Asean Summit Sydney 2018

[Aaron M]

Originally Posted by MarkR

A39-004 has been running racetracks over Sydney so they must be inflight refuelling as well. Four hours and counting.

How are you tracking/identifying it?

[Grahame Hutchison]

Well the ASEAN Australia Special Summit has concluded, the Leaders have mostly departed this afternoon, and the award for the most beautiful aircraft goes to Brunei. Their Boeing B747-8 BBJ V8-BKH has an amazing livery, it is highly polished all over, and is immaculate in every respect. This is the first time I have seen specific Meeting Number Plates (ASEAN-Australia) on Commonwealth Cars.

[Reece perram]

I managed to get some shots of the 748 and the 345 when traveling past bay 77 and 76
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[MarkR]

Originally Posted by Aaron M

How are you tracking/identifying it?

It was showing on ADSB exchange, and on 16right:

A39-004 18/03/2018 09:07:48 18/03/2018 16:01:50 DRGN20 Royal Australian Air Force 7CF867 A332 MILITARY

[Kim F]

Singapore PM flew on scheduled SQ flights, on both arrival and departure. COMCARs wore special plates for G20 in 2014

[Grahame Hutchison]

The Royal Thai Air Force Airbus A340-500 departed this morning at 0910L - Even thought the aircraft would have been light, they rolled right through past Shep's Mound.

[Grahame Hutchison]

For my full image coverage and background of the aircraft used by Heads Of State attending last weekend's ASEAN-Australia Special Summit 2018 in Sydney, Click This Link.

[Grahame Hutchison]

Apologies for the late reply Kent.

My son and I designed and 3D Printed this Adaptor for my Nikon 70-200mm lens. It locks in place just like the standard Nikon HB-29 Hood does. The two long arms sit through the fence, on the outside of two adjacent vertical fence wires, with just a little bit of movement either way. This positions the centre focus of the lens right in the middle of the horizontal and vertical fence wires (Camera in Centre Focus mode). Because of the length of the two arms, I can pan the camera right and left, and still maintain the centre focus position. The other advantage is that my left hand is free to adjust the zoom (handy when an aircraft is moving quickly), as I know the adaptor will keep the lens correctly positioned.

The other factors at come into play here are, the Zoom setting, and the Aperture setting (the zoom setting might act differently for other lenses). Shooting at F2.8 pretty much removes the fence wires, however I sometimes have to adjust the zoom level slightly if they start to appear. The down side of F2.8 is that the Depth of Field is very short, so it is better to shoot the aircraft in profile, rather than looking along the aircraft. If I have to shoot along the aircraft as it comes towards me, I adjust the focus position to be where I want it, rather that just in the centre of the frame.

After using the first Adaptor version for some time, we 3D Printed an improved second version (seen here) with the longer arms, and the locking mechanism the same as the Nikon HB-29 Hood. We printed the arms with a cylindrical hole the full depth, so we could slide in a metal rod to provide greater strength. The first Adaptor we 3D Printed in a rubber like material which had plenty of give, however we used a more "Lego" like material to print the second Adaptor (and I think it is better).

I use this almost every day and would be lost without it.

Note: To design the Adaptor correctly, I took a Micrometer down to the Security Fence to measure the horizontal and vertical spacing. I thought there would be a very standard gap in either direction, however, to my surprise, it can vary considerably.

[Kent Broadhead]

What a fantastic piece of work! The rest of just remain frustrated, but really value your photos.

Do you ever have issues with airport security being right at the fenceline, or do you know everyone at this stage?

[Grahame Hutchison]

No problems with security at all - sometimes they might just ask what I am doing.