Las Vegas International - Nellis

I am taking my family to Vegas for a week and a half next month. I already have the tower frequencies for my radio, but need to know the "must know" areas to shoot some of the commercial stuff.

As well I plan on hanging out around Nellis for a day, so any insight would be appreciated.

I have a private tour of the Shelby plant (I manage a Ford dealership), and should be able to get some sweet automotive shots as well.

I don't know the exact locations but I have seen plenty of good shots taken near KLAS with aicraft taking off toward the afternoon sun so they must be along the south fenceline somewhere.

As for Nellis, the best location is up along Las Vegas Blvd in the vicinity of the Speedway. Park on the Speedway side of LVB and not on the base side. You shouldn't encounter any hassles if you're on the correct side of the street. If they're landing on 21R, you can be right under the base to final turn which allows for really tight shots like THIS or you can let them slide a little further down final and catch them against the mountain backdrop like THIS.

If they're taking off toward the North, move more toward downtown along LVB and you can shoot them just as they clear the fence. Landing from the south, there are spots down on Cheyanne Blvd but I have to tell you it gets pretty rough just south of the base so watch yourself in that area.

Even up along LVB, keep half an eye on your surroundings. There are often some pretty rugged characters hitch-hiking into town out that way. Exactly where they come from, especially in the summer heat, is beyond me but they'll show up.

If you have really long glass, you can move even farther up LVB to where you are looking right down the runways from slightly higher up than the departure end and shoot evening takeoffs with glowing ABs and the city lights beyond!

KLAS has many great spots, but it depends on the time of day and the runway/direction that the planes are taking off and landing. the best place to start is the airport viewing park - a little parking lot along the fence on the South side.
www.nellisspotters.com has some good info for spotting at Nellis.

Thanks guys for the heads up. I got some great shots there yesterday and will go there tomorrow morning. It seems like not too bad of a neighbourhood, but maybe that's because I look like a cop.


I will post the shots when I get home next week, but for now here is one to tease you with.

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Byte size: ZERO | PHOTOBUCKET ERROR IMAGE

Thread is up and active.

https://photography-on-the.net …p?p=10603401#po​st10603401