Yet another new member

[Landing Lights]

Hi everybody, I just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Ben and I'm located in the northern suburbs of NYC. I've been lurking for a year or so, but just noticed that I hadn't posted anything, so I figured it would be best to introduce myself. I am a lifelong lover of anything mechanical that flies, though I have become far more interested over the past few years. A while back I heard Phil (who I had known of for years since we were both members of a couple of NYC subway forums) on the Airplane Geeks Podcast and that turned me on to nycaviation.com, as well as to planespotting. I have recently started shooting more than the occasional C-17 turning final for SWF, and made my first trip to shoot at JFK earlier this month. So anyway I just wanted to say hello.

[Roush6NY]

Hi Ben

Welcome to the site. Glad to have you on here. Hope to see you out one of these days :)

[megatop412]

Hello Ben greetings to you as well, I look forward to some of your shots

[moose135]

Welcome aboard, Ben!

[Zee71]

Welcome to NYC Aviation Ben.

[Landing Lights]

Thanks for the warm welcome everybody. I'm shooting with a Canon S2 IS at the moment. It has the features to get the job done for now, but it is going to need to be upgraded to an SLR at some point. At this point I have made 2 spotting trips in the last month, the one to JFK, and then caught some diversions to SWF a few weeks ago. I'll leave you with two shots from the SWF trip that I thought came out decent considering how little I knew about photography. I've come a long way in 2 weeks, but I've still got quite a ways to go. Feel free to critique the technique if you want.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8427/7660489904_d1a5bef2e6.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/30467068@N00/7660489904/)
photo (http://www.flickr.com/photos/30467068@N00/7660489904/) by blgranucci (http://www.flickr.com/people/30467068@N00/), on Flickr
US Airways Express Dash 8-100

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7273/7688174700_67857104b1.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/30467068@N00/7688174700/)
photo (http://www.flickr.com/photos/30467068@N00/7688174700/) by blgranucci (http://www.flickr.com/people/30467068@N00/), on Flickr
Lufthansa 747-400. The crew seemed a bit concerned about landing at SWF.

[megatop412]

The Lufthansa's a pretty dramatic shot! For more natural looking prop shots on the Dash's try slowing your shutter speed(if you can on that camera) to 1/200 or 1/160

PM me if you are interested in going to an SLR- I have a Nikon D40x body and 55-200mm lens for sale

[gonzalu]

Welcome! :-)

LH at Stewart? WOW... never imagined they would ... what was the reason?

[Landing Lights]

Thanks for the quick feedback, I'm glad you liked the Lufthansa shot. The slower shutter speed for props trick was one I learned not long after taking that shot. My camera is a "mini SLR" so I can more or less make all of the adjustments that you can on a full size SLR with regards to shutter speed, aperture, etc, though it can be a bit limited in the range available sometimes. Thanks for the offer on the camera, but I definitely have a while to go before I make a purchase. Aiming for beginning of 2013.

[Landing Lights]

Welcome! :-)

LH at Stewart? WOW... never imagined they would ... what was the reason?

There were microbursts over EWR that afternoon, which also affected LGA and HPN. In addition to the LH, there were 2 United 757s, a United 777, and a Kalitta 747-200, plus an assortment of RJs and biz jets. The last diversion (the 777) arrived a little after 5pm after a go-around, and everything departed between 6 and 7ish. The LH crew was quite concerned about the taxiways and ramp supporting the weight of their aircraft when they landed!

[PhilDernerJr]

Ben! Great to have you here, man. :)

[Just_Lucas]

welcome :) Nice shots mate,enjoy your stay

[Landing Lights]

Glad you all seem to like the shots I posted. Let's me know I'm at least starting off in a good spot. As a lurker, it always seemed like it was a good group here. Now it really seems that way. Not much in the way of arguing which seems to be rare for a message board these days. Everybody seems to be entitled to their own opinion, and nobody has their opinion held against them. Also, there seems to be a lot of community support for each other. Just glad I can be a part of it. Now I know this isn't the place for pictures, but I just wanted to put up one more here, sort of an oddball for me. This was the first shot I had taken of a plane landing, back in July when I was the the Mounds for an evening. Don't know how it came out as well as it did, but I felt it was my best shot of the night. Enjoy:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8145/7693858382_924c872be6.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/30467068@N00/7693858382/)
,