Another Balloon Fiesta

The Fiftieth in fact.  A couple flew over my house, and that would have been enough for me having photographed about fifteen instances of the yearly event.

I turned out that some friends wanted to chase down some balloons the next day, so we hopped into the car and headed north toward the launch site.  To my surprise we encountered little traffic and ended up finding an ideal viewing location a mile south of the Balloon Museum.  I got a few pictures with both the Pentax ME Super using Kentmere 400 and the Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim loaded with outdated Kodak ColorPlus 200.

At noon on the same day I went down to the Plaza Vieja to catch my favorite part of the Balloon Fiesta, the performance of the Flamenco dancers from Albuquerque's International School of Flamenco.  At the balloon viewing site the Pentax ME Super had developed a problem with the film advance, and that only got worse when I tried to use it to shoot some pictures of the dancers.

It was only when I developed the film from the Pentax that I could see the main problem was that the shutter was often firing at the end of the advance stroke, producing a variety of unexpected results.  I made a few shots with the vuws of the dancers preparing to perform, but was disappointed I could not catch the dancers performing under the shade of the gazebo.

A Google search showed that film advance problems are not uncommon in the ME Super.  I'll open up the camera to see if it looks fixable, though I don't think I would trust it again for critical work.  Fortunately, I also have a Pentax ME which seems to be working fine, and I'm not exactly lacking in other options.

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As often happens, Margaret got the best shot of the day with her cellphone camera:

Smiles in the Plaza

Shooting Balloons

My strategy for making pictures during the Balloon Fiesta is to have a couple cameras loaded and ready to go, and then to wait for a balloon to fly over my house.  That has actually worked out pretty well in the nine years we have lived in Albuquerque.

The strategy is helped out by a neighborhood early warning system consisting of all the local dogs who start a chorus of barking as soon as the balloons come in sight.  If the windows are open, you can also hear overhead what sounds like loud, heavy breathing as the pilots pulse their burners to stay airborne.

Most of my pictures so far during this year's Fiesta have been made with my Yashinon f4.5 zoom lens which has a range of 75-230mm.  It it an old lens, so pretty long and heavy, but it is sharp and handy for lots of public events where you cannot always control your positioning and perspective.

Afternoon entertainment is scheduled daily in Old Town throughout the nine days of the Balloon Fiesta.  Students from the International Institute of Flamenco performed in the gazebo at the Plaza Vieja on Tuesday.  I got there late and found myself about 50 feet from the action, so was glad to have the zoom mounted on my Spotmatic SP.  The light filtering into the gazebo through the trees was impossible to meter, so I just set the lens to f8 and shot until I got to the end of the roll.

Day One

Albuquerque's 2017 Balloon Fiesta got off to a great start with clear skies and gentle breezes.

I spotted this balloon from my front yard as it drifted south, about eight miles from the takeoff field.  I grabbed two cameras and walked a couple blocks to where it was making its descent on the street beside the Natural History Museum.

The pilot maneuvered with surprising precision to where the ground crew could grab the trailing lines and guide the balloon into a parking lot.

With the gondola firmly planted on the pavement, a vent was opened to collapse the envelope.  In a few minutes, the crew had everything folded up and stowed in the chase truck.

These pictures were made with my Olympus Infinity Stylus.  I shot an additional half roll of film in my Spotmatic of this balloon in flight, so I'll likely post those pictures in a day or two when I should have a few more pictures of the event.  The balloons will be launched at daybreak for the next week, weather permitting.  There is also quite a lot of collateral action connected to the Fiesta in nearby Old Town.  I'm looking forward to a Flamenco dance performance in the Plaza Vieja tomorrow.

balloons

This year's Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque got sandwiched in with the remnants of a couple hurricanes from the Gulf of California, but it has gone pretty smoothly.  I don't have much tolerance for the crowds at the launch site, but an early morning breeze often brings a good number of balloons over the neighborhood and one often lands nearby.

Even in calm air it is a tricky business to bring a balloon down on city streets.

This star spangled craft touched down in a dead-end a couple blocks from our house.

The chase vehicles delivered fresh propane bottles and a new load of passengers.

The balloon took off again and joined the pack heading south.

I decided one morning to try following one of the balloons with my motorcycle.  I thought I would intercept the landing near Old Town, but I ended up on a tortuous chase which took me deep into Albuquerque's South Valley.  I watched the balloon come to ground finally in a mobile home park near Coors Blvd.

I used 135 and 50mm Takumar lenses on my Pentax K1000 for these pictures.  I thought the combination did a pretty good job, though a zoom might have made the shoot a little easier.