Sunset Near the Airport

Yesterday evening, after a day with the family, the clouds were setting up for a promising sunset.  Since the airport isn’t too far away and the sun is getting closer to lining up with the end of the runway, I wanted to get some planes against the nice backdrop of a gorgeous sunset.

This proved to be more difficult than I had anticipated. My assumption was that there would be a stream of planes constantly landing which would make it easy to get one right where I wanted when I wanted it.  This wasn’t the case.  The frequency of planes was quite sporadic and the sun moves pretty quickly at the end of the day.  Also, there isn’t really a great place to setup.   I did find a legal place to park which was a bit low so I had to get creative.   I setup the focus and camera settings for the lighting but the angle was wrong.  So, I ended up with the tripod on top of my car, extended as tall as I could make it, while I stood on the seats with half my body out the sunroof.    The post-shot viewfinder about 4 feet above my head was all I could use to verify things were just right.  Minor framing adjustments were made by moving the tripod legs.  I couldn’t tell when a plane was in-frame.  A bit of spray and pray helped with that. 🙂

This plane shot above would be sweet if it was taken 1/2 second sooner, putting the plane at the top left corner.   I’m going to have to get back and try again next time we have a promising sunset!