this is a really cool pic. too bad your camera picked up the scratches in the window

Thanks! :)

And yes, I've already written to Qantas to ask them to book my flight on a brand-new aircraft next time.

lol best of luck with that

Wow! Every time I try to take a photo out of an airplane window, it never turns out the way it should. Did you do anything special to this, or what? Regardless, it's really beautiful. I love the gradient in the sky... it almost looks like you can see out to space.

Thanks, Synthwolf. :)

Nothing too special in this shot;

10mm (16mm equivalent) lens, f/10 to get a bit of optical sharpness and increase the depth of field. Contrast was raised slightly, as was colour saturation... but mostly just to cancel out the haziness of the aircraft windows. The ground really is that red when you're this far inland!

(The edges of the frame are probably a little dark because the Sigma tends to vignette a little at full wide-angle)

I tried to estimate the location based on the remaining flight time into Sydney, as I didn't have my GPS with me. If I'm about-right, I've driven somewhere near there on the way to Adelaide.

... Oh, and exposure was reduced by -0.33 stops to help bring out some of the cloud detail, since the whites were almost blown out.

So yeah, contrast, saturation, slight darkening of the image.

I tried cropping out the window, but the photo looks worse for it. The black rubber seal of the window helps "frame" the photo I think, especially when opposite the near-black sky high overhead.

Awesome, yeah! Thanks for the tips, maybe I'll try that next time I fly.

Oh wow. This is utterly fantastic. I love it! It may not be the edge of space, but it certainly looks like it.

Thanks, Myuphrid.

I think the relatively wide angle of this lens helps a bit; it's not often one gets to see upwards through those tiny portholes at this altitude. :)

You captured it quite nicely. Clearly quite practiced with the electrophotonigraphator.

Funny thing is, other than the wingtip there is by definition nothing in the topmost part of the picture, yet I find myself drawn to look at it more than the sandy sprawl beneath...

even in the middle of all that...there is still so many signs of Human intervention.

We like to order our less populated areas into neat, tidy grids.

Further inland it gets a bit less untouched - in the Great Sandy Desert (damn we're inventive with names!), for example, the Simpson Desert... Though there are remote and hard-going 4x4 trails throughout.

Oh...is that what it is?

Great Sandy Desert is a few thousand kilometres away, in Western Australia... Simpson Desert is a bit closer to the centre.

If my guesstimate (based on the time remaining in the flight) is close to the mark, the photo would have been taken looking to the south somewhere over this general area:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=broken+hill,+nsw&sll=-31.844899,141.932373&sspn=3.504167,4.921875&ie=UTF8&ll=-31.550453,142.388306&spn=3.402979,7.009277&t=h&z=8&iwloc=addr

Not quite the desert, but pretty barren and harsh all the same. :)

I am just barely familiar with the middle of your country there... which I would LOVE to visit one day... I recall seeing a BBC prgram years ago about "Great train Journeys" and I was taken aback about Nullarbor.

Looks amazing dude, nicely snapped

Wicked, was this shot on the camera you had at MiDFur? Can't remember if that was yours or not.
Either way, gorgeously shot - really brings out all the best qualities of the scene: the sky gradiation, the simulateously rich and limited colour pallete - plus hells yes for wide angle lenses.

This was indeed shot with that camera, yeah (though I didn't use the super-wide-angle lens much at MiDfur).

Thanks for your comment - I'm really happy with how it turned out.

The scratches on the window adds more drama, in my opinion... Very nice! +Fave

ive been everywhere man, ive been everywhere man, ive breathed the mountain air man, ive seen the desert sands man, ive been everywhere!
Ive been to wollongong, wollongong, wollongong, wollongong, wollongong, wollongong, wollongong, wollongong, wollongong,
Daptooooooooooo, aaaaand wollongooooooooooooong!

no but srsly i flew back to sydney and saw the same stuff lol :XD: i think the route was more likely close to canberra lawl. I should upload my photos too, but my window wasn;t as clean as yours XD

Fantastic photo mate, the sky looks so....blue. Did you use a polarising filter on it? I shake my fist at your photography skills.

Thanks Enigma. :) No polarising filter - just the 10-20mm Sigma lens.

Someone stole all the clouds!

You were way further south than Broken Hill: http://maps.google.com/?ll=-35.07568,140.69474&spn=0.277882,0.261955&t=h&z=12