B-25 “Photo Fanny”
Nikon D80 10-24mm @ 22mm ISO 800 1/20 f/8 Lr4; PsCS6
“Photo Fanny”, a B-25J, was assembled in 1944 and is part of the collection at the Planes of Fame Air Museum, and flies from their hanger at the Chino, California airport. Photo Fanny has also been known as “Shangrila” and “Betty Grable” and was flown in the 1992 motion picture “Foreever Young” and the 2001 motion picture “Pearl Harbor”, flying off of the carrier USS Constellation.
Prints of this and other aircraft are available here: http://goo.gl/zZohQ .
N3N Trainer
Nikon D7000 10–24mm @ 22mm ISO 2500 1/6 f/18 Lr4; PsCS6
A United States Navy N3N Canary training biplane in the collection of the Palm Springs Air Museum. This aircraft was manufactured by the U.S. Navy, from Wikipedia:
The N.A.F. delivered 997 N3N aircraft beginning in 1935. They included 180 N3N-1s and 816 N3N-3s. Four N3N-3s were delivered to the United States Coast Guard in 1941. Production ended in January 1942 but the type remained in use through the rest of World War II. The N3N was the last biplane in US military service – the last (used by the U.S. Naval Academy for aviation familiarization) were retired in 1961. The N3N was also unique in that it was an aircraft designed and manufactured by an aviation firm wholly owned and operated by the U.S. government (the Navy, in this case) as opposed to private industry. For this, the Navy bought the rights and the tooling for the Wright R-760 series engine and produced their own engines. These Navy built engines were installed on Navy built airframes. A Navy N3N was used as a crop sprayer in Alfred Hitchcock’s film North by Northwest though after impact with the fuel tanker the wreckage is seen to be a Boeing Stearman.
Prints of this and other aircraft are available here: http://goo.gl/zZohQ .
The “Aluminum Falcon”
Nikon D7000 10-24mm @ 10mm ISO 1250 1/2 f/18 Lr4; PsCS6
A Consolidated Vultee PBY-5A Catalina, in the collection of the Palm Springs Air Museum, Palm Springs, California. This aircraft was manufactured in 1944 and saw service in the United States Navy. After the war it was decommissioned by the Navy and was operated by various commercial operators in the greater Pacific area. On September 30, 1955 the Catalina had to make a forced landing in the Pacific Ocean, 275 miles west of San Francisco. It was recovered by ship and rebuilt in Long Beach, California in 1956 and later was operated as a fire suppression tanker in Washington state. It was acquired by the Palm Springs museum in 2007 and is still airworthy.
Prints of this and other aircraft are available here: http://goo.gl/zZohQ .
The Corsair
Nikon D7000 10-24mm @ 22mm ISO 2500 3-bkts f/18 Lr3, HEP1, TpzAdj; PsCS5
This is the Vought F4U Corsair that is in the collection of the Palm Springs Air Museum, Palm Springs, California. The Corsair was the first United States single engine fighter aircraft to exceed 400 miles per hour. Between 1940 and 1952 12,571 Corsairs were produced. During the World War II the Corsair flown by the United States Navy and Marine Corps out flew the Japanese Zero and had a kill ratio of 11:1 against enemy aircraft. The Corsair was armed with .30 and .50 caliber machine guns, carried bombs and rockets. Major Gregory “Pappy” Boyington and his “Black Sheep” squadron flew the Corsair and Boyington was credited with 22 enemy kills in the Corsair. This artifact, like others in the Palm Springs Air Museum is airworthy and is still periodically flown.
During post processing I used the Photoshop Content-Aware Fill and Clone tools to remove distracting elements and re-build part of the lower right quadrant of the image. I also used Topaz Adjust to get more punch out of the colors and to soften out the noticeable grain that resulted from the high ISO.
Fighter & Bomber Restoration
Nikon D80 10-24mm @ 22mm ISO 800 1/20 f/8 (-2.0 0.0 +2.0) Lr3 HDR Efex Pro
This is the Friedkin restoration hanger at the Planes of Fame air museum, Chino Airport, Chino, California. In the foreground a Canadair F-86-E fighter is being restored, the aircraft behind it seems to be a North American B-25 undergoing restoration. Canadair was the Canadian licensee for the manufacture of the F-86, which was originally developed by North American Aviation. As with many of the other aircraft exhibited at the Planes of Fame, the F-86 is being restored to total airworthiness and will be part of the flying collection in the future.
There was quite a difference in contrast between the dark interior of the hanger and its outside walls which I ended up burning in using control points in Nik HDR Efex Pro.
Walter The Warthog & General Sherman
Nikon D80 10-24mm @ 20mm IS0 200 1/45 f/11 (-2.0 0.0 +2.0) HDR Efex Pro Lr3
In addition to aircraft in varying states of repair, the Planes of Fame museum collection at the Chino Airport, Chino, California includes various mechanized vehicles of the ground hugging kind. Walter The Warthog appears to be an M3 /M5 (Stuart) Light Tank, on his starboard side is a verified M4 (Sherman) Tank that is still fully functional. The M3 was manufactured in the United States and used two Cadillac radial motors, it’s main gun was a 37mm cannon and it also had five Browning .30-06 machine guns. The Stuart tank was first used by the British in World War II and they nicknamed it “Stuart” after the U.S. Confederate General J.E.B. Stewart. The M3 was the first tank used by United States forces in World War II in tank to tank warfare. 22,743 of these tanks were produced by the United States.
A medium tank, the M4 (Sherman), so nicknamed by the British after Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, was the primary tank deployed by the United States during World War II, and was also distributed by the United States to its allies, the British and Russians. The M4 was equipped with a 75mm cannon as its main gun and the tank crew was able to fire this gun with reasonable accuracy while the tank was moving. 58,000 of these tanks were ultimately deployed.
I got more practice using my exposure correcting, color correcting and tone mapping skills with the Control Points in the Nik tool kit and in the case of this image also tested the effect of using a sharpening tool on the original raw images and then a sharpening tool on the final images prior to .JPG conversion from .TIF. Sharpness is one of my obsessions.
TLC In Blue
Nikon D80 10-24mm @ 24mm ISO 800 1/180 f/8 (-2.0 0.0 +2.0) Lr3 HDR Efex Pro
This is a Grumman F8F “Bearcat” receiving some tender loving care in the sunshine adjacent to the Fighter Rebuilders hanger at the Planes of Fame museum, Chino Airport, Chino, California. The Bearcat, one of the still flying aircraft exhibited at the museum, was developed in 1943/44 as a fighter interceptor designed specifically for carrier operations but was not deployed to the fleet by the United States Navy until after the end of the second world war in 1945. This aircraft is capable of lifting off the deck after a take off run of just 115 feet, and in 1972 a Bearcat broke its own record by achieving an altitude of 18,000 feet 91.9 seconds after take off; in 1989 a Bearcat set the World Speed Record for piston driven aircraft at 528.33 mph.
In post processing this image, I am again reminded of a bad habit I have of getting so excited about an image in my viewfinder, that I lose the benefit of approaching the subject in a slow, deliberative manner, and in the case of this image forgot to adjust the ISO setting down from what I was using inside of a hanger making the previous shots. The result is a bit of unwanted grainy effect in parts of the aircraft fuselage, elevator and tail.
Peashooter
Nikon D80 10-14mm @ 10mm ISO 800 1/4 f/8 3-Bkts Lr3 HDR Efex Pro Viveza
The aircraft in the foreground is a Boeing P26A “Peashooter”, this is a fully functional (and still flying) former military aircraft in the collection of the Planes of Fame (air) Museum located at the Chino Airport, Chino, California. The Peashooter was developed in 1932 and was the first all metal, monoplane pursuit fighter placed in to service by the United States Army Air Corps.
The thin red “line” that seems to be bisecting the fuselage at the mid-point in this image is actually an aircraft warning flag attached to the leading edge of the wing (not an aberration in the image file).
I am not actually happy with the sharpness of this image. I seemed to be having some focus issues while on this shoot, I believe I need to improve my skills with the autofocus function in the camera, insuring that I lock it on the correct focus points.
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