I attended the QuickChek Festival of Ballooning pre-festival Media Launch event yesterday with a bunch of photographers from the Somerset County Meetup. I arrived around 6:30 AM but due to work commitments, I was only able to shoot for about 45 minutes. I have attended a few of these in the past. I was unprepared for this as my new camera has not yet arrived. I shot the event with a borrowed camera and Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 USM IS-LM lens. It was a bit too "zoomy" for this event but ... I made it work.

What sort of photographer shows up at a balloon festival with a 70-200mm lens?

Thirteen images stitched in Adobe Photoshop using the panorama feature.

Bhavna and I are planning a fall balloon adventure over the Letchworth State Park in upstate New York. We've never done this before, but the idea of being up in the air and being swept wherever the wind may take us, seems exciting.