NASA Photos of Endevour night liftoff

[scfan]

Found these on a warbird website I frequent. EXIF data shows a combination of 10D, 40D, and 50D cameras used.

http://www.launchphotography.com/STS-130.html

[PhotosGuy]

Very nice!Focal Length = 10/1 mm ===> 10 mm Kind of close, wasn't it? ;)

[Mike Deep]

That's Ben Cooper's site. He works for NASA and many of the official NASA launch photos you see are his. He'll sometimes place cameras in positions that lead to their destruction.

[MikeFairbanks]

Those are cool. I wonder how close you can get to that thing without injury. I would think that your ears would go first if you got too close. I was thirty miles away during a small rocket launch, and the pressure waves were intense. Very cool.

[57bronco]

Those are awesome.

[Tandan]

Looks like Mark Rebilas was working the launch. (=

[Mike Deep]

Those are cool. I wonder how close you can get to that thing without injury. I would think that your ears would go first if you got too close. I was thirty miles away during a small rocket launch, and the pressure waves were intense. Very cool.

Minimum safe distance from a shuttle launch is 3 miles. I've been told at a certain point the acoustic energy alone would put you into cardiac arrest.

[FlyingPhotog]

Wonder how many bodies NASA (read: We) buy him after each launch?

I used to work with a guy who leased NASA two $75,000 television cameras for every launch and everytime, they were destroyed and NASA replaced them.

Great Gig if you can get it...

[BPCooper]

Thanks for the post and comments. However, please be aware that the photos which appear on my website are not NASA photos nor shot for NASA, though I do that also :-) And the gear they are taken with is mine.

[Mike Deep]

I'm impressed that's your own gear on the line, Ben!

How do you work out which photos end up being your's and which are NASA's?

[BPCooper]

It's not quite like that, I shoot for NASA but also freelance a lot of the time and all the work on my website was shot for media or myself. There are a few photos of mine on the NASA gallery and not on my website but most of what I shoot for NASA is not online.

[pixelbasher]

Simply awesome Ben!

[myoungok]

SWEET!!!!!! bw!

[TampaFoto]

Can you share your setup for these shots with us. gear used?Tripod? Protective gear? Are they shot by you or by remote trigger?

[BPCooper]

Any launch photo you see form up close is taken by a setup triggered by sound, vibration or time. Most of mine are sound or occasionally a timer. We set them up as much as 48 hours before launch, stake them down. We use protective housings or bags to keep them dry and such. Everything is on a tripod yes and preset and prefocused. No person is allowed closer than several miles to a launch.

http://www.launchphotography.com/STS-130_setup.html
http://www.launchphotography.com/STS-130_RSS_cameras.html
http://www.launchphotography.com/STS114remotes.html
http://www.launchphotography.com/Delta_4-Heavy_DSP-23_camera.html

[Ghostrider86]

Dude this is soooooooooo cool! bw!

Thanks for the insight to how its done Ben! :)

[jdlloyd67]

Awesome post! Thanks for sharing the great images Ben. This is fantastic!!!

[m.shalaby]

no people allowed for miles, but there's people in that rocket ship, simply amazing!

[iceman1]

Nice photos; thanks for sharing the setup.

[TampaFoto]

Thank you sir. Wonderful info.

[walter S]

Any launch photo you see form up close is taken by a setup triggered by sound, vibration or time. Most of mine are sound or occasionally a timer. We set them up as much as 48 hours before launch, stake them down. We use protective housings or bags to keep them dry and such. Everything is on a tripod yes and preset and prefocused. No person is allowed closer than several miles to a launch.

http://www.launchphotography.com/STS-130_setup.html
http://www.launchphotography.com/STS-130_RSS_cameras.html
http://www.launchphotography.com/STS114remotes.html
http://www.launchphotography.com/Delta_4-Heavy_DSP-23_camera.html

The Delta Launch shot truly is one of the best launch photos ever, if I would have taken that I would have just retired and taken up another profession ;) It never gets old after seeing it so many times.

[PhotosGuy]

Any launch photo you see form up close is taken by a setup triggered by sound, vibration or time. Most of mine are sound or occasionally a timer. We set them up as much as 48 hours before launch, stake them down. We use protective housings or bags to keep them dry and such. Everything is on a tripod yes and preset and prefocused. No person is allowed closer than several miles to a launch. Thanks for the links! Given the usual number of "holds", I wonder how using a timer works out? ;)

[BPCooper]

When there may be a shot at a specific second or minute that you want and sound is not necessarily involved, you can program it to take photos at a certain time for a certain duration.