rick_janes

Tonight is the eve of that tragedy's fortieth anniversary. Like Lex said above, I too heard and felt the impact under my feet while marching at Naval Training Center San Diego. None of us knew at that moment what happened. Ironically, we were all headed towards fire training to watch "Trial By Fire", a Navy documentary covering the fiery, horrific 1967 flight deck accident aboard the USS Forrestal. After the film we stepped outside and noticed an angry black smoke column rising east of us, and being carried west by the Santa Ana winds. Soon after we were informed of the jet crash into a residential neighborhood, and I imagined those scenes would have much in common with Forrestal's. Enough said. The next morning, Mr. Wendt's terrifying images dominated the newspaper boxes on base, and I for one have never, ever forgotten them. It seems almost like yesterday. Godspeed, PSA Flight 182 and to those who met you so unexpectedly on the ground at Niles & Dwight.

Jim, that thing is surprisingly well balanced and pretty okay in short handheld sessions. Focusing is trickier, but you can dangle a finger to adjust the focusing wheel...as long as it's zoomed to its furthest forward position (600mm). Zoomed back, the wheel cannot be reached from a typical handheld position. A beastiful beauty and total keeper.

Don't forget to exercise your T90 TODAY!

Rail operations are suspended during launch operations, but now a Surfliner continues its northbound journey.

Afterwards, all you've got is an autograph.

Go baby go! Hours of anticipation ends in about 60 seconds of excitement!

A Delta IV-Medium lofts NROL-49 skyward from SLC-6, aka "Slick Six". My distance is ~6 miles.

Amtrak southbound rolls into Surf station.

The rest are with an FD 150-600 L, hand-held. Yep, it's possible! My location is Surf Beach, west of Lompoc, California. The blue structure is Vandenberg AFB's Delta II launch site SLC-2W.

The following are on a roll of Ektar 100 in the Canon T90, this one with an FD 135/2.5 SC

Hoping to have some stuff to post up this week. I am struggling with the nearest film processor's work...his scans don't even capture the full image area and my careful cropping! And his prints look like they were rinsed in dirty dishwater. $$-=$%#%+!!! It might be time to stop patronizing this outfit (through the local camera store) and just mail it to North Coast Photo in San Diego.

Alex, I like your "life through a window" shots...very unusual, and nicely timed.

This is an extremely useful and educational reference: Ultimate Exposure Computer I've followed Fred's exposure guidance to very good effect when shooting with meter-less rangefinders. It's also a great tool for sanity checking ANY meter or lighting condition.

It's so great when our past experiences can be useful to others! Happy shooting, Sean!

Nina, to prevent underexposure be sure to meter your intended subject and not the neon lights.

Sean, I once experienced a similar failure almost immediately after replacing the battery. As it turns out, that new cell was a dud! Installing a truly fresh battery solved everything. Be sure you try this before proceeding.

Jim, I was shooting in the f/9.5 to f/11 range to milk a little more depth of field while still minimizing camera shake. It's interesting to read that #793 entered US Army duty in 1967. That bird is 50 years old! The quality of Swan Lab's scans is pretty iffy, and this batch did not impress AT ALL for the number of dust spots and artifacts. And this was the extra cost "high quality" service. It may be time to mail them somewhere versus dropping them off at the local shop.

I said overhead, right?

That 100-300 5.6L zoom was not the easiest thing to focus, still I was pretty happy with its results in this photojournalistic application!

Note the pair of firefighters standing just outside the drop zone. Brave!

Cal Fire's S-2 Turbo Tracker:

A CDF spotter craft choreographed this airshow.

Fixed wing support too, in this case a four-jet CDF plane.

His drops were water only, no retardant. All these photos are with the same camera and lens combo, without cropping.

793 makes many laps of this neighborhood!