2010 Sun 'N Fun Air Show and Fly-In

This year I was invited by one of my friends and oldest clients to fly down the the annual air show in Lakeland, Florida known as Sun 'N Fun. The weather was a mixed bag eventually ending in rain, but some of the time it was beautiful.

I work with Dan Ritter on the popular BugBand insect repellent products that can be found in many stores across the US and in select countries across the world. The stuff really works to protect you against mosquitoes and other pesky insects. Find out more at www.BugBand.net.

Even though this is the 2nd largest air show in the US, the crowds have been noticeably dwindling from the first time I went 5 years ago. The amount of unique airplanes showing up has dropped too. The downturn in the economy has really made it hard for some people to make the trip.

There were lots of of things on the ground to photograph and many nice people all shared the same language... "airplane."

Imagine the damage the guns below could do...

If there's time to lean, then there's time to clean.

 This photo shows the scale of these amazing machines.

Because of this, they had the same air show program running many days in a row. I got fewer unique photos because I was shooting the same thing each day.

The Air Force Thunderbirds were quite good and the snuck up on me a few times almost making me jump during one of their low-altitude high-speed passes. Awesome!

VVVRROOOOOM!!!!

 

Anyway, this was the first year I took my new Canon 5D Mark 2 with me and that was probably a mistake. While the 5D is a great camera for just about any other situation, I prefer my crop body camera such as the Canon 40D or the Canon 7D because they have higher frame per second rates, better focusing and a 1.6X zoom factor.

Without getting too technical, that makes my 400mm zoom lens act like a 640mm zoom. If I use a 2X multiplier, I can get even closer to the action. That would have been useful for the scene above.

I love the explosions they set off for the crowd!

The Russian Yaks above were out in force... The photos below shows what happens right on the edge of the sound barrier.

My thought was I could use  the Canon 5D's massive file size to grab the photo and them crop into the part of the photo that I wanted in the final crop. The crop below is about 1/4 of the full photo. Not great for enlargements.

The weather was getting downright gloomy by Saturday afternoon robbing me of valuable light for the photos.

The weather was getting downright gloomy by Saturday afternoon robbing me of valuable light for the photos.The weather was getting downright gloomy by Saturday afternoon robbing me of valuable light for the photos. To see the full 2010 Sun N Fun  photo gallery click here...

I have been going to this air show with the same people for many years and I value their friendship and camaraderie even more than the airplanes... and that is high praise.

This year I even treated myself to a biplane ride around the airport. It so much fun and I wanted to keep going... That's me hoping my glasses don't fly off in the wind stream...