We were lucky enough to visit the Space Coast of Florida when the 5th ever Falcon Heavy launch was scheduled. Despite 3 push-backs of the launch date we did make it and it was a lifetime dream come true. We were less than 4 miles from the launch pad.
I learned a few things about photographing launches. Dusk / night / dawn ones are the hardest. Typical that we had a dusk launch as our first one to learn on!
A special shout out to those of you who advised and helped us get ready - Jeff, Max, Nigel and Dean you are legends!
My tips for low light / dark launches are:
1) Turn off autofocus - I did on my stills camera but NOT on the video camera :-( Doh!!
2) Make sure your image stabilisation is on
3) Under expose photographs to keep more high-light detail in the bright exhaust and then recover low-lights in the edit
4) Shutter speed as fast as you dare with ISO as low as you can - I got to 1/1000th and it froze the scene details like the exhaust nicely in my stills
The Kennedy Space Centre is well worth a visit, and you can pay extra to view some launches however there are plenty of free places to watch, however they are 7-12 (or more) miles away.
We booked a "Feel The Heat" viewing package. Read the Terms & Conditions carefully - you only get admission for 2 launch attempts of your chosen mission and there are no refunds once you come into Kennedy Space Centre (KSC) for the first attempt. We were successful on the second launch date. It is quite pricey. High risk / high reward though!!!
Link below.
www.kennedyspa...
Thanks for watching,
Kirk & Bear.
#NASA #SpaceX #KennedySpaceCenter #KennedySpaceCentre #KSC #CapeCanaveral #Rocket #Launch #RocketLaunch #USSF #USSF-67
25 янв 2023
