Deepwater Horizon Photos

[CommGeek]

Check out The Deepwater Horizon Photos by Florida Wing.

http://flwg-es.us/recon/viewer.htm

The photos were taken by request of the Florida Dept of Environmental protection , to act as a baseline, before any impact.

[Майор Хаткевич]

That's awesome!

[mynetdude]

Did the CAP photo processing software get changed? I don't remember seeing the black strip at the bottom, it used to show an arrow with the direction of the photo and the coordinates, time and such on top of the bottom of the image.

[CommGeek]

Nope...its been the same. 

[capmaj]

Very informative pictures of a terrible situation. And the worst is yet to come.

[wuzafuzz]

For Mac users, the viewer doesn't work in Safari but works fine in Firefox on the Mac.   

[a2capt]

Which is all kinds of wanky because it's basically javascript with Google Maps embedded.  I even tried faking the user agent which usually just works.  Firefox does work, though..

[BuckeyeDEJ]

This mission was the first tasking ever for CAP by the DEP. The aircrew that flew that mission (of which I was nearly the shooter myself) exemplified CAP to a new "customer."

Check out more on our Deepwater Horizon response at www.flwg.us.

[a2capt]

Reading this, various witness accounts of the event:

http://www.infidelsparadise.com/?p=25794&cpage=1

When I got to the one about the fishing buddies, how they could just pull up there, and hang out in proximity like that. It just seems really strange to me. Perhaps there's more to it. Like when they approached they asked if they could park there, they said "right under". Is that SOP? Can you just float out and hang around these platforms?

[desertengineer1]

Nice setup.  Would love a tour of the software they used to load it all.  Surely, they didn't load each image manually?

One note...

The images look good, but many are smeared slightly, meaning the shutter speed may have been set a little too slow.

If you really wanted to tweak it, a polarizer might reduce the haze a bit more.

[desertengineer1]

Nice shots of Pensacola NAS.  I haven't been back since nav school.  Looks like the hurricanes did a number on the shoreline buildings.  The dive school building, Mcdonalds, and all the other shore buildings are gone.  Looks like only the Mustin Beach Officer's club remains.

LOL, Floribama is still there.  Ahh, the memories!

[CommGeek]

Nice setup.  Would love a tour of the software they used to load it all.  Surely, they didn't load each image manually?

One note...

The images look good, but many are smeared slightly, meaning the shutter speed may have been set a little too slow.

If you really wanted to tweak it, a polarizer might reduce the haze a bit more.

Most of the photos were shot at 1/1500 sec.   We did use a polorizer.  The mount we had to engineer was not dampened from the vibrations.  That will be fixed next time.  It was REALLY hazey too.   We are looking at a Nikon stabilized lense.  The lenses national bought are cheap knock offs, not real nikons...   Thanks...

[JoeTomasone]

The lenses national bought are cheap knock offs, not real nikons...   Thanks...

(cough) Nikon *is* a cheap knock-off..  (cough)

When I get home (and get qualified), I've got a 100-400 image stabilized lens.

[CommGeek]

Joe you are my hero

(Cough)   Cannon is a toy  (Cough)  haha

[Pylon]

That is a pretty funny dichotomy (and I know CAP gets fully funded for the aircraft, but not always for the other stuff we need for mission equipment) that we'll pay a lot of money for a top-of-the-line, new aircraft with state of the art DF'ing equipment and other goodies installed, but for aerial photography missions we're often using mid to low-grade Nikon bodies, paired with knockoff-brand lenses.

If we can bundle with the aircraft the DFing and other special-to-CAP electronics when the AF buys an airframe, why can't we "sneak in there" a few extra grand for a top-of-the-line digital SLR with appropriate optics and lenses and mounts?  Seems like if each new airframe came with such a set-up that was considered a part of that aircraft as much as anything else in there (aka: it doesn't get removed), we'd have much better photo quality for our missions.

I know in the past, locally, we've relied on member-provided cameras and the squadron's camera for mission use was an older consumer-grade point-n-shoot.  Yes, it takes photos... but why put together a qualified aircrew, an expensive airplane, and then put all those premium resources in the air with a crappy camera? 


Sorry to detract from the thread (do I smite myself for thread drift?).  The Florida Wing guys are doing a superb job, and bravo zulu to them for what looks like a great mission, and also great relationship-building going on down there between CAP and other agencies.  This really highlights the versatility of how CAP aircrews can help local and statement government agencies.  I hope the Volunteer covers this. 

[desertengineer1]

Most of the photos were shot at 1/1500 sec.   We did use a polorizer.  The mount we had to engineer was not dampened from the vibrations.  That will be fixed next time.  It was REALLY hazey too.   We are looking at a Nikon stabilized lense.  The lenses national bought are cheap knock offs, not real nikons...   Thanks...

Oops, so sorry if I appeared to nit pick  lol   

Some of the images appeared to be smeared in one direction or another, so I thought the exposure may have been a little low.  1/1500 should be immune from the low freq vibrations.  The camera did a good job of WB'ing the polarizer, as it didn't appear such.

I'm really impressed with the images - and the mission (jealous, actually  )

[JC004]

That is a pretty funny dichotomy (and I know CAP gets fully funded for the aircraft, but not always for the other stuff we need for mission equipment) that we'll pay a lot of money for a top-of-the-line, new aircraft with state of the art DF'ing equipment and other goodies installed, but for aerial photography missions we're often using mid to low-grade Nikon bodies, paired with knockoff-brand lenses.
...

But even Nikon's lower stuff blows the lessor companies out of the water.  Here, the sensor tests show mostly Nikon and Canon blowing the "top" cameras from the other common consumer brands out of the water.  My old Nikon D40 did better than Olympus's best camera.  My D90 crushed it further.  The D3x is still one of the best on the sensor tests, but the lower Nikons are no joke.  I'd love to see CAP buy D3x for this, and that would be awesome, but partly cuz I wanna play with the D3x.    

As I see it, Canon tends to be more bleeding edge and tries cramming a lot of stuff into one camera...sometimes suffering in image quality and such as a result.  Nikon is more conservative, sometimes slower to introduce features, usually focusing on proving and refining the technology.  Both blow the other companies away, for the most part.  I wouldn't be shocked if I heard that CAP had bought Kodak point and shoots for aerial photography, though...

[Pylon]

Both blow the other companies away, for the most part.

That's an unfair statement.  They're not the only two companies in the game.  A quality Pentax K-x or K7 competes quite well and directly with comparable Canon and Nikon models.  Pentax cameras tend to be less expensive, too.  Pentax also has some great quality glass for their cameras and as a bonus, Pentax DSLRs are backwards compatible with pretty much all of their old bayonet-mount lenses going back for decades.

But my point was that why skimp to save a few hundred dollars on equipment and not get camera bodies or lenses (depending on the make, where that's handled) that have active image stabalization and quality glass for planes we spend more than a quarter-mil having custom built to our specs?

[BuckeyeDEJ]

Screw the white lens mafia. Nikon now, Nikon always!

CAP won't buy a D3. D300, maybe. Probably more like a D60, D70 or similar body. And I wouldn't expect Nikon glass, though one could hope!

I've shot Nikon now for a long time, with Nikon/Nikkor glass. When I shot sports, I used some great lenses, like a f2 400 elephant gun that still wasn't open enough for Tropicana Field (when the Rays had the Cinderella season in '08). When I fly, I take a f2.8-4 70-300 with me -- nothing you'd shoot panoramic stuff with (like the FLWG tasking), but great for pinpoint stuff from a decent altitude.

Newsrooms I worked in were adopting the D2 family; before that, it was the D1, and in some cases, the D100 was still very much a great body (that's what I mainly use now, my D100). I'm sure the D3 family is finding a nice home in newspapering, though there's absolutely nothing wrong with the other aforementioned bodies. Heck, as a secondary camera shooting sports, I was using (don't laugh) a D60 and got some great stuff.

It's not always the gear, though sometimes it is. It's what you do with it. Anyway, a few random mumblings from your friendly FLWG/PA.

(Hey, Pylon: I learned to shoot using a Pentax K1000, which I continued using through my first three professional newspapers, along with a Nikon FM2. The thing's bulletproof.)

[Robborsari]

I flew a sortie with a guy from NHQ to test out the D90.  I think the new standard is D90 with a GPS on top and an external timer/release for photostrips.   Thats what our newest camera is.  Still has a sigma lens on it though   Stabilized ED would be better but high shutter speed does fix a lot of problems