October 9, 2007: Blue Angel makes pass over Frisco Bay boaters
 

http://cellar.org/2007/blueangelpass.jpg

The Mail, via Spluch. All you need to know:

wow

Would've been funny if it got caught in a net.

my precious ears

I call BS. Has got to be photoshop.

Here's the bit of the pic they cropped.....

It is an interesting photo . . . generally, in order to take a photo of something moving fast like that, you have to use a really fast shutter speed. And if you use a fast shutter speed, I wouldn't think you'd get the kind of motion blur that's showing on the boats in this picture.

I think the photographer was panning with the jet and also using a pretty high shutter speed.

Or maybe it was photoshopped. I tend to believe it's real though. Even though it looks unreal.

No...way.

I'm with you.

That's not a "water vapor cloud" around the jet; that's a weird phenomenon that you get for a moment when a jet breaks the sound barrier: Google Images link.

I suspect that if a jet broke the sound barrier that close to a bunch of boats, people would be deafened. There might also be criminal charges involved for the pilot.

So yeah, Photoshop is my guess.

I knew I had seen that before, but I couldn't remember where. I found the photo I was thinking of by following your link. I think BS.

From MM's link:
http://chamorrobible.org/images/phot...-7559C-001.jpg

similar but not identical. why bother to shop another?

There are a few more at MM's link. Apparently they do this at air shows a lot.

I still think it was a Bush family vacation, though

Not BS, I've seen this in person when I was a kid living in southern California at the Miramar air shows (though that was over ground not water). These guys are so damn good it is mind blowing. And yes that cloud is water vapor, you can see the same sort of thing when a jet is at high speed and suddenly changes to a high angle of attack.
You can see the water vapor starting to shake off here:
http://mysteve.com/BelieveItorNot/up...gel-750273.jpg
Which then turns to this:
http://www.richard-seaman.com/Aircra...llingVapor.jpg

Also called "pulling vapor".

Those telephoto pictures are also very deceiving as to how close the jet was to the boats and spectators. Judging distance between two objects laterally in a telephoto image is next to impossible, so often it appears as if two objects are much closer than they actually were when the image was captured. I very much doubt anyone was close enough in reality to get hurt by the jet's repercussions. The Blue Angels are extremely professional and would never pull a stunt that would endanger the public so recklessly.

I googled around to see if there was backup for this. In the process, I found this page, which has some really nice Angels pics.

This page has a similar pic with an AP byline. So I'm guessing the photo is valid.

I'm a'jump--I say I'm a'jumping on the BS Bandwagon. Not for the vapor cloud, but for the proximity to the boats and people in general. Big Brother is very strict about where you can and cannot generate sonic booms. I believe the powers that be would frown MIGHTILY upon the pilot who pulled this alleged stunt. Definitely PS'ed. Cool pic though.

According to my quoted text, this is a stunt that is performed elsewhere, and it's sub-sonic. It's loud, but not sonic boom loud.

And the comment Bullitt made about a telephoto lens compressing a picture is right on. It's very likely that there's a mile or more of open water between the boats in the foreground and the boats in the background. That jet is nowhere near the boats.

i find it funny how many people jump on the "shopped" wagon, i really dont find this shocking or anything, just youtube some F-16 Vids and you will see this is nothing special

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=fJGVXp...elated&search=

The plane is just reaching the 'sound barrier' and the cloud produced is the shock wave.

It can also happen well below the sound barrier, especially if the humidity is very high.... ie, close to the water.

Oh, yeah, I'm sure it isn't photoshopped. This is just another 100 million dollar plane flying 1300+ miles per hour less than 50 feet off the ground in a bay loaded full of boats.

$35 million
These pilots have extraordinary skill in flying these airplanes
Shut up with the omg its $hopp3d comments, all of you

Here's a third picture of the same event. Is this one photoshopped too?

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/84/26...6a7b233f1e.jpg

And a fourth one.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2226/...22e0538dbf.jpg

And a fifth one.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/119/2...4a2758ab0d.jpg
And a sixth one:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/122/2...a0a1d597a6.jpg

And a seventh one:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/90/26...e2ccf68ec1.jpg

These are all images found at Flickr under the Fleet Week San Francisco heading. There are plenty more where these came from. They can't all be photoshopped.

A picture used to be worth a thousand words.
Now it's worth a thousand denials.

Awsome shots!

An eighth one:
http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/2...xde7jr3xp0.jpg
:)

:lol:

LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO too funny.
Ok, ya'll have me convinced that it may not be shopped. I just found it seriously hard to believe that they would be that close.
Color me corrected. :blush:

I"m with you on that glatt. It was exactly what I was thinking as I was looking at it.

if the first pic is actually a frame from a film rather than a still shot, the effect of the boats seeming to be so close could be adjusted through the depth of field. In effect, making what seems a long way off, much closer. (or vice versa if that's what you want to show)

That is correct. That's how you get the subject sharp and in focus and blur the background. Used heavily in automotive racing photography. If you use a slower shutter speed and pan the camera with the subject, the background will be blurred while the subject remains sharp, giving the photo a sense of movement and speed instead of what looks like a car just sitting on the track.

Is it a plane flying low or a speed boat skimming a bit high? :p

On closeness and blurred backgrounds:

Almost all sports photography and most spectator event photography uses telephoto lenses to bring the action close while the photographer is safely distant. Telephoto lenses see things differently than the standard 35mm lens (which is the closest approximation to the human eye). Telephotos "flatten" the image. That is, a distant object does not appear to diminish in size as it would seen through a standard lens. This elimination of linear perspective generally goes unnoticed by the public.
It can be used to great effect artistically, often employed for certain shots in film to give a specific feel- as in a HUGE setting sun. (The best example I've ever seen of this is when, in Poltergeist, Jobeth Williams looks down the hall to her children's door- the cameraman pulls focus while switching FROM telephoto, giving the illusion of a lengthening hallway- brilliant!)
The photographer's lens is reason the plane looks so close to the boats. Since I've spent years looking at sports photographs (sculpting from them) I've gotten pretty good at judging distances. The plane IS close, but not THAT close.

The blurred background is very likely an unintended consequence of following such a rapidly moving object. It can be done for dramatic effect (as mentioned, in making a car appear to be moving fast), but I believe that in this case it is most likely due to the extreme speed of the jet- even the fastest shutter speed couldn't freeze the background while panning the camera that fast. Nascar cars don't exceed 200 mph- WELL within any camera's ability to take a crisp, unblurred photo. Those photographers are probably doing it for dramatic effect. This jet is moving at about 1100 fps (750 mph) - tough to freeze the action.

And that's all I have to say about that.


(Damned Photoshop has ruined the simple appreciation of great pictures!)

I agree... which is why I'm curious as to how you can pan fast enough, and accurately enough, to freeze the plane. (Also I note that in almost al of the other shots--the ones linked by glatt for example--both the plane and the accompanying scenery are--this effect is not present.)

I'm not saying it was 'shopped.. I'm legitimately asking, as a pretty green photographer, how it was accomplished.

Practice. Follow it in from far away (when you have to move less) pivot at the waist for smoothness (I just know someone's going to jump on that). Use a pro camera like the Cannon EOS 1D Mark III- fire off 10 frames per second.

Looks like the photographer is farther away. That's my guess. Otherwise he'd have pulled in tighter on the jet. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say he's maxed out his zoom. That would put him so far away he only needs to pan very slowly.
Or, when the plane is come toward or going away from the photographer, he doesn't need to pan at all- as in the close-up ones of takeoff and approach.

...off to work.
Later Gents.

From now on I am referring to passed gas as pulled vapors.

Right on Adam. There are a great number of things to consider when working with telephoto and looking at a telephoto image.

Another thing to consider SteveDallas is that a general rule of thumb for telephoto lenses is that you need a minimum shutter speed of whatever mm length you are "zoomed" to in order to create a sharp, non blurry image of something stationary to begin with, let alone freeze action. Cameras can only have so high of a shutter speed (unique to each camera, example my Nikon D50 DSLR has a high of 1/4000th of a second, my previous Panasonic FZ7 had a high of 1/2000th). So if the photographer was far away using say a 300mm lens, which is a somewhat common telephoto length, then he/she needed to use a minimum shutter speed of 1/300th of a second in order to first have a non blurry image of anything, and then go up from there in order to attempt to freeze the plane in motion. Combine panning with that and the jet moving ridiculously fast and it becomes hell of hard to get a sharp image.

The reason why some of the other images do not appear to be as shaky is because the photographer was not using such a long telephoto length (closer to the action and/or simply cropped the original photo) and thus has much more control of the image.

Imagine trying to follow a moving object with your eyes from 200 meters, and then the same object moving at the same speed at 10 meters and you'll get what I'm saying. Just like how when you are driving your car, the grass is all blurred whizzing by but the mountains in the distance are nice and clear.

Yeah that would help a little too haha. Oh my poor 2.5 frames per second :neutral:

only about 760 mph

Flickr is cool because many of the pictures there have the EXIF data for each picture listed.
for example, the picture below was taken under the following conditions:
Camera: Canon EOS 30D
Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/1250)
Aperture: f/6.3
Focal Length: 400 mm
ISO Speed: 200

You can see the jet is pretty crisp, but the sailboat masts have some slight blur from the panning. The jet is coming more head-on here, so there isn't so much panning action as the original IotD photo at the top of the thread, where the jet is flying by. The large version of the image really shows this.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2417/...0ee9575df9.jpg

Here's my claim to fame. No water vapor but these are from my son's graduation from the US Naval Academy. I was shoooting with a 50-500mm Sigma zoom on my Canon 5D

That actually is water vapor around the fighter. :) It is created by the sudden extreme drop in air pressure behind the compressed shockwave. Since the pressure suddenly drops, the air cools instantly, and because cool air can hold less moisture than warm air, the moisture condenses into visible water vapor, but only for an instant.

When the shape of the object travelling through the air is faster than the speed of sound in the air, the compacted air has no time to dispand and the shockwave stays. That front does not break apart as it expands from the object - if it would, there would be no sonic boom.

I hope this explanation is comprehensible..

There is an interesting analogy to Cherenkov radiation. :)

So, are we saying there would or would not be a sonic boom at the formation of the vapor/cloud we see in the photo?

It takes two years to eat a plane, so lots of recipe potential here.... and probably lots of pulled vapors.

The vapor cloud is not a necessary connection with the sonic boom it seems. That depends on many things, like air temperature, moisture, aeroplane speed and even the shape of the fast traveling "thing".. So, breaking the sonic barrier is not necessary to produce the cloud, if I understand things correctly.. But then again, if the sound barrier is broken, it is very likely that this phenomenon is produced.

I was looking very closely at the pulled vapors. I decided to clean off some artifacts and suddenly a dolphin...

that's not a dolphin!

*Knock knock* Telegram.

OH yea... I'll be giggling about that for a week. If I'm consequently commited, I'll expect letters from the lot of you. :blush:

Blue Angels will be flying around tomorrow, the Miramar Airshow is this weekend, and living at the top of a hill about 5 miles NE of the airfield makes us a convenient landmark for high speed U turns to get back for the next pass. They fly wingtip to wingtip and light off the afterburners as they come out of the turns. We're several hundred feet above the field, so they seem very close.

The windows don't stop rattling or the neighborhood dogs stop howling for three days. It's glorious.

The pictures are real. you can seen the coast guard and the buoy lines the boats stay behind. the flight lane is probably a mile wide like someone suggested. The precision and discipline these guys practice every day puts all of us to shame.

One year, I was watching the Thunderbirds at Jones beach LI (Back when they were flying T-38s - that'll tell you how long ago) - one of the stunts was flying INVERTED close to the water - only time I EVER saw one of those guys make a rough move - seems the next wave was a tad taller than he figured - he jinked up about 10 ft or so, because it appeard the wave was going to touch his vertical stabilizer!

Yes - they fly LOW

The LOWEST I've ever seen a picture of was of a SU-27, doing a VERY low pass down a runway - by descriptions, and by the photo, he appears to be about 2 ft off the deck

Welcome to the Cellar narcuul !

Sweet!
Discussions of Electromagnetic Wave attenuation, Psychrometrics, Optics and dangerous stunts at the speed of sound! This thread is rocking!
Throw in the Voynich Manuscript and I may never go to work again. :)

More pulling vapor from an airplane that will NEVER even come close to the sound barrier - I'm not going to imbed it, because it's not mine, and it's kinda large

http://op-for.com/A10.jpg

Ahhhh... the best AC ever built IMHO!

And one of the best pictures I've seen of an A-10. Thanks CharlieG.

Thank you. :)

..It's funny. Although I am Finnish and English language is by no means easy to me, I've been doing just fine with what little I know for so many years. This forum though, is something else. So many jokes, subtle (more or less, don't know) references or whatever are pretty mysterious to me. :3_eyes: It's a challenge. And an interesting one at that. :3eye:

(Like those dolphins. I just don't get it.. Yeah. I do feel slightly challenged right now..:rolleyes: )