I had a great time photographing the aerial performers at the Pikes Peak Regional Air Show in Colorado Springs, Colorado. I used my Nikon Z9 and 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 Nikkor Z lens for all of these shots. Be sure to tune in to this week’s episode of The Image Doctors podcast to hear about my gear and settings, and a little bit about how I processed these images. Click on an image to enlarge it.
Every May we residents of Colorado Springs get treated to a performance by the US Air Force Thunderbirds precision aerial demonstration team. I photographed them with my Nikon D500 and 300mm f/2.8 AFS G VR Nikkor lens as they passed in front of Pikes Peak.
It’s not every day that Iron Maiden comes to town in their custom jet! I had the opportunity to watch the 747-400 “Ed Force One” arrive in Denver yesterday afternoon. For those of you unfamiliar with the jet, it’s piloted by the lead singer of the band, Bruce Dickinson, who’s a licensed commercial pilot.
Nikon D810 with 70-200mm f/4 AFS G VRII Nikkor
1/1000s f/5.6 ISO 64 (hand-held)
Colorado Springs is home to the United States Air Force Academy, and this week is graduation. To celebrate the event, a group of WWII aircraft from the Commemorative Air Force arrived in town on Monday. These beautifully restored aircraft were on public display, so I grabbed my Nikon D4, 16-35mm f/4 AFS G VRII lens and went to check it out. Shooting in mid-day light isn’t the best scenario, but I was able to use the D4 to capture ±2EV bracketed sequences in continuous high-speed advance mode at 10fps. I processed the images using HDR Efex Pro 2 and then finished the image in Color Efex Pro 4 (part of the Nik Collection).
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