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Skydiving

John Harper

New member
Hi There

Well i suppose this is sports related?.. it certainly qualifies on the bodies in motion section. 2 Shots taken today at Duxford in Cambridge in the UK. They had an open day celebrating the 50th anniversary of the "Battle of Britain Memorial Flight". Part of the display was a skydive by the RAF Falcons parachute display team. The cloud was pretty low and had only just broken in places when they jumped. They did their "flat display" jumping from around 2,500 feet.

Why anyone jumps out of perfectly serviceable aircraft is beyond me.... but i was pleased with a couple of the shots I made from the ground looking up.

Tech details - EOS 1DMKIIN - 400mm F5.6L - ISO 400 - 1/1600 @ 5.6

Comments and critiques welcome.

John

falconsexit1.jpg


falconsstack1.jpg
 

Ray West

New member
Hi John,

Are these cropped much? Interesting that you have shown the plane 'pointing down'. There should be no inherent direction in that shot, it depends on simply the angle you held the camera, afaik. But, it doesn't work so well with it pointing up, but to the left looks OK, but not to the right. What do you think?

I'm quite happy with the props, btw.

Best wishes,

Ray
 

John Harper

New member
Hi John,

Are these cropped much? Interesting that you have shown the plane 'pointing down'. There should be no inherent direction in that shot, it depends on simply the angle you held the camera, afaik. But, it doesn't work so well with it pointing up, but to the left looks OK, but not to the right. What do you think?

I'm quite happy with the props, btw.

Best wishes,

Ray


Hi Ray

In answer to your questions the 1st shot of the plane is full frame and it had just passed right above me, i turned round and shot it as it was heading away from me hence pointing down, which to be honest i had not thought about until you mentioned it, There was no pre conceived idea that the plane should look as though as it was heading down, just luck where i was stood on the crowd line.

2nd shot is not quite full frame i did crop out a canopy in the top R-H corner of the frame as i thought it was a bit distracting. But apart from pretty much full frame with the 400mm.

John
 

Ray West

New member
Dare I say this... I think the props are not rotating, the engines are turned off, plane gliding down slowly, so that the guys, who appear to have only one of their leg mounted rocket motors operating, have a fighting chance of catching up with it...

The camera does lie...

Best wishes,

Ray
 

Tim Gray

New member
Efficient dive operations require that air time be minimized. After the last jumper is out the plane goes nose down and (depending on how high the jumpers were) can actually get to the ground before the last jumper.
 

John Harper

New member
The CREW (canopy relative work) shot is great!

Hi Tim

Thanks for the kind words and glad you like the shot.

I was able to get one more shot just before they were directly overhead, again showing the "canopy relative work" and i post it below.

I seem to remember many years ago where the jumpers would land on the persons canopy below them and hook their feet into the canopy lines and slide down them.

Is that frowned upon now? as i imagine you could collapse the guys canopy below you and then he would be in real trouble. Don't know if you can throw any light on that.

Anyway it was an enjoyable display just wish the cloud cover was higher and they could have jumped from a higher altitude. Still there is always the next one.

John

falconstack2.jpg
 

Dave New

Member
From my son, who was in the 82nd Airborne, and saw action in Desert Storm: "If you land on someone's canopy, you have only a couple of seconds to run, as fast as you can off of that canopy, before it 'steals your air' and causes your canopy to collapse. At that point, you will drop through your buddy's canopy, turning both of you into 'dirt darts'."

Mind you, these were LALO (low altitude low opening) "paratrooper" type jumps, with round 'chutes, but with a pretty crowded sky, usually several dozen jumpers at a time, exiting the rear side door of the transport plane (it's a myth that anyone jumps from the rear ramp, although some exhibition jumps have been performed and photographed that way -- the rear ramp is reserved for equipment drops, not humans).

Also, as any paratrooper will tell you, they'd much rather jump from a 'perfectly good airplane' (there's no such thing, I am told) than land in it. That's because the jump pilots have much more experience landing an empty transport plane than one filled with paratroopers...
 
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