.
Both types of shot can be cleaned up in Photoshop, but no time to do it in these.
I was gone so long that evening because I was playing human-tripod on every shot. Most of those still have handheld blur in the background. Breathe out. Hold breath. Squeeze.
I really wanted the shot of David's plane with the flagpole in the background to come out, and must have tried to hold it still enough about 20 times. It would have jokingly gone well with his Thursday night joking around about "'Merica!"
By the way, this is officially Pilots of 'Merica now here, isn't it, after all that?
We have got to keep that boy out of the energy drinks. Note to self.
There's another night/dark shooting mode where the shutter stays open a long time but the camera is actually taking multiple scans of the full sensor. It then digitally puts them back together and sharpens all the edges that it finds and cranks up the equivalent of the "exposure". You can handheld shoot that thing in incredibly dark conditions.
My only complaint with the camera is that my body "back-focuses" a little bit with my telephoto kit lens. I haven't bothered to find out at a shop if it's the lens or the body, but it's likely the lens. The other kit lens doesn't do it.
I want the Minolta mirror reflex (think mid-grade telescope here... Not the long ones, the big fat round ones) 500mm fixed lens for airshows. I don't think I'll have the $ saved up before OSH but I have a family member who has one who might let me borrow it.
People don't like the mirror lenses because of the ring-shaped bokeh they create when set up for low depth of field shots. This doesn't matter as much when shooting a blue or cloudy sky as the background. The lens also requires a metric crap-ton of light, also not a problem shooting things in the summer sky. The only downside is a 500mm lens on a cropped sensor camera is going to be a MEGA zoom and aiming is going to be "entertaining". High-speed broadside passes, well.. I'll probably have a lot of headshots.
The lens also has some vignetting at the corners, but that can either be an effect for some shots or cropped off digitally or fixed digitally later from the RAW file.
Camera geekiness. Like. Never get to spend enough time shooting to get really good. The Sony makes up for a lot of my shortcomings.
