Went out last Saturday in the Waco and did some air-to-air photography work with Glenn Watson at Machpointone Aviation. I know I'm a bit biased, but I thought the pics turned out great...and the formation work was fun as well. Highly recommend Glenn for you Texas guys - he does great work and is really easy to work with - even for a newbie to air-to-air photography like me.

Enjoy!

Nice shots CK. Glenn's a lot of fun to work with. It looks like you're doing pretty good with the formation flying!

Stunning photos. Drooling
Way too cool

I really enjoyed it, Jack. Wish I had more opportunities to practice. The stationkeeping was OK, but I was challenged a bit by the 'poses'...slips in formation etc. I kept either falling behind in the slip or tailing out and away or behind and across the camera ship. Then it was a goat rodeo to straighten up, catch up, and set the shot up again. I was pretty tired after an hour or so of work - but the good kind of tired, right?

That first photo really looks cool with the colors reflecting off the side.

Those photos look fantastic! You need to blow the first one up and have it framed.

Excellent camera work!

Beautiful plane. Beautiful photos.

CK Awesome photos! Glenn is an excellent photographer and definitely has a unique gift.

Awesome pics!
Well done!


I am glad I dont have those enlarged and framed in my office.
I would not get any work done.

Awesome photos, and what an awesome Waco! What shutter speed does he use to blur the props? Does anyone know what kind of lens is best? Image stabilizing?

CK, they are beautiful. Sorry I missed you and Joe Sasser when you came by Pecan a few months ago. You ought to bring it over to our airshow here at Pecan Plantation on September21st.

I agree. Those are gorgeous pictures!

Have you taken formation training?




I don't know for certain, but I'm a pretty serious amateur photographer so I can guess a little bit.

Shutter speeds around 1/45 will get prop blur like that, depending on how fast the prop is turning.

I'd guess the focal length was in the neighborhood of 120mm. At a focal length like that, image stabilization is helpful. The rule of thumb is that you can hand hold a lens at a shutter speed that's 1/focal length or faster. So if you're zoomed out to 120, you need a shutter speed of about 1/120s to hand hold your lens.

Of course, at 1/120s, props are pretty much stopped.

I'm not versed at all on the photography techniques used...Glenn is the real deal and has a great back catalogue. Check out his website.

We flew mostly northwest into a setting sun to allow the light to hit the full side of the Waco. As in all formation work, lots of briefing beforehand so no surprises in the air. All worked as plan - they dropped me off right outside of Arlington's airspace at 9pm, as requested, and we were in the hangar right at full dark. Only annoyance was the 12 knot crosswind on landing, but this is a pretty forgiving airplane and it all worked out fine.

This is a lot of fun - I highly recommend it. Not only do you stretch some as a pilot, but you get a great keepsake in the pictures!

If you're unfamiliar with formation work, Glenn has pilots who can ride with you and handle the close-in work. Now, he's banging on me to do the Baron. Hmmmmm......

Shutter speeds around 1/45 will get prop blur like that, depending on how fast the prop is turning.