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Runway 34

A well-timed shot out of the window of an aircraft taxiing at Al Udeid Airport, Qatar

A well-timed shot out of the window of an aircraft taxiing at Al Udeid Airport, Qatar
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NIKON D300

settings

Aperture f/9 ISO 200 Shutter 1/250 Focal Length 28/1

location

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Jul, 2021

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Behind The Lens

Location

This shot was taken through the window of a taxiing aircraft readying for take-off from Doha Airport, Qatar.

Time

It was taken at around 07:15, just under 2 hours after sunrise, though it looks as if it could have been at any time of day as the scene is almost featureless.

Lighting

The conditions were extremely bland, flat and seriously lacking in contrast due to the location in the desert. There was a constant "haze" presumably of dust which really flattened any kind of lighting. An additional challenge was that of taking the shot through very small & thick aircraft windows with limited scope for reframing!

Equipment

The shot was handheld as you can imagine - no room for tripods on an aircraft! It was taken with a Nikon D300 and relatively basic 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6 lens at F/9, ISO 200 & 1/250

Inspiration

I had been working in the Middle East for almost a year at this point so always kept a camera close in case I saw anything interesting. I was initially expecting to only take shots once we'd taken off, but as we were taxiing I realised there was an increasingly improving view of the runway unveiling itself before my eyes so I prepared to shoot just in case I got a good line-up on the runway. I couldn't have been much happier with the alignment as it presented itself so snapped the shot! Granted, perhaps a second or two later /might/ have resulted in a perfectly vertical alignment but it could equally have gone too far the other way. I chose not to manipulate/straighten the image to make it look "perfect".

Editing

Because of the severe lack of contrast in the original it has been processed to dramatically increase it to avoid looking almost totally washed out but other than that the processing was minimal.

In my camera bag

These days I normally tend to keep the 14-24, 24-70 & 70-200 f/2.8 lenses in my bag, depending on what I'm gong out to shoot. If I'm trying to shoot architecture then I'll also have my CamRanger with me. I'd usually have a shutter release cable and a set of ND filters as well.

Feedback

For any kind of similar shot with modern cameras it would probably pay to take plenty of shots - it can't hurt to over-shoot, but try to be patient & not let excitement of an unfolding image cloud your judgement or timing!

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Runway 34

A well-timed shot out of the window of an aircraft taxiing at Al Udeid Airport, Qatar

Behind The Lens

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