This past Sunday (the 11th) was the Aviation Nation air-show at Nellis Air Force Base. According to my wife, I’d been looking forward to this year’s show ever since, well, last year’s. I was hoping to have a new camera and/or a teleconverter to spice up my photography a bit, but, unfortunately, that was not to be (and is a sad, sad tale for another time). Instead, I visited with my (now nearly 7 years old!.. recent photography conscripts don’t even know this thing existed) Canon D30 and (primarily) EF 200mm/2.8L (~320mm effective).

Among the many static displays of vintage and current aircraft, there was a densely populated flying schedule, including (in no particular order): the Thunderbirds, an F-22A “Raptor”, A-10 “Thunderbolt” (or Warthog), P-51 “Mustang”, P-40 “Warhawk”… There were a lot of planes.

I didn’t arrive until nearly 1:00, and so missed some of the earlier flying. I was also (again!) plagued with battery issues, mainly due to my own negligence. In the aftermath and while trying to milk the last few shots out of my failing batteries, it became painfully obvious that I need to brush up on my manual focusing skills. Or get lasik. (Most likely both.)

It also turned out that I should have immediately camped on a good observation location rather than putzing around the static displays. In the end, my field of view during the Thunderbirds was severely limited by a Bombardier (IIRC) on one side and a Citation on the other.

Anyways, without further ado.

I’m now patiently (or not) looking forward to next year’s, in part because by then perhaps I’ll have found another steal of a 10D on eBay, and in part because I’m planning on bringing along Joshua, which should be really fun.