Zeppelin Arrives in Bay Area - Photogs Get Ready
Posted by latoga | Filed under News & Current Events
I previously wrote about Airship Ventures and their Zeppelin flight service that will soon be available in the San Francisco Bay Area. Well, tomorrow is the big day where their Zeppelin arrives in the Bay Area. I have been in talks with Airship Ventures for the past week and after some challenges with the Santa Anna winds and risk of missing the arrival window of this weekend, I just got confirmation that the Zeppelin will be arriving in San Francisco tomorrow (Saturday October 25th).
This is the first time that Zeppelin has been flown over the San Francisco Bay since 1947! And in part due to some suggestions, Airship Ventures has realized that the local photography community can help document the return of the Zeppelin airship to the San Francisco Bay Area. They are looking for photographers to help document the arrival of their Zeppelin NT tomorrow as well as furture sightings of the airship. They are holding a photo contest where you can submit photos of the Airship.
(Note: They have been very busy planning the arrival of the airship. With the last minute nature of the photo contest, the official T&Cs are still a bit vague in order to get the contest up and rolling for this weekend. I have been advising them on photographer rights issues with regards to the photo contents and I have it on good authority that they plan on compensating photographers whose photos are chosen to be used for marketing purposes. So I expect their photo contest web page to be updated appropriately after this weekend. Who knows, if you photos are good enough and get chosen, maybe you can negotiate an “exchange of services”! ;-) )
Here is the rough schedule for tomorrow (all times are estimated pacific time.):
- 9:00 am ish : the airship set to depart from Salinas area.
- Noon ish: the airship to fly over the Golden Gate Bridge for first time. There are supposed to be some other vintage aircraft that are to be joining the airship to make for an historic sight. There is also a rumor of the San Francisco fire boats putting on a show during the fly over. The airship will spend about an hour flying over San Francisco.
- 1:00 pm ish - 1:30 pm ish: the airship will depart San Francisco, fly over to Oakland and down to Moffett Field for the arrival ceremony.
- 2:30 pm ish - 3:00 pm ish: the airship arrives at Moffett field for the first time! The public is welcome to come onto Moffett Field and view this historic event.
- 4:00pm ish - Dusk: the airship will be taking it’s first scheduled flight from Moffett Field up to San Francisco and back. This is a great chance to catch the airship at sunset!
Airship Ventures has indicated to me a number of types of shots that they would like to have of the airship. (If you submit these to the photo contest, it might improve your odds…):
- Marin Headlands looking south over Golden Gate and San Francisco
- Lands End looking north over Golden Gate and Marin
- From the Golden Gate Bridge as if flies over
- From the Bay (use a boat for the sake of your camera gear)
- From San Francisco with various landmarks integrated into the image
If you’re looking for something photograhic to do tomorrow, take advantage of this historic event. Get out there and make some photos! (I will be…)
Tags: Airship Ventures, Photo Contest, Zeppelin
Bay Area Welcomes Ultimate Aerial Photo Platform
Posted by latoga | Filed under Miscellaneous, News & Current Events
Today’s local paper had an unexpected article about a Bay Area startup business that could be the ultimate aerial photography platform. While most Bay Area startups are high tech related, this one could actually be considered rebirth of an old tech…the zeppelin. The company I’m talking about is Airship Ventures. As described on their website:
Airship Ventures is bringing a Zeppelin NT airship to the SF Bay Area for daily sight seeing flights, advertising operations, corporate and event occasions and scientific missions. We start operations from Moffett Field, North Oakland and Sonoma County airports in November!
The Zeppelin NT is the new technology design of the famous German zeppelin air ships from early last century. Airship Ventures will be operating the only commercial airship in North America, and the 4th Zeppelin NT to be built. (Let’ hope they bought the roadside assistance…).
When you’re looking to take aerial photographs, I can’t think of a better platform than an Airship. With a top speed of 78 mph and typical cruising speed of 35-40 mph, you have plenty of time to frame and take your shots. And an Airship has much less vibration (and noise) than an airplane or helicopter. The only downside could be the price.
Airship Ventures lists their 1 hour tours starting at $495. They plan on offering service from Moffett Field (near Mountain View, CA), Oakland, and Sonoma County Airport (for tours of wine country). As of now, it looks like are planning on offering regular service from those bases which could account for the higher price tag (they need to assume that they won’t sell out every flight).
Of course, you can also rent the entire gondola (seats 12) for $5,750 for a one hour flight. If you team up with a number of your closest photography friends, it could make for a very interesting hour of tour (of course, considering the gear that most of us brings with for a photo outing, they may need to limit the passengers to 8-10 for weight reasons.
The zepplin is supposed to arrive in the Bay Area on October 25th for a fly over of San Francisco and the Bay Bridge (lucky me, I was already planning on being in San Francisco that day….). Service is slated to begin in November. For the interesting story about how the airship was shipped from Germany to the US, check out Airship Venture’s blog Up Ship!, they have some very interesting photos of the arrival!
I wonder if they would offer a photographer group discount in exchange for some marketing photos? Hmmm…
Tags: Airship, Airship Ventures, Zepplin
UK is Photographing the Watchers
Posted by latoga | Filed under News & Current Events
Photo by qwghim
Early last year I commented on some notion running around the United Kingdom that photographers would need to carry ID cards. With the U.K. being one of the most CCTV happy countries out there, most of my British friends are very comfortable with being photographed in public and didn’t think much of a silly rule like ID cards.
Yesterday I ran across an interesting project being coordinated by the Open Rights Group to document the UK’s surveillance society. They have an open call out to UK’s photographers to take pictures of all the mechanisms of the surveillance state. Photo are to be submitted to the FNFBigPicture Flickr Group and will be used on October 11th to:
make a live collage of the images you’ve taken in a prominent location in London (to be confirmed), to celebrate Freedom Not Fear Day 2008.
Freedom not Fear is an international day of action for democracy, free speech, human rights and civil liberties, and events to celebrate these central tenets of a just society will be taking place all over the world.
There are already a good number of photos on the Flickr Group that are both humours and concerning.
Photo by BinaryApe
Is the above what Canon was talking about in their 5D MII press release?
Canon has equipped the EOS 5D Mark II with two Silent Shooting modes in Live View which will prove particularly helpful to law enforcement officials…
