Worthing Birdman and a Leica

[Lilserenity]

Hullo,

This weekend was the Worthing International Birdman (www.worthingbirdman.co.uk) festival which is basically a bunch of loonies jumping off the pier dressed up in fancy dress or with glides raising money for charity or trying to beat the 100m/~300ft distance for a jackpot of £30,000.

I admit that with 5 rolls of film and a Leica M2 and 50mm lens with people falling off a pier or flying in the air, I didn't expect to really have the best equipment for the job. Arguably I still don't. Anyway I was really pleased with these photos, I have so many keepers I expected to just get a whole bunch of blury badly timed nonsense (let's face it, no auto-focus, no auto-exposure, no motor drive, nothing.)

I joked on the landing stage down in the press pack in amonst the D300/D700/D3/5DMkII/1D users that whereas they may have 7 frames per second, I had 1 secind per frame.

I just wanted to share what I managed to do, I am probably shamelessly blowing my own trumpet but I am just shocked how well the M2 performs!

All shot on Kodak Portra 160VC, 1/500th f/8:


What I thought I'd end up doing mostly -- documentary/reportage shots before flights. This is Jonathan Ansell, formerly of the group G4 who came 2nd place in X-Factor (never heard of him myself)





By Sunday I had pretty much sussed out the best shooting spots:




One of my favourites...




Possibly the best shot of the lot? One of my all time faves


In flight with Worthing seafront in background

I am so pleased with these photos considering the rather unusual equipment I was using, film for one (Kodak Portra 160VC), a rangefinder second and an old lens from the 1950s.

I have to say that the rangefinder was perfect from my point of view, I could track the movement outside of the frame waiting for it to be square inside, and fire.

It was like the Matrix, slowing time down, and everything pivoted around in that moment waiting for me to shoot and then it would speed up again!

Anyway, sorry, trumpet very well and truly blown, but I thought it's good to show what an 'old camera' can do, fantastic. Never got anything like this out of my EOS 3 although that was down to my ineptitude rather than the camera. (And likely auto-focus...)

Vicky

 

[Roger Hicks]

Your trumpet deserves blowing!

(Sorry, that sounds like some frightfully vulgar euphemism, but I'm sure you know what I mean.)

1, 2 and 4 are my favourites.

Cheers,

R.

 

[chrishayton]

Love the pics, i really want to go watch one of these events.

Definatly going to try some of that film, great colours

 

[Tuolumne]

These don't look like they were shot with a 50mm lens. Are they heavily cropped? Very very well done, btw. It would have been easy to underexpose because of the heavy backlighting.

/T

 

[Al Kaplan]

Nice shots! There's no need to be brainwashed into thinking that you need a motor drive, autofocus, auto exposure, etc. to accomplish what a few generations of photographers had no trouble doing without all that crap. People got some pretty decent photos with Rolleiflexes and Speed Graphics too. They mostly just got a lot less bad pictures. http://thepriceofsilver.blogspot.com

 

[Lilserenity]

Love the pics, i really want to go watch one of these events.

Definatly going to try some of that film, great colours

It's good stuff, on a bright sunny day with the sun behind you, you can get some great colours. Unfortunately again due to my old scanner some of the brighter colours (pinks and reds) they are blown due to the lack of latitude in the scanner but I plan on doing wet prints!

Next year's in Worthing is 14th and 15th Aug!

Thanks,
Vicky

 

[Lilserenity]

These don't look like they were shot with a 50mm lens. Are they heavily cropped? Very very well done, btw. It would have been easy to underexpose because of the heavy backlighting.

/T

The only one here cropped is of the chap falling with those 'wings' attached to his arms, purely because it looked 'wrong' in landscape aspect and a bit of the town skyline got in at the bottom of the frame, and not in a good way.

All the others are 50mm and only cropped to remove the edges of the frame, I was pretty close to the action to say the least; and managed to get some neat angles having a smaller camera so I could get right under the launching platform so to speak without getting in the way of the other photographers 🙂

That was the other gamble, will these all be heavily underexposed, this is why I chose negative film over slide; not as much definition but more likely to be forgiving of exposure errors!

Vicky

 

[Lilserenity]

Nice shots! There's no need to be brainwashed into thinking that you need a motor drive, autofocus, auto exposure, etc. to accomplish what a few generations of photographers had no trouble doing without all that crap.

Precisely my thoughts. I just had this feeling I would end up with plenty of negatives of tiny specks (the competitors) and acres of blue sky but in the event itself, apart from maybe a 75mm; any more than that would have been too close in for my liking. It was just amusing that when one of them launched themselves there was this cacophony of mirrors and so forth firing in the air and all the Leica did was *clunk* --wind-- *clunk* -- time for the next one 🙂

I have a whole bunch more I could post but if you click the pictures it goes to the Flickr page for them, and you can enlarge them; plus see any others I upload.

This was a very successful event for me 🙂

Wheeeee! 😛

Vicky

 

[johannielscom]

Well done Vicky! Impressive shots and I reckon many DSLR shooters got home with less nice ones!

I'm planning to take the M5 with a 35mm lens to the TT race track this weekend, the Spanish Vuelta is starting off in my home town in the north of the Netherlands this weekend.

Slim chance I'll return with shots as nice as yours, I'll say!

 

[timbell68]

Bird Man!

Bird Man!

Hi Vicky, Nice shots of birdman, wish I had got down to the pier at the weekend, I only live up the road but had too much on. Anyway it just goes to show that you don't need a big dslr, just one camera and one fixed lense. It's all I ever use now, done the big dslr with lots of lenses but then sold it all, now all I have is an mp with 50mm elmar, much more fun.
See you at the next Birdman, Tim Bell.

 

[Austerby]

Lovely shots indeed - what was the 50mm lens used?

I've had some good shots with my M3 and a small 90mm at sporting events, not being able to get as close as you did, and it's certainly true that a carefully timed shot, making the most of the space in the viewfinder outside of the framelines can readily yield excellent results.

 

[Dralowid]

Nice shots and nice to see a Leica returning to the Birdman event...somewhere I have some Kodachromes of the competition in the '60s when it started in Selsey, with Patrik Moore involved, nutters jumping off the lifeboat station, before it moved to Bognor and now Worthing.

Taken on a III with and Elmar, both of which I still use occasionally.

Michael

 

[Lilserenity]

Thanks everybody, I'm glad you have enjoyed the photos and others have indeed heard of the event. It will be back in 2010 and of course I will be there, that I am sure of.

The lens was a Canon Serenar 50mm f/1.8 -- LTM lens with a CV 50mm LTM->M adapter.

For its age its a great piece of glass. Pretty darn sharp too even wide open (although I don't do it very often) and flare resistant. I'm sure a Summicron may well be better on paper and perhaps in some ways; but for me I love the pictures that I get from this lens, it's sharp, renders pleasing black and white as well as good contrasty colour.

I'll upload more over the coming days but I'm going to have to call it a day for today as I am exhausted and I can easily spend 2hrs scanning film, time flies! (no pun intended!)

Vicky

 

[Austerby]

Thanks for the lens info Vicky. It really must be quite a lens and I'm also impressed with the film: I've never seen the sea that colour at Worthing before...

 

[Lilserenity]

Thanks for the lens info Vicky. It really must be quite a lens and I'm also impressed with the film: I've never seen the sea that colour at Worthing before...

Thanks, it's a great 50mm, and I highly recommend it, plenty of shots on my Flickr page have been taken with it. At the moment I have no desire or cause to get another 50mm. It's an early version so it's all chrome.

The sea really did look gorgeous over this weekend (in fact the past couple of years in summer) and almost too inviting!! I know the 160VC has helped the colours but it really was lovely over the weekend!

Vicky

 

[kuvvy]

Nice shots indeed Vicky. 1 & 2 are my faves but they're all good. It's a crazy event but for a good cause. Events like this can sure give us some good photo opportunities.