Flying

Modern cameras are wonderful. Automatic exposures, automatic focus and shake reduction tempt one to mount a long zoom, point and shoot. I have been doing just that as I walked along the beach at Galveston snapping birds. The results were not very satisfactory. By taking lots of shots the law of averages came to my assistance and I was able to find some that were worth keeping. However, none captured the feelings I was hoping for. Last weekend, I thought about some of the basic photography principles that apply to the shots I was trying to take.

First, I was using a 70-210mm zoom lens set at maximum zoom. On the Pentax K10D this lens has the same properties as a 100-300 mm zoom on 35 mm film camera. For reasonable sharpness, the rule of thumb is to set the minimum shutter speed at 1/focal length. For my lens that should have been at least 1/300 of a second. In “automatic” mode my camera was setting the shutter speed to 1/250 of a second. That’s not a big difference if my subjects had not been moving but it was likely enough to cause some of the blurred details I was seeing. So last weekend I took back some control. I set the shutter speed to 1/500 of a second. I also increased the ISO setting from 100 to 200 so that the f-stop and depth of focus didn’t change. This guy is close to what I have been looking for.


I am in awe of the way the gulls are so at ease as they float on the sea breezes. Just a flick of a feather is enough to set them gliding over the waves to capture a different air current. High over the beach, frigate birds wheeled and turned last Sunday. They were just like so many U2 spy planes while lower down, squadrons of pelicans made effortless “Dawn patrols” along the shore line. They are all in total control of every puff of air. It is easy to understand why we are so fascinated by flight.

As I sat watching them I remembered a poem written in 1941 by an Anglo-American pilot who flew a Spitfire in England for the RCAF. This was before the USA entered WW II. He was killed a couple of months later in an air crash. President Regan quoted the ending stanza after the Challenger disaster, but the earlier lines capture the sheer exhilaration of flying. I know those birds feel that exhilaration.

High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air. Up, up the long delirious, burning blue, I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace Where never lark, or even eagle flew - And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod The high untresspassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee
No 412 squadron, RCAF, 1941