My primary observation from this event.
There were a lot of visitors out on the field both days! That was danged amazing! People with blankets to sit on and chairs and they were everywhere.
I expect we have our coordinator to applaud for this major action. It was very enjoyable to talk to people for whom this was their first large balloon event. I was stopped many times to be asked many questions about the event, balloons, people.... Even though it slowed my trek through the balloons taking pictures it was worth stopping and chatting. I really hope these folk come back out again.
Good job Charity and the team.
I didn't expect to be able to get out both days and day two looked real dicey there for a bit. I drove onto the field and parked on the edge of the Southern center road and prepped the video cameras inside the cab only to decide to move. Yeah.. I was watching a long flag on a truck East of me and it was seriously streaming South to North.
So I moved to the North end of the field and set up......and......the winds changed again..... I ended up exactly where I started from. I needed to have the truck there so that I could have the video cameras running looking North to catch the balloons coming towards and over... and do it securely as I didn't want to have to hover around the cameras.. I wanted to wander around the field.. so the best way to do that was to lock them in the truck and go wader. Too bad I didn't think that people would park in front of me and occlude my view... Oh well.. It was a side thing anyways.
Yesterday or Saturday I forgot my dual camera harness so I was juggling cameras.. today I had the harness and that made it easy to switch cameras. I had a heck of a good time with the 10.5 fisheye on the D300 camera. What I am going to post below are the take from that camera and lens. The shots are awesome.
Day 2 became an almost elevator day with steerage. It worked out for my nicely and I think the Pilots had a good time too. Yeah.. I didn't get to fly. but yeah... I usually don't off Fiesta Park unless its Fiesta.
Another thing.... The family of Adams balloons were out on the North West corner on the first day. I got some great up the throat shots.. Posting them first.. then some others... Here we go...
They are all Pop A Tops... yeah.. ask me about that sometime.... excellent time.
Then two of the new Adams local builds...
Not all that they have built at the new facility here in Albuquerque but some nice colors and designs.
One of the fun things about this fish eye is that it is so very fishy that you can get your own face in the shot unless you are very very careful.... I did it once. Had to get the shot and had to just be in the shot.
Other things it gets fun shooting.... and forget what up / down / left / right is....
Such a sweet spot on this Nikon lens. Oh.. and these are the shots just from Day 1. Many more to process. I grabbed my favorites.. and I will go abck and check through for others.
I didnt even load any of the D7100 with 18 200 mm lens.... Something like 1800 shots over two days.
Oh! I did get some good video on day one... Day two is a bit messy with vehicles in front of the cam and the windscreen reflected a lot of sunlight so its not so good... but I will do something with it .. some time....... something sometime...
Yeah...
I did get to spend some serious quality time with my granddaughter.... So is awesome too... noisy when she is wet or hungry .. but who wouldn't be.
Tomorrow is a holiday and I have some things to do but maybe I can get something other than F4 done.... hahaha.. I have high hopes!
If you are on my facebook friends list you will see some of the fisheye shots showing up from day two... and when I find that sweet spot of time I will upload them all to my website at
http://invisibleblack.zenfolio.com/
and sort them too! Lucky!
Have a wonderful Sunday evening and Monday if you ahve it off.. If your working.. sorry.. wish you weren't.
