Space Shuttle Launch

[Captain IK]

As luck would have it, it appears that I will be on a beach near Cape Canaveral when the space shuttle launches Sunday evening. Thankfully I have most of my camera gear with me.

However,
As you may have guessed, I have yet to shoot a space shuttle launch and am i need of any tips you may have to offer.

I can't seem to decide whether I will need to over expose the shots because of the extreme brightness of the tail flame or under expose them so that they don't get blown out.
Help with this and any other advice would be appreciated.

Thanks you in advance.

BTW...Internet access is sporadic right now so if I do not respond in a timely fashion, I apologize in advance. Please keep posting info so that I can read it when I get another chance to log on....prior to launch.

 

[Kegger]

Shoot for both.

Expose some for the shuttle, then expose a few for the flames. Then a few right in the middle.

They rise slow at first, so put it on burst and fire away.

 

[mrodgers]

I thought the shuttle was launched last Thursday.... Hmm....

 

[Captain IK]

Launch is supposed to be at 7:40 tonight.

Thanks for the tip Kegger.

 

[Garbz]

You need to take into account the brightness with the flame along with the fact that it is moving. A 3 second frame of a bright flame is enough to blow out anything, but when the flame is travelling at close to the speed of sound:

Sorry I have no advice on how to pick the exposure other than that this was shot at f/10 ISO200. Red channel blew out on the right part of the image when the F1-11s flew through the smoke.

 

[Nix725]

Just watched the shuttle go off...Amazing.

 

[Lucky]

If anyone has any pictures from the space shuttle launch, i sure would like to see how they came out. I was planning on taking some pictures myself, but i guess NASA had a fuel leak and had to move the launch date. Now I'm sitting in Kuwait waiting to go back to Iraq.