It was lookin iffy there for a moment or two with the cloud cover, BUT, the clouds moved. And then the countdown started. We were over in the visitor's center about 8 miles away, so you couldn't see anything until it came over the trees. The crowd was great, those that saw, gasped and pointed. Which was good. It took me a minute to find it visually, then it took me a minute to find it through the viewfinder. But when I did. WOW! Actually WOW really doesn't come close. It was totally AWESOME! And there is MY SHOT!
This shot was PLANNED. Tom saw that I had a great lens. My tamron 28-300 and then he added a 2x extender. WOO HOO!!! HOWEVER, of course there's a monkey in the wrench somewhere, the LENS would NOT focus automatically. SIGH. So we kinda played around. Tom also had gotten information off the net from a photographer that took great photos, and he said actually to watch the launch and buy a postcard. BUT if you just HAD to take photos (doh) to set your ISO at 200 and your aperature at F8. Which I did. and WA-LA awesome photos. AND yes i bought a postcard too. BWAHAHAHA!
It was an awesome experience, because first you SEE it. A magnficent sight - the tail (fire) is about 3x's the length of the shuttle. Then you HEAR it. and WOW. I thought I could feel the heat but Tom said I was getting carried away. AS IF. NOT ME!!! lol
