Chimping ??? At This Altitude ????

My Nextel went crazy this afternoon, as the helicopter passed over, low enough to shake the windows in most homes.

What was this crazy copter doing? Well apparently taking photos - not just regular photos - DIGITAL PHOTOS.

How do I know that ??? Well, check out the photo - the photographer was strapped to the outside of the helo AND HE WAS CHIMPING !!!

Who'da thunk we'd get to this point!

Actually I think the bigger question is - What was he shooting - NIKON or CANON???

Slow D o w n . . . . . .

Or maybe I should retitle this - "Don't Be a Joe Brown". Let me explain.

Early this afternoon, I was at the Woburn Boys and Girls Club shooting an event. I was there for about an hour, happily shooting away at 1250 ISO, manual settings, and 1/250th f 2.8. I shot about 100 frames, thanked the event organziers, and departed.
I put the camera in the car, and I went for coffee. After hanging at Dunks with a friend for a while (he is a D2X shooter and we always talk photography), I went home.
As I pulled in the driveway, the Town of Arlington Massachusetts strikes a second alarm for a structure fire on Thorndike St. So, since I had nothing to do, and I now have cool GPS unit which allows me to go anywhere, I figured I would spark this fire. Now I also know that if the fire goes to 3 alarms, Winchester goes from covering the station - directly to the fire.
So here is the "Dont Be A Joe Brown" part: I get to the fire, find a great parking spot, and there are 2 buildings on fire, HEAVY FIRE, HEAVY SMOKE, NOW A THIRD ALARM. Yes, I am in photographic heaven.
I get there, and there is fire leaping from the roof. And a jake on a ladder trying to control it. GREAT PHOTOS! Wanna see one? OK Here ya go:

Pretty easy to see the problem huh? Yup you guessed it - I never changed the settings on the camera. So this photo was taken at 1/250th at F2.8 at ISO 1250.
Now I know what you are all thinking right now (besides the "what an F'in idiot comments I can hear), why didn't I chimp the photos and realize immediately that I had screwed up? Well, I don't have an answer for that. Nothing, nada, zip. I took someting like 25 frames of the jakes putting out the fire, nice over all stuff, a couple of closeups of the guy on the stick and what do I have for my efforts? Nothing, nada, zip. Indeed, "Dont be a Joe Brown".
For the record, after realizing my erroneous ways, I changed all of the settings and came out with some nice photos, including this one of my old friend Arlington MA fire deputy chief Robert Jefferson:

So all was not completely lost, but remember my mantra for today

Chimping is GOOD !