Tokina Monthly Photo Contest – July 2022 winner announcement

We are glad to announce the winner for Tokina Monthly Photo Contest 2022 July edition that we are running inside Facebook Tokina Lens Photo Community!

Thanks to all members of the community and please join us in cheering Will Campbell (US) with his shot "High Desert Reflections at Sunset". Our warmest congratulations!

Photographer: Will Campbell
Title: "High Desert Reflections at Sunset"
Shooting location: Stead airport, Reno Nevada USA
Camera: Nikon D810
Lens: Tokina AT-X 16-28 F2.8 PRO FX (16-28mm f/2.8)

Photographer's comments:

"The picture features Gene Malette's beautiful 1944 North American P-51 Mustang at sunset during the Pylon Racing School (PRS) for the Reno National Championship Air Races held every year in September. This shot was taken during the rookie school for the pilots, held the first week in June. Two P-51s took part in the racing school this year and I was going back and forth between the two as the sun set. (You can see the other one in the background if you look carefully. I wanted to try and get both in the same frame as they were painted nearly identical.) As the sun set, the colors started to develop, and the clouds moved into position over the Sierra Nevada mountain range to the west. I had several lenses with me but pulled the Tokina AT-X 16-28 F2.8 PRO FX out because of its sharpness, and because of how it renders the color blue. I underexposed the shot a little bit to make the sky above dark, while still capturing the color of the sunset, and to bring out the color of the reflection down the fuselage, across the tail and across the leading edge of the wings. I was also able to capture much of the detail in the shadows, without making the shadow areas noisy. When I looked at the pic on the back of the camera, I knew I had a winner. Everything fell into place as I had envisioned the shot in my mind. The colors were vivid, the highlights popped in the reflections, the sunset colors danced across the aircraft. The camera and lens were able to capture the mirror like reflection with the clouds, sunset, and parts of the aircraft itself. I was the only photographer out there that evening. I love shooting at this location because the sunrises and sunsets are usually spectacular, and the opportunity to capture a stunningly restored aircraft with those sunrises and sunsets is always memorable. To be the only person out there made it even more special as there aren't any similar shots from other people. The air races in September, or PRS in June are always a challenge to shoot, nothing is ever the same two days in a row. Conditions are always changing, (In this case the clouds appeared out of nowhere about 20 minutes before I started shooting on this evening.) and a planned photo shoot can go from nothing to epic (or visa versa) in the span of half an hour. Sometimes the light lingers, sometimes the light is good for 5 minutes or less. You never know until the shoot is over and the light is gone. When everything falls into place, its almost magical."

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