Photo of the Day: July 4, 2016 – Blue Angels at National Cherry Festival

We’ll call this my “Blue Angels Take 2” series. Check out my “Take 1 Series” over here. For “Take 1,” I was at Bryant Park, and it’s the first time I tried taking Blue Angels pics.

For “Take 2” today – my second attempt – I was at the Open Space, which is a much better place to shoot photos. For one thing, it’s wide open, with not too many obstacles in the way, save for a few boat masts and such. And while I know the Blue Angels do a good job of spending time in each part of West Bay, I feel like there are more opportunities for fly-by photos at the Open Space.

I still have no idea what I’m doing, but think “Take 2” shows some improvement over “Take 1.” My strategy (as in “Take 1”) is to try and focus on a space in the sky, then wait for the planes to fly through the shot.

I noticed the other photographers (and there were a lot at the spot where I parked myself) were mostly looking through their viewfinder (the tiny window you look through) as opposed to the “live view” (the big window), which is what I was using. My reasoning is that with “live view,” I can sort of keep an eye on where the planes are in the sky and be ready for them to come into my “live view.”

I need to work on how to focus on the planes, because half the time they were flying by up close, I couldn’t get a good focus with my camera and missed the shot. Really, I just need to spend some time studying the manual and playing with the settings.

I did find that the “sports” setting worked pretty well, because it takes photos for as long as you hold your finger on the shutter button. So if I was able to focus in on the planes, I’d just follow them in the sky while holding down the shutter button. Needless to say, I shot about 800 photos during the hour or so they were in the sky. About 10 percent of the photos were worthwhile. But I’m learning.

I also noticed that a lot of the other photographers had wide angle lenses, so I’ll have to check into that for next time.

Photographers Note: I used my Canon EOS Rebel T6i with EFS 55-250mm lens with image stabilizer.