We're having hot and windy weather and many many fires.
Caught these as they get closer and closer to home.
As I hear the approach I charge to the table, grab the K10D and in the dodging the sliding door extend the zoom to 320, check the light, dial correction and seek the heli - quite fun ofcourse.
Thks
George

[sawtooth235]

George,

We get buzzed by the Navy Resue guys all the time here in Orange Park. It is great fun to try to get a good shot of one. I haven't really succeeded yet.

Here is one I took with an old Vivitar 300mm f5.5.



Ray

[Clarkey]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3093/2596906740_e29dde3c22_b.jpg

Likewise - hard to get good shots when they move in quickly......

[georgecape]

I do see the difference in sharpness. I must conclude the FA 80-320 does seem soft at 320. But in the heat of the moment (heli approaching rapidly) my last thoughts are to pare down to 280mm. I need to practice some......

But thks for yr sharp and very colourful contributions.
George

[gawan]

nice documentary photos, George!

[daacon]

Good timing hope the fires are under control.

[georgecape]

Thanks Georg and Dave.
Like a miracle it started raining - thunder and lightning whilst the helicopters were still working!

Its still hot but fresh and peaceful today.
George

[roentarre]

This is incredible to see helicopters of all kinds in the fire rescue.

Great series here

[heliphoto]

We're having hot and windy weather and many many fires.
Caught these as they get closer and closer to home.
As I hear the approach I charge to the table, grab the K10D and in the dodging the sliding door extend the zoom to 320, check the light, dial correction and seek the heli - quite fun ofcourse.
Thks
George

Cool shots George. Those two are Bell 205s (or potentially the military version of the same aircraft - the UH1-H "Huey"). Funny paint job for South Africa yeah? Makes me want to make up the word "Expatriotic". That's a nice bucket that "stars and stripes" has there - those ones are adjustable on the fly, so as you burn off fuel and get lighter, you can open up the bucket more to pick up more water. Here in the US we'd not get away with flying the bucket on that short line - it would either have to be belly hooked (the boxy control head connected directly to the belly hook) or long-lined on at least a 50ft. line. - on that short line he's got there there's more potential for the bucket to be blown by adverse winds/rotor wash into the tail rotor with catastrophic consequences (it's been known to happen).

Shot 3 looks best to me, thought they all show a lot of jpeg compression (saved at a low quality setting?)

George,

We get buzzed by the Navy Resue guys all the time here in Orange Park. It is great fun to try to get a good shot of one. I haven't really succeeded yet.

Here is one I took with an old Vivitar 300mm f5.5.

Ray

This one's a Eurocopter Dauphin (AS365 or in this case the US Coast Guard variant the HH-65). It's operated by the US Coast Guard for SAR (search and rescue) and I'm sure other missions. Those are pretty fast (for a helicopter) so I'm not surprised it's a challenge to track and focus on them - nice shot.

Thanks Georg and Dave.
Like a miracle it started raining - thunder and lightning whilst the helicopters were still working!

Its still hot but fresh and peaceful today.
George

Gah! The the rain is sure good to put out the fire, but the lightning can be bad for the helicopters . Scary stuff thunderstorms...

I've always know I was photographed at work, but now I'm gonna be self conscious .

[georgecape]

Thks heliphoto, this is such an awesome forum that we can even chat to the pilots.
Thks also for the technical input and for mentioning the compression. I have been wondering about that because the A4 photo is really nice and sharp but the screen shot is not. I'll adjust in LR and check the effect. I'm working on keeping the kilobytes low for mailing to my friends but this may not be smart?
I need to apologise for blaming the 80-320?

I love planespotting at our local airfield and twice the pilots have opened their doors to wave at me as they taxi in.

Anyways, to all fire fighting pilots out there you are really hardworking heroes and we salute you.
George