Fighter Jet Photography at The Mach Loop.
This to me, has been the pinnacle of my photography career so far, photographing a fast jet at the Mach loop in Snowdonia. I have been to Snowdonia dozens of times since being a kid and marvelled at the beauty of its landscape. Also growing up I was always interested in aviation especially military jets and I attended lots of airshows up and down the country. With this history this shoot seemed the perfect thing to do. My aims were to capture a fast moving jet at low level, as close as I could possibly get and include some of the stunning landscape within the shot. I have been researching this kind of photography for a number of years now but never really had the best equipment for the job. Although my camera was OK, I needed a good quality zoom lens that will hopefully bag me that shot I'd seen so many times on the Internet. Eventually I managed to acquire a lens from my accountant who is a keen amateur photographer but with a lot more money than me.
So I have a camera, Lens and a location it was time to get packing.
Snowdonia is a national park and is situated in North Wales and is predominantly a mountainous region. The rugged terrain is perfect for military training for the Army and the RAF. The RAF use this region for practicing its low level flying, sometimes to as low as 100 ft. The aircraft that fly in this region are mainly Tornado's, Eurofighter Typhoon and the Hawk trainer jet, the American F15's can also be spotted at certain times of the year.
The particular location I was heading for is known as the Mach Loop, which is situated about 10 miles east of Dolgellau and is a mountain region of which the planes use as a sort of roundabout as you can see on the map below. My destination was CAD West which is located about 10 o'clock on the map.
This seems to be the most popular location because of the advanced warning and the bottleneck the planes have to negotiate as they fly past and down into the valley below.
Getting to the location isn't easy also. After parking my car in a nearby lay by I would then have to climb approximately 400 ft to a plateau over looking the valley below. On day 1 of two the weather forecast was mild but with overcast skies but the wind was quite chilly but the climb kept us warm, I say us because my 12 year old son wanted to come as well. The view was stunning all we had to do was wait.
The first arrival
There were several other photographers all staring North East and listening out for aircraft, then at approximately 11.15 am after waiting over an hour 2 planes arrive from a valley towards Dolgellau. I couldn't tell what they were at first until I pointed my camera at them and zoomed in. They were two Eurofighter Typhoons and I knew I didn't have long until they were right on us. I tried to focus on only one and follow it, with my focusing set to AI SERVO hopefully it will continue to focus on the jet as it fast approached me, I probably only had 10 seconds at the most to get as many shots as I could.
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1/4000 sec, f5.0 , iso 400, focal length 200mm
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In this shot he was still some way off I was zoomed in at 200 mm, I could have zoomed in more but I would have risked losing him all together, keeping the field of view wide meant that I could track him for longer.
Now filling the frame at 200mm I kept him in my viewfinder, he's still high so there is no terrain to make a more interesting image. But I'm happy with the detail so the image stabiliser must have worked.
This is pretty much what I was out to achieve I'm still at 200 mm focal length but I've cropped a significant amount of the plane out of the image. Admittedly at this point I didn't have the time to be messing with the zoom and refocusing as I only had a fraction of a second. Still photographing at a steep angle I still have the
overcast cloud as a background. All the same I'm happy with the overall composition and sharpness even the pilot and head up display is visible, shame about the reflection on the glass.
This was my final shot as the plane disappeared into the valley, I`m trying to keep the camera steady at this point as the plane gets smaller its hard keeping the plane in focus at this point with the lens being so heavy I didn't want the main focus to be on the trees in the distance of which I achieved. It has also made the composition and frame more interesting with the landscape. I also love the heat trail from the engines.
Day 2. The GR4 Tornado.
On day two I arrived at the location at 10:00 am to find the whole valley and hillside covered in cloud. I'm aware that fighter pilots won't fly below a certain altitude when there is low cloud, but according to the local weather forecast this was due to lift as the sun heated the air, it was a case of when as I only had a 2 hr. time slot because my wife and kids were waiting to be taken to the beach.
I reached the summit sometime later with the mountains still covered in cloud although it was moving quite quickly with the morning breeze. By 11:00 am most of the cloud had burned of and I'd already heard the rumble of planes in the distance, I had one hour to get the shots I needed.
Here she comes!
I was one of probably twenty photographers on the ridge that morning waiting patiently for a jet to arrive and we wouldn't be disappointed. At 11:30 someone shouted out GR4!! I couldn't see a thing at first although I could hear it eventually I spotted the shadow of the plane crossing the valley floor from the direction of Machynlleth but I couldn't see the plane, I was looking too high, the Tornado was hugging the valley floor at about 150 feet a lot lower than the Typhoon on the previous day fortunatly I managed to get an early focus on the plane then followed it until it began to bank towards us and the valley then I pressed the shutter button.
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| 1/2000 sec. f6.2 iso 400, focal length 160mm |
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1/2000 sec. f6.2 iso 400, focal length 160mm
Conscious of the previous days shoot and wanting to get the framing right I kept a shorter focal length. With the plane coming in lower it gave me a chance to get the landscape in the background.
Another drawback which I failed to mention earlier was the burst rate of my camera on continuous shutter was only 4 frames per second, which it did! For one second then the files would buffer for which seemed like minutes but was in reality about 2 which when taking pictures of fast jets is not acceptable. Probably my own fault in part for buying cheap memory cards with a slow write speed.
The Money shot!
I have to say when I reviewed my images later I was really pleased with this shot, I'd seen it so many times before on the internet and in publications it was great to replicate shots taken by Pro's. But I have to critique it like all good photographers and that is the cloudy haze, there was still quite a lot of moisture in the air giving a hazy background and i think it would have been a sharper picture later on in the day.
This has to be my second favorite of the day, still filling a large portion of the frame and with the rugged landscape behind
it makes for a good image.
My thoughts.
I had an absolutely great time shooting the Location brief and could do this for a living, if it paid, but back to reality I think this type of photography is to specific and I will keep it as a pass time. Apart from my equipment and the weather letting me down I`m ready for the next visit. I'll hosting an exhibition in July and hope to include a couple of these shots. I think anyone that has an interest in aircraft and aviation would possibly buy them. I may submit one or two to the Lowfly website to see what they think. I`m also looking forward to seeing them in print.
Thanks to.
The Royal Air Force
www.lowflyingphotography.com
www.lowflymedia.com
Further research on this style of photography to follow.
Sean Wareing ©
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