June 6th, 2009

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Manitowoc Balloon Rally

Saturday, June 6th, 2009
Hot Air Balloon

Hot Air Balloon

Today I attended my first balloon rally – a small one in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Part of the Manitowoc Air Show, the balloon rally featured six balloons, lifting off from the Manitowoc County Airport.

While not big in size, this rally offered the opportunity to be up close and personal with the balloons and their crews. This gave me the opportunity to try out a number of photo opportunities, including being able to photograph the balloons as they were being inflated.

It was an early start though – the balloon prepping started at 5:30 AM, and since Manitowoc is a little more than an hour away from Milwaukee, it was an early start for me. Seeing the balloons lift off and drift away made it all worthwile.

Click here to see more photos of the balloon rally.

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Picture of the Month – May 2009

Saturday, June 6th, 2009

I’m a little late posting my picture of the month for May – but better late than never.

Picture of the Month - May 2009

Picture of the Month - May 2009

Given that I spent quite a bit of May experimenting with High Speed Flash Photography, it’s only right that my picture of the month should reflect that.

So with that in mind, I picked this picture to represent a number of attempts to freeze a moment in time.

I’m using my homebuilt sound detector (described here) to trigger a flash in a darkened room. The sound that triggers everything is the pellet gun (shown here), firing a pellet at around 400 feet/second directly into the water balloon.

In order to get as crisp a picture as possible, I’m using a Vivitar 283 flash on its shortest duration of 1/30,000 second – keeping the shutter on my camera open for a couple of seconds as I fire the pellet gun.

To see pictures of the month from previous months, click here.

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