Yes, yes, there’s no Photo of the Week this week. With the holiday, and the big shoots of the Blue Angels on both Friday and Sunday, I simply haven’t had the chance to process through all the new images — over 1000 frames just this weekend!

Monday of next week will be Blue Angel Monday though, and I’ll spotlight the seven images from the Blue Angels show this weekend that I’ve been working on. Maybe I’ll even get energetic and go for more than seven! 🙂

Today was our day at the St. Louis County Fair and Air Show. Alas, as we learned today, this will be the last one. The land around the airport has grown in value, and has been sold, so there’s no room for all the parking needed for event in the future. Bummer.

Beck and I went down to the fair around 11 or so, marveled at the lack of traffic, and parked Smokey. We were directed to busses to get us to the event, as we were over a mile away. That wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, but that seemed like a good idea, so we lugged cameras, bag chairs and a sack of bottled water into the event. After a short ride, and a pass through security, we were on the grounds, and started looking about.

As we had hours until the air show, we wandered around the static displays. There were all kinds of aircraft there, including a Nazi aircraft of some kind. I thought it was a mock up, but right there on the end of the wing was what appeared to be a vintage manufacturers plate, complete with serial number. Weird bird, that one was!

After a hour or so, and realizing that there was little shade in sight, we decided that frying in our own fat probably wasn’t terribly good for us, so we departed and headed to Red Robin for some equally — but differently! — bad-for-us food. Hamburgers and malts later, we were in the parking lot at the Commons. We talked with another air show fan for an hour or so, and finally saw the Blue Angels doing their thing.

We watched them go to and fro, and while I’m sure the crowd at the airstrip were getting a great show, I was more than pleased with the treat I was getting from the parking lot in the valley. I was firing shot after shot, and every once in a while, I’d take my eye away from the camera to marvel at what these guys were doing. It was during one of these lulls that I almost dropped $4k of camera gear onto the parking surface.

I was watching a group of four of the Blue Angels, when quietly, from behind, one seemingly came out of nowhere, buzzing the parking lot. To say it startled me is putting it mildly! I was shaking for a full minute after he went by, and once he was gone, you could hear the sound of dozens of car alarms he’d set off with the vibration from his pass. That was exhilarating!

So, it was a great shoot, and a shame that we won’t have the Blue Angels in the valley again. I think that leaves the nearest air show at Scott AFB, which is easily 60 miles from here. I’m sure it’ll be good, but there’s nothing like having America’s military might turning, edge on, right over your house!

I’ve thought about ditching my 100-400mm lens in favor of one or more prime lenses. There’s a lot of reasons that would be good — less compromise in the construction, theoretically sharper images, and generally faster. And then I remember why I wouldn’t want to drop that lens from my bag.

Today, the Blue Angels were practicing for the St. Louis County Fair being held this weekend. And as I went home from work, they began their work, and every head on the road was turned upwards. After a quick call from Becky, I headed back in to the valley so I could get a better look from just outside the airport. And that’s when the value of this lens hit me.

With a single lens, I went from group shots nearly overhead to isolating a single airport nearly overhead. That kind of versatility just isn’t there in a prime. So, the 100-400 lives to see another day.

That’s not to say that I wouldn’t like some primes in my corral. I think they serve a marvelous purpose, especially in situations where the subject isn’t flying at several hundred miles an hour, anywhere from just meters off the deck to thousands of meters overhead. 🙂 That’ll be down the road a bit. Gotta figure out how Canon’s new bodies affect me!!!!

When I said the upcoming 40D was attracting my attention, I was right, but I didn’t know there was a bigger shark in the waters. Enter the 1Ds Mk III. Alan Hess wrote about it overnight, and man does it sound sweet!

With this camera, Canon starts to push the envelope of the resolution (at least megapixel-wise) of the medium-format digital backs, coming in at twenty-one megapixels! And, smartly, they included UDMA access to the CF, so writes will happen at the blazing speeds the new generation of CF will support. Basically take all the good new stuff of the 1D Mk III, put a full size sensor in it, and you’ve got the 1Ds Mk III.

Camera lust has no bounds……

Thanks to a little snafu at Amazon, and some quick reporting by Alan Hess, it appears that Canon is about to release a new body for the rest of us. A quick review…

The Rebel XTi was relased earlier with a 10Mp sensor that didn’t exist in any other Canon body. In the last month or so, the 1D Mk III was released (10fps, shoot-through-the-lcd, self-cleaning sensor). Marry those two, and you get the 40D, more or less: 10Mp self-cleaning sensor, shoot-through-the-lcd, 7.5fps, and a 3″ LCD.

Needless to say, this little thing has my attention as a replacement for my 20D — although the 20D would be my backup body, and probably Beck’s primary body, relegating the 10D to emergency shooting, or for Beck if I’m out and about with the 20D and 40D. I’ve had my 20D for over 2½ years, which is a long time for me, and I wouldn’t feel real bad about upgrading after close to three years on the same body.

The body is supposed to be released in September (according to Amazon’s slip up), so I’ve got a while to ponder this. I really am still dazzled by both the 5D ($2500) and the 1D MK III ($4500), but am also dazzled by the price tag of either of those bodies. The estimate $1300 price for the 40D is much, much more palatable!

I was watching the news this morning, and heard of the second mine cave-in in Utah, and the resulting deaths and injuries from that. That is a horrible tragedy.

However, it’s not that specifically that’s got my muse abuzz this morning. In the video shown on the news, there’s what appears to be a mother and daughter, both very distressed, that just arrived at the scene. And running beside them, slightly ahead, is some jerk with a big camera rig in front of his face and another on his hip, shooting away as he runs alongside these folks, trying hard to capture their anguish. The video then broke to wherever these folks were headed. The family was all together, hugging and crying…. and lit up like the sun from all the camera lights on them. Video cameras were churning and still photographers were clicking away, all jostling for position to try to get the shot and none of them — from what I could see — seeming to feel much remorse for the additional stress they were surely inflicting on this grieving family.

Yeah, I know, Mr. Irony is close at hand: if someone hadn’t been shooting video of this, I would’ve never seen it. Trust me, I can live without hearing the wailing cries of a family who has lost a loved one in a disaster, and would’ve been just as informed about the news of the event with the exploitation of the survivors.

Folks, this is insane, disrespectful, and just downright rude — I’m not even sure I have all the right words to explain how disgusted I am with this behavior. A few days ago, Moose Peterson talked about some rude folks who were following (or actually, chasing) some bears through the woods near his home. I agree with his assessment of those folks. To me, though, this is an even higher level of rude, and I suspect there’s a special level in the fires below for folks that play the game this way, and exploit folks in this particularly public manner, merely in the name of getting a story, getting it first and making it as sensational as possible.

And that’s why I don’t shoot photojournalistically!