Barrie Airshow Trip Report - SOTQs for June 9 and 16

First show of the season - June 15, 2024

It was a fantastic SKC day on June 15, so I made the trek up from Toronto to Barrie for the airshow. Temperature was a comfortable, but perhaps still a bit chilly 19-20C. Price? Free! Well, gas and a bit of my sanity dealing with the Gardiner construction on the way back, but well worth it.

Parking + Traffic

No problem, my strategy was to be on the south shore of Kempenefelt Bay to get the Barrie waterfront in the background of the images and to have the southwesterly sun at my back. It worked out okay I’d say, not really any bad spots, but centre stage was on the other side of the bay, the backlight sitaution improved by around 2PM from that side, so I should have calculated a bit more. From other social media posts, it was much busier there and would have been harder to set up my tripod and gear.

Parking along Lakeshore Drive was no issue, just pulled into the gravel shoulder with the rest of the cars. It seemed very orderly, gaps were left at fire hydrants of course, but no angry mobs, no overpriced event rate parking. Initially pulled into an unpaved area by the GO station, but thought better of it. Pictured in the banner.

Traffic leaving was completely fine, if you’re used to Toronto grid lock, nope, not the case here, phew.

Food + atmosphere

I can’t remark too much, there were beer garden set up at Centennial Park with some food trucks. There’s some street displays and stuff in the proper downtown, but I was on a mission to see the show and had to get back to Toronto right after so didn’t make it that far North.

I arrived only about 40 minutes before show start, so I had to grab something quick and hustle to set up my spot. I don’t recommend the $11 pierogies, sorry to those vendors. Tasted like dish water and the onions were in various states of (un)cooked.

Lots of places and people with camping chairs, portable shelters etc. No trouble finding a spot right along the shore and plenty of room for everyone. It never felt crowded. There was a public washroom at the infomation centre, reasonably clean and not busy at all.

Gear

This was my first real shakedown of the Leofoto Ranger 365 tripod and PG-1 gimbal. I was using a Canon EF 400 IS DO (version I) which can absolutely be hand held (as I did for the photos I took in the winter at Pearson ), but not for three hours. I lost the 1/4” 20 screw for the arca plate and had to jerry-rig another screw from my Peak Designs strap plate (for a very dodgy loose fit…) — Don’t recommend that…will be double checking next time. The tripod was nice and stable on the grassy area, the head worked well (except for my user error in not having a tight attachment of the arca foot).

Lots of big telephotos along the show line, but in classic Canon style, the big white never ceases to draw attention, thanks to the folks that came up to chat. As we know, those Sigma contemporary 150-600 actually “zoom in” more than this baby big white. It doesn’t sport a red ring of the Canon L line, rather the green ring of “Diffractive Optics”.

Leofoto give affiliate links to literally everyone, so no I’m not some big influencer, I paid for the tripod and head without any compensation from Leofoto USA. My experience was positive, shipping was quick, no additional customs fee on arrival from the USA which is always a pleasant surprise. I’ll post a detailed look at the tripod legs and the head in the future. I purchased from here: Leofoto USA. Coupon code: ‘JPS’ for 12% off your order, fast but not free shipping, which is my major criticism of the ordering experience.

I put the 1.4x TC to make 560mm full frame and it was workable. A few times where I wished I had a bit more focal length, but for formations, it worked reasonably well see below!

Also on the Peak Design strap around my shoulder was the Canon EOS-1N with 70-200, loaded was Kodak Portra 160, shot 32 pictures on film so still need a few more to finish out the roll before taking it for development.

Showtime!

The program is available here so I won’t repeat it. There was a display or a Griffon helicopter which isn’t billed on the program — always a challenge to photograph since it’s easy to ‘freeze’ the blades with too fast a shutter speed. I’m quite pleased with this 1/100s photo:

The CF-18 demonstration was the tandem model instead of the commemorative livery sadly. I learned that these things are super quick and even at 1/1250s my shots were not really sharp. Going to go 1/2000 in the future and continue to work on panning technique for the next one. Having it roar directly overhead at what felt like 300’ is an awesome experience (and the only part where I think you needed ear protection from where I was watching).

Snowbirds were an 8 ship show to start, but I understand there was a mechanical issue so down to 7 at the end. Still nice to see regardless.

Conclusions

Great show, great weather, looking forward to Quinte in 2 weeks!

June 9 + June 16 State of the Jetphotos and Airliners.net Queues

Haven’t seen a tie yet between Jetphotos and Airliners.net, but that’s the case today! Jetphotos has 5x the volume of airliners.net, so points to Jetphotos for the raw output from their screening team.

June 9

Site	Queue Length (# of photos)	Last fully screened day	Number of days
Jetphotos	25,367 (similar)	May 23, 2024	17 days (decr.)
Airliners.net	5,565 (similar)	May 23, 2024	17 days (decr.)

June 16

Site	Queue Length (# of photos)	Last fully screened day	Number of days
Jetphotos	26,047 (similar)	May 29, 2024	18 days (incr.)
Airliners.net	5,862 (similar)	May 29, 2024	18 days (decr.)