kevinsale

F15e

Fluffing up at the Mach Loop

Fluffing up at the Mach Loop
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Aug, 2017

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Behind The Lens

Location

The picture was taken in a mountainous area of Wales (UK) which is regularly used by the military as a low flying training area, part of which is known as the Mach Loop. There are a number of locations around this loop of valleys where you can get level with or above the passing aircraft. I live on the opposite side of the country and make regular expeditions to the 'Loop' and spend several days up the mountains waiting for aircraft to appear. It's a bit like course fishing in that you have no idea when or if something will fly through, with a steep climb at the start of the day and a steep decent at the end.

Time

I captured this particular image around 1pm on a Wednesday, it was a day that started quietly but ended fantastically. I'd arrived at the car park below the climb up the mountain at 7am to find it empty, which is slightly unusual. I climbed to the viewing spot and set up my camera equipment and radio scanner and sat down to wait. By 10am only four other people had arrived and none of them were the regular spotters that I normally meet so I was starting to get worried that we'd missed something important about the day. We then heard the jets flying over us at high altitude above the clouds for quite a long time, but nothing had come through the loop all morning, not even the locals from RAF Valley which is only a couple of minutes flying time from the Mach Loop. One of the guys I chatted with had been there four times previously and had never seen anything. I think he hadn't waited more than a couple of hours and you can go all day without a visit at times. I started thinking that this was a bad sign for the day and he might be jinxed! Then, around half past midday, I saw the outline of an F15 pop out of the valley in the distance, so I shouted a 'heads up' and grabbed the camera. We were then treated to 24 passes by two F15e's and four F15c's during the next hour, which is a lot in comparison to a normal day!

Lighting

The light was a mixture of overcast clouds at a reasonable altitude with some sunny breaks on occasion.

Equipment

This was shot on a Sony Alpha 68 with a Sigma 70-300mm APO lens.

Inspiration

I started visiting the Mach Loop a number of years ago after seeing some photos and YouTube videos taken by other aviation enthusiasts. I knew the area reasonably well as I'd been going to the area for wildlife photography for a long time as well as taking part in outdoor activities in the area when I was a youngster. I'd always been an aviation enthusiast, attending air-shows, flying RC model planes, etc. so taking pictures at the Mach Loop was like a wildlife photographer graduating from the Zoo to the Serengeti. Since my first visit it has become a regular ritual for me to go to the Loop and I'll spend several weeks a year decompressing from work life, it's very addictive!

Editing

The lighting at the time of the picture wasn't fantastic, which was a shame because the atmospheric conditions where perfect for getting fluff and streamers from the passing aircraft. To produce the final image I used Photoshop to do some post processing, noise reduction, a little sharpening and some colour contrast and detail extractor to make the fluff pop with a slight HDR effect.

In my camera bag

Since taking this picture the 'Loop Bug' has seen me upgrade my equipment. I now carry a Sony Alpha 99 mk2 with the latest Sony G series 70-400mm lens, plus my Alpha 68 is now attached to a Tamron 150-600mm lens.

Feedback

Patience is the biggest key, you can go for a few days without seeing anything but then have a fantastic day. Unfortunately, it is all a bit random and even the best tip can go wrong due to weather issues, technical issues, etc. For me, it is a long way to go for a single day (5 hour trip each way) to come home with no shots, so I always go for at least 3 days to reduce the chance of having a 'blank'. It's also worth noting that there is usually no flying at weekends so don't expect to see anything other than beautiful scenery. The location is a mountainous area so go prepared to experience all four seasons in one day, flip flops and Sunday best are definitely not the way to go! For basic tech settings, I go for centre spot focus and metering, set my shutter speed to a relevant setting, 1000-2000 for jets and 100-250 for propeller driven planes, then let the camera deal with the rest. Your trying to capture objects moving at 500 knots with little advanced notice of them arriving!

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kevinsale

F15e

Fluffing up at the Mach Loop

Behind The Lens

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