Kalamazoo Air Zoo

[Travis Butler]

Was getting late by the time the last pics finished exporting, so just going to post a couple of teaser pics to start with... full set of 270 pics is here:

Kalamazoo Air Zoo May 2025

Visits to the Kalamazoo Air Zoo in May 2025.

flic.kr

20250526-SDIM5616 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
Sigma fp, TTArtisan 11/2.8 Fisheye

The Air Zoo was founded by Suzanne and Pete Parish, using planes they started collecting starting in 1959. Suzanne was a WASP in World War II, and the P-40 was the plane "she had always dreamed of flying"; when she had a chance to grab one, she jumped on it. And here it is hanging in the museum's atrium.


20250526-SDIM5642 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
Minolta MD 35-70/3.5 Macro

I mentioned in the Henry Ford Museum thread that the Tin Goose was in a real sense 'my' airplane, the first one I was able to recognize as a little kid; it's neat that the Air Zoo has one as well.

Alas, it was also when I started really picking up flaws with my old favorite Olympus OM Zuiko 24/2.8:


20250526-SDIM5634 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
OM Zuiko 24/2.8

Indoors, in a dimly lit environment with heavy spotlighting, it flares like crazy. I switched to the Minolta, which does much better, but has a much tighter FoV.

I had an unexpected chance to stop by again on my way home, and went back in with my Konica Hexanon 28/3.5; that one worked out better in both respects.


20250531-SDIM6790 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
Hexanon 28/3.5 (8-element version)

 

[Travis Butler]

The Air Zoo has four main settings.

The 'main' room is overall dim with spotlights, so has a lot of problems with both light levels and glare:


20250526-SDIM5880 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
(Had to boost the brightness a lot in PP; I was once again impressed with how well the fp does in low light, almost everything in here was ISO 1600 or above, with several at ISO 6400.)

There's the World War II room, which is much better lit but still has a lot of problems with glare:


20250526-SDIM5721 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

There's the 'space' room, which is sort of in between:


20250526-SDIM5785 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

(I give them credit for effort, especially since they're not a dedicated space museum, but there's not a lot there that's unique; it's almost all replicas and stuff like an Iron Man armor replica.)

All these are on the main campus. There's also the museum's original home building, which is now the Zoo's restoration shop, but which also houses some exhibits:


20250530-SDIM6569 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

It's not as big as the Henry Ford, but there's still a lot to go through. I did several hours at the main building on the first visit; squeezed in an hour at the restoration hangar on the second visit; and when I had a chance for a third visit, I went back to re-shoot with the Hexanon 28/3.5 as I mentioned above, plus pick up some exhibits I passed up the first time.