Thunderbirds Practice

Yesterday, I was over by the old Navy base in North Charleston and I heard the roar of jets overhead. I looked up and 5 F-16’s screamed across the sky. The telltale logo on the underside of the jets can’t be mistaken – the US Air Force Thunderbirds are in town!

Luckily, I had my camera with me and I quickly pulled over and waited. I started out shooting manually, and when I finally got the planes in frame in a really cool formation, I let the shutter rip. After they were out of frame, I checked the LCD and most of the shots stunk out loud. I had manually set everything beforehand, but I neglected to realize that as I panned the bright and sunny sky, the correct exposure changed drastically. I had to change my game plan and set the camera to Aperture Priority mode and the ISO to auto. Then the results started to vastly improve. At this point in my photographic journey, an F-16 is still a bit too fast to adjust to manually 😉