I got back from the Reno Air Races Sunday.  It was a fantastic time as always.  The air races are probably one of the few events in the world that has the amazing numbers of flying warbirds all in one place.  It’s pretty incredible to be standing on the ramp and see five P-51′s spin up their props and taxi out to the runway.  The shot above is a P-51 named Wee Willy II.  I took it after the sun dropped below the mountains that circle the airport.  This made for soft light on the airplane and wonderful colors in the clouds.

Well 2009 was pretty eventful I visited 2 more national parks, Grand Canyon and Yosemite.  Three of my images were published in David Busch’s Digital Photography Bucket List: 100 Great Digital Photos You Must Take Before You Die.  You should check it out.

Along those sames lines I was able to go out and shoot the Reno Air Races.  This was a trip on my own bucket list.  The image above was taken out on the pylons.  Shooting the racers is very challenging. The planes are moving fast but a slow shutter speed is required to not have stopped props.  So good panning technique is necessary for sharp images.  For this image I dusted off Silver Efex Pro applying a red filter to give drama to the sky.  Click the image above for a desktop size image.

As I get some more time I will start building collections of my Wildlife and Landscape images to my Zenfolio account for everyone to order.  I’ll update the blog as I add them.

Exp: 1/25s, f/8.0, ISO 200
Gear: Canon 40D, 17-55F2.8 @ 21mm

There are only a few things that can top a chance to spend a morning with a great sky photographing airplanes.  Clad in my bright yellow ramp vest to avoid getting run over by fuel trucks I got up close and personal with this F-15.  I photographed it with a wide angle lens to take in as much of the sky as possible and I got low and up close to the plane so that it was large in the frame and so the wings didn’t hide the peaks in the distance.  Even at 1/25th of a second I got a nice sharp image because of the image stabilized lens.

Over the last couple days I was able to go out to the National Championship Air Races in Reno, NV.  It was a great experience.  If you’re an aviation buff like I am and you haven’t been out to Reno make sure you get it on your list of things to do next year.  The aircraft on display and that race are like nothing you’ve probably seen before.  Between the corsair, bearcats and clip wing mustangs there’s something for everyone.  Since this was my first trip to Reno I was welcomed by the seasoned photographers many more than happy to share tips for the best places to stand.  I’m definitely never going to forget standing out on the pylon having 7 AT-6′s racing straight at me … yeah I got the picture.

Check the blog next week I should have a link to an album of the shots I took, right now I have about 3000 more images to go through.