Shooting the Shuttle from Nine Miles Out

On Monday, November 16, 2009, at 2:30 pm the Space Shuttle lifted off of Kennedy Space Center in an ever exciting launch, seen by thousands and probably photographed by just as many.  So just how do you photograph a space shuttle launch and what kind of equipment do you bring to a shuttle launch? Well it depends on one thing, your location or viewing area in regards to the launch pad.  If you are lucky enough to get into the public viewing area on the Kennedy Space Center (you will need tickets and and you apply online, it's like a lottery if you get up on the website at the moment that view tickets are made available, you might have a chance). Then you can shoot with whatever camera you want, I don't recommend cellphone camera's, even though there where many people trying to capture the launch from nine miles out with them.  If you are nine miles away like where I was, you are going to have to pull out the big lens.  I was shooting with a 2600mm Phoenix lenses, that was a 650 to 1300mm lens with a 2x multiplier lens attached. The photo in the upper left was taken with a lens that looked like a cannon on front of my Nikon camera.  I shot at 125th of second shutter speed and the lens has a fixed aperture of F/22, which means I only could use  the shutter speed on the camera for light control. I needed a tripod and a monopod to balance the lens and camera so I could track it and photograph it at the same time. The cost of this lens was $350 a couple of years ago, it is an import from Japan, it was something I could afford then, put realize that I should have spent a few thousand more and got something decent. The photos are not as sharp as I like and they tend to be grainy, full of "spots"(most likely dust particles within the lens) and just not really what I call "display" material.  But for capturing the moment and saying you got something that will work, say for your blog, then that type of photo will do. You can see the rest of the shuttle photos I took at the website, www.imagesbydavidtaylor.com , take a look and leave me a note telling me what you think. Rumor has it, there are plans for photographing the next shuttle launch and we are planning on getting into the one of the media areas for better photos. Good luck on your shuttle shoot if you go and  if you can afford a big lens, get it, otherwise, get the spectator pass and use those wonderful F/2.8 200 to 400 lens to get some really spectacular shots.  Special thanks to Dan, Glen and Carol for the wonderful fun time and assistance with this photo shoot. Great job!!