Night flight with Darin.
Today was crummy and rainy most of the day but the terminal area forcasts (TAFs) said it would improve. It finally did. I drove out to the airpot at met Darin about 5pm. Darin rode along with me tonight since his airplane is taken apart. (He's currently doing some prepping for paint.) That worked out great so I could mess around with my camera.
I've been struggling with trying to get decent night pictures so I finally bought a more suitable lens. It is a Nikon AF-S 50mm f/1.8G Lens. Nothing super high end or anything but it should definately help with it's large aperature.
Everything I've read is that taking night pictures from airplanes is tough. Your best bet is to shoot in manual mode with the aperature wide open and the slowest shutter speed you can get away with. If the shutter is too slow, the pictures will just blur from the vibration. If the shutter is too fast, not enough light will get in and the pics will just be dark. Oh and you can up the ISO.
Well let's give it a go.
The Puyallup valley looking towards Tacoma.
The Auburn valley looking North.
Renton
Bellevue
Unfortunately by the time we passed downtown Seattle it had just gotten too dark. All my pictures were either too dark (faster shutter) or blurred (slower shutter).
All in all not too bad for the first attempt. It seems my best shot for good pictures (with my equipment at least) is going to be 30 minutes or so after the sun goes down. Dark enough so you can see all the lights, but not too dark. We'll see. :)
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