All of us dream of something, we think to create something
new out of existing & we should never give up if you think it’s right and
you have the courage to chase it down and make it possible. I had clicked mergeshot of about 4hrs captured in Mumbai last year, which was just an idea that
how about putting all the planes which are taking off in one picture instead of
sharing individual picture of them.
Airplanes has been attraction for lots of people since beginning,
they don’t just carry people from one place to another but they also re-united
loved ones, connected cultures, expanded minds, opened up markets, saved lives,
and allowed people worldwide to dream of a bigger, brighter future and turn it
into a reality, it is the one of the
most amazing human invention ever – and in just about a period of 100 years
from first airplane of Wright brothers to latest and most advanced aircrafts
such as Airbus A350xwb which are capable of flying 16,300 km nonstop.
As an
aviation enthusiast & aviation photographer they always encourage me as
well as all of us and reminds that. You may seem all of us are divided but we're one family - aviation family.
"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." - Eleanor Roosevelt
Which inspired me to capture this picture. These days in India are monsoon season and we receive heavy rainfall which is required for all our water resources and farms. It’s kind of hard to find that sweet spot of weather these days when there is no rain or slight shower. It’s possess a high risk of getting your equipment wet in rain. I was lucky enough to make this shot possible in this un-predictable weather.
On 30th &
31st July 2017, me and my cousin (Anand Akole) decided to let’s give
a try to make a night merger shot of Pune Airport’s departures as the flights
takes off with their landing lights on which looks so beautiful as they
navigate through the cloud. We were pretty impressed with those new LED lights
of Airbus A320Neo which were so bright.
So to capture this kind of shot you require a good location from where you can get the good view of what you are trying to capture. We had to setup our camera on the bedroom window. We made this merge shot from 105 individual night exposure captured during 17hrs in total while we have total of 55 departures & 53 arrivals with total of 108 aircrafts arriving & departing in single picture.
So to capture this kind of shot you require a good location from where you can get the good view of what you are trying to capture. We had to setup our camera on the bedroom window. We made this merge shot from 105 individual night exposure captured during 17hrs in total while we have total of 55 departures & 53 arrivals with total of 108 aircrafts arriving & departing in single picture.
High Resolution : flickr.com
Since last 6-8 months we’ve seen increase in flights to and from Pune and flights now operate almost 24hrs a day connecting Indian cities as well as Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Frankfurt.
Pune is 10th busiest airport in India with about 46,932 flights a year.
“Do what is right, not what is easy nor what is popular.” - Roy T. Bennett
As quoted by Roy Bennett we
were about to give it a try to merge all the aircrafts landing & departing
out of here during 9pm to 5am duration. We knew we are about to attempt
something which is not easy but not impossible also. To make this possible you
must have some equipment such as tripod, remote release and ofcourse knowledge to
capture the photo just the way you wanted to. Also the highest number of flights in single merger i've ever captured.
To capture such shot it takes
lots of patience and giving up to sleep and stay awake all night just to ensure
you won’t miss any aircraft. While
capturing this photo I got great help of flightradar24 flight tracking app
which shows near real-time air traffic hence being one step ahead of what is
about to come to you & a digital remote release which found very necessary during
exposure shots as I found that it give more control over your exposure than
keep pressing the shutter button of the camera for such long duration and it
can also shake the camera which is not good.
Camera Settings :
While settings vary as per the distance and duration of the long exposure we required. Aircrafts usually takes about 2mins from the airport which is about 15kms distance, hence it goes out of my frame in 2mins or little more. So accordingly I was taking exposures of 2 min 45 sec to ensure entire flight is captured and we get little bit more margin to ensure we have the right picture (not underexposed nor over-exposed).
Camera Settings :
While settings vary as per the distance and duration of the long exposure we required. Aircrafts usually takes about 2mins from the airport which is about 15kms distance, hence it goes out of my frame in 2mins or little more. So accordingly I was taking exposures of 2 min 45 sec to ensure entire flight is captured and we get little bit more margin to ensure we have the right picture (not underexposed nor over-exposed).
Since light pollution is high in cities I had to increase my aperture to F11 to increase the duration of exposure while keeping ISO100 as its minimum.
While it was cloudy also and street lights were making the picture warm tone I had selected White Balance to CLOUDY.
Also you have make sure that you have TURN OFF – AutoFocus & Image Stabilizer. If your camera screen can be turned off, then it’s good for us as it will save battery as we don’t require screen if we are using digital remote which has its own display where we see the exposure time.
If you’re looking something to make similar also go through AstroPhotography tutorials which will give you good idea bout shooting in night.
Also read my post on lightning capture which has pretty much same technique - Click Here
If you require more details kindly mail me at me@devendra.one
Special thanks To Anand Akole & To each & everyone who supported me as always to make this shot possible and I hope you all will always be there. :)
If you require more details kindly mail me at me@devendra.one
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