Airshow Photography

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Discussion

littleredrooster

Original Poster:

5,523 posts

195 months

Thursday 28th August 2014
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Are airshows the most difficult thing to photograph?

After 30 years of popping in and out of photography as an enthusiastic amateur, I tried to get some shots of the Lancasters and Vulcan (and many others) at Little Gransden on Sunday. Not having done airshows for many years, I encountered many difficulties which meant that - looking at the results - my success rate was about 20 percent (shots taken to acceptable results).

Hurdles included:

1. Trying to locate a grey aircraft against a grey sky at great distance with a long lens.
2. Once located, trying to zoom in and pan with it to get a decent shot without anything getting in the way. (Ironically, one of the best shots turned out to be one of the fastest-moving stunt planes at close range!)
3. Shooting directly into the sun - all the most interesting stuff was shot towards the sun and I was trying to best-guess the exposure compensation.
4. Getting the shot before the damn aircraft has become a speck in the distance!
5. Trying to get an interesting 'aspect' of the aircraft - too easy to press the shutter and get everything as a straight side-on shot.
6. Trying not to knock my glasses off every time I put the viewfinder to my eye! How do speccy-wearers cope with this?

Tips, commiserations and criticism all welcome. (Camera was a Sony NEX-6 with 55-210 kit lens.)

The_Jackal

4,854 posts

196 months

Thursday 28th August 2014
quotequote all
Do you shoot in RAW, so that you have a better chance of correcting exposure problems.
Someone recently posted some pics of an airshow where all the planes were underexposed, all this required was raising the shadows slider in Lightroom (or equivalent program).

F355GTS

3,721 posts

254 months

Thursday 28th August 2014
quotequote all
I was at Wings & Wheels last Saturday, I'm by no means a pro so can;t give you the answers and only shot in jpeg but overall I'm pleased with the results given changeable skies and light





































More at http://www.collinsclan.co.uk/Pages/Cars/wingsandwh...

littleredrooster

Original Poster:

5,523 posts

195 months

Thursday 28th August 2014
quotequote all
The_Jackal said:
Do you shoot in RAW, so that you have a better chance of correcting exposure problems.
Someone recently posted some pics of an airshow where all the planes were underexposed, all this required was raising the shadows slider in Lightroom (or equivalent program).
I shoot simultaneously JPEG and RAW (or ARW - Sony's version) and play about with the RAW files, although I only have a trial version of DxO Optics and Sony's own image editor software to manipulate things with.

Flickr piccies: https://www.flickr.com/photos/charliedelta54/sets/...

dojo

741 posts

134 months

Thursday 28th August 2014
quotequote all
A good mate of mine is a pro aviation photographer, check out his site rcpro photography on Facebook... Amazing.

I would actually shoot on burst mode, predict the line of the pass and follow through whilst motor driving you'll miss a lot but memory is cheap!

P K Wright

364 posts

160 months

Thursday 28th August 2014
quotequote all
Been going to Little Gransden Airshow every year for a few years now. This year I unfortunately could not go. I know what you mean about it being a challenge!

A further factor I find myself trying to address is getting a fast enough shutter speed to ensure the plane is sharp, but also a slow enough one to ensure the propellers aren't frozen.

I'm always fairly happy with my photos, especially considering I only every try aviation photography once a year. My only tip is to experiment, and take absolutely loads for you to select the best ones from. For every decent one I'm happy with there's probably 15 I'm not happy with!

My camera is a Canon 550D with a 55-250 IS lens, and I had to crop a lot of the plane photos. For the car pics I used a 50mm f/1.8 prime lens with polariser filter. These are my best pictures from last year's Little Gransden Airshow:































Edited by P K Wright on Thursday 28th August 21:42

NotPennysBoat

17 posts

115 months

Thursday 28th August 2014
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It can be easy if you know how. I recently got into aviation photography and on my first attempt with new camera got fantastic, sharp photos.

Always shoot in shutter speed priority and play with that. Fast jets = 1/200th-1/1000th and prop & choppers you want 1/80th-1/160th.

Try lowering shutter for fast jet take offs to get a sense of speed, do it right and it looks great!

nre

531 posts

269 months

Friday 29th August 2014
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F355GTS said:
I was at Wings & Wheels last Saturday, I'm by no means a pro so can;t give you the answers and only shot in jpeg but overall I'm pleased with the results given changeable skies and light





































More at http://www.collinsclan.co.uk/Pages/Cars/wingsandwh...
Also from W&W

were the Spitfire and Mustang not one of the most fantastic examples of formation flying you're ever likely to see?

Close Formation by NRE, on Flickr

onyx39

11,109 posts

149 months

Saturday 30th August 2014
quotequote all
dojo said:
A good mate of mine is a pro aviation photographer, check out his site rcpro photography on Facebook... Amazing.

I would actually shoot on burst mode, predict the line of the pass and follow through whilst motor driving you'll miss a lot but memory is cheap!
Damn that man is talented!

F355GTS

3,721 posts

254 months

Wednesday 3rd September 2014
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Some pics from Scampton families day on Monday, a few more at http://www.collinsclan.co.uk/pages/cars/scampton20...

































Sir Douglas Bader's old car










Edited by F355GTS on Wednesday 3rd September 21:09