Last HP launch of the season.

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Michael L

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There were 5 launches (usually only 3 of us). 5 good recoveries. Highest altitude was 18k. The rest of us were in the 4k range. My LOC IV flew on an I540. About 0.5 mach. I've changed my LOC IV so many times it's really only a LOC IV in name. It's now about 5'6" long, weighs almost 7 pounds. There's a TeleMerum V3 in the nosecone, a pair of EasyMinis for redundant dual deploy in the AV bay, 48" Fruity chute for the main. 9" chute for the drogue. I'm still working on the photos but it was a good day. This video was taken by the son of a member of the club, also soon to be a new member :)

 
Ignition

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Go

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These aren't cropped and I'm well back from the rocket. I use a 600mm F4 lens. Good for birds, wildlife, and rockets. The camera shoots at 10-12 fps. These are consecutive frames.
 
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This is a HD video of the L3 launch. I may try to do more of these. Idk.. it's a lot of work editing all of the photos. The video is unedited. The clicking is my other camera shutter. The guy shooting my video camera said Holy crap :D I understand lol. And the flier was very pleased with his launch.

 
Looked like a lot of success ….
Really is nice having a good camera and getting nice shots. Nice to see shots of the motor flame/smoke on take off.
I always find it difficult.. on one hand I want to take great photos on the other hand I just want to watch and enjoy without worrying about the camera. I guess having someone else take the photos is a good middle ground lol

Nice job all your photos came out great
 
Thank you. Here's how I do it and still watch the launch. I set the camera up on a tripod, when the countdown gets to 1 there is usually a brief pause, sometimes I wait for smoke but that can be risky for faster rockets, then I press and hold the shutter button while I watch the launch. I set the shutter to High Speed, 10-12 fps. Almost all of the launches were slow to ignite this time so I ran out of buffer (camera stops taking photos while it was catching up). Sometimes I have a second camera close by with a 70-200 on it. During the L3 guys launch that was being used as a video camera so I didn't get a lot of flight and recovery shots. It went to 18k so it's not like I could have anyway. Historically I get the least amount of photos for my launches.

A lot of what I do for rockets applies to flying birds and aviation. I got back into photography 10 or 15 years ago. Right when digital came out. The newest camera I have is 5 or 6 years old. The long lenses are about 10-12 years old. If they ever crap out I won't replace them.
 
Wow well that makes sense
Love the redundancy with a back up camera that’s official !!
I here the lenses out last the camera body double…. Cause man it can get expensive fast lol. Photograph is a art forsure
I give you credit for taking the time to get cool rocket photos 👍🏼
 
One of the members made videos from a different perspective. I like it! Go Pro cameras. One on a stand and one pressed into the dirt. I know it was pressed into the dirt because I picked it up and handed it to him. I said "hey you dropped this". He said "no, had it positioned in the dirt like I wanted it" oops :)

 
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