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So I was out looking for something to contribute to the 24 Hours of Flickr project and I swung by Cameron Park Airpark. Nothing like airplanes in the garage to fill a frame… but I digress…

I swung up to the fence along the runway just for the hell of it and I just happened to look up and there was an airplane on approach… but it looked funny. There was something sticking out the plane’s nose!

This other guy there yelled over to me, “Did you see that?!?!”. Uh, I thought I did. “He’s too low, he’s not gonna make it!”. Right there my brain went into photojournalism mode.

Of course I haven’t shot news in 20 years.

20 years ago, there were two knobs on your camera and you just knew they were set to 1/500th @ f/11 and you were shooting Tri-X. You focused yourself.

Today, you have a small computer in your hands that makes decisions you might not make. As the plane was coming in I discovered the difference between “single-mode” and “continuous-mode” autofocus, I was set for “single-mode” (actually “auto” but it it didn’t seem to care) and I’d get the little *beep* telling me it was all focused and then I’d pause to compose the frame and by the time I actually shot, the damn plane would be out-of-focus. Funny how that works.

I figured it out and the later frames are better, but damnit, that was annoying. I think next time, if things start happening fast, the best idea might be to spin the little knob to the idiot icon for “sports-mode” and just go with that.

For what it’s worth, the pilot did just fine. He came in low, somewhat slow and touched down nicely at the very end of the runway. He certainly had more of a handle on his equipement than I did :).