Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX, KPHX)

[F-16_fixer]

U.S. Airways Airbus A319 by Chris Heising, on Flickr

[Jeff D. Welker]

Not sure this is the right place, but here is one from Dad's archives. The ANG at Sky Harbor circa 1958. They had a ton of those ugly (sorry) F-86D's. This photo was taken looking due west.

[Bubak]

[Bubak]

[Jeff D. Welker]

Terrific photographs Kaspar. I am especially fond of the UPS image. The downtown skyline in the background makes for an excellent composition.

As some of you know, I have been experimenting with slow shutter speed panning on arrivals at PHX for a while now. Besides my shaky hands, the 3/4 final approach shots have been the most difficult for me to catch in focus. I finally decided to try different f/stops to see if I could find a sweet spot that improved my keeper rate. Initially it appears that the smaller apertures help. While I've known for years that this works well for landscape images, I had not considered it for dynamic photography (yes, I'm slow). This particular image was shot at f/11 and 1/125th. Not sure if I've found a cure or if I just got lucky. As the scientist's say, more research is required.

[Jonathan Navarro]

G-BNLF

SPEEDBIRD 289 by Jonathan Navarro, on Flickr

AUREUS VOLUCRIS by Jonathan Navarro, on Flickr
Some other sunset arrivals.

N637AW by Jonathan Navarro, on Flickr

L.J. by Jonathan Navarro, on Flickr

N824AW by Jonathan Navarro, on Flickr

[Jonathan Navarro]

Took my monopod on my last spotting trip to try some panning shots. This photo was the only one that came out decent.

TRIALS AND ERRORS by Jonathan Navarro, on Flickr

[Jonathan Navarro]

Was spotting at terminal 2 and while waiting for the next aircraft to land I was on my phone. I looked up and was shocked to see this UPS 767-300 right in front of me! I've been wanting to get a photo of a UPS 767-300 with the winglets and this day just happened to be my lucky day!!

GOLDEN BEAUTY by Jonathan Navarro, on Flickr

[Jonathan Navarro]

A beautiful scene that will soon be gone with the days getting much shorter.

ONEWORLD by Jonathan Navarro, on Flickr

[Jonathan Navarro]

A fellow spotter informed that some F-5's were going to be taking off from Sky Harbor and I just happened to be going on that day. These F-5's are from VMFT-401 based out of MCAS Yuma. I waited an hour and a half for these guys to depart. The photo is backlight but I was happy and surprised to see that they took off in formation!

SNIPERS ON THE MOVE by Jonathan Navarro, on Flickr

[Jonathan Navarro]

A special image for my 500th Flickr upload...

MY 500th FLICKR UPLOAD by Jonathan Navarro, on Flickr

[Scott Youmans]

AWA 737-300 - April 1997 - Nothing too noteworthy here.  Playing around with noise reduction in Lightroom to see how it handles grain from scanned film, this was ISO 400 print film.  Works pretty well but it does knock out some detail with the excessive amount I used in this case.  I also slid the "Clarity" control to the left a bit which gave a little glow.  Looked pretty good going a touch the other way as well.

[Jay Beckman]

Looks rather "Welker-esque" Scott...

Looks like you got a nice, clean scan!  Did you WAIN that right into LR?

[Jeff D. Welker]

I love the subtle painterly effect of your scanned image Scott. It doesn't hurt that I'm a fan of the old AWA paint scheme.

One of the main reasons I'm venturing back into film is something I've been seeing in scans like Scott's. The transitions in tonalities and light seem much smoother in a analog image compared to a digital file. Maybe its just a defect in my vision, but I see a difference - especially in black and white images. Not that I don't like digital photographs, quite the contrary, it is just that I love the almost 'glossy' tonalities I find in analog. It's as if the modern digital camera sensor captures light with sharper/contrasty transitions compared to analog film. Of course I can't back any of my conjecture up with science, it is just what my eyes see and how my brain tries to make sense of it.

My hope is to strike a happy medium with analog negatives that are scanned for some LR/PS massaging and printed via inkjet. A hybrid method that lets me play at both ends of the photographic field. All that being said, I don't anticipate trying to photograph Super Hornets launching at full AB with my Hasselblad 500CM. While some of our ranks could probably pull that off, I'm not one of those folks. That is what my 5D3 and 7D are for 

[Scott Youmans]

Jay, This was scanned many years ago into Photoshop with a Nikon Super Coolscan 9000 ED, a pretty decent scanner.  I just happened to come across it and thought I'd see what Lightroom would do. The grain in the original is terrible simply due to the 400 speed print film.  Between the smoothing effect of the noise reduction and the other tweaks it does have a "Welker-esque" look which I like.