Advice on how to take a particular shot

[raf_gti]

Wow, it has been a fair old time since I've posted in this forum, my 400D is certainly getting dusty

I have the chance to take a potentially stunning picture but I'm not sure how to go about it.

The picture will consist of an aircraft as the main subject illuminated by a floodlight with a deep red/orange sky in the background along with small mountains sillouetted in the background. I want the aircraft as sharp as possible but also having a decent amount of the sunset 'come through'.

I was thinking of exposing for the aircraft and using a shutter speed of around 1/10 but I fear this may over-expose the aircraft. HDR would most likely be ideal but I'd like to nail this from the camera!

Hopefully I have explained what I mean without confusing you all.

I will only have my friends 350 with lit lens to play with.

[Gold]

I would just take two shots, one with the sky properly exposed and one with the plane properly exposed and then merge together in photoshop.

[Famous Graham]

Gold said:

I would just take two shots, one with the sky properly exposed and one with the plane properly exposed and then merge together in photoshop.

Bracket it.

[Simpo Two]

Or adjust the brightness of the floodlight until it's in the ratio you want with the sunset.

[andy-xr]

Break the floodlight, stick the camera on a tripod, do a 5 second exposure
@F18'ish and fire a flashgun at the aircraft?

[raf_gti]

andy-xr said:

Break the floodlight, stick the camera on a tripod, do a 5 second exposure
@F18'ish and fire a flashgun at the aircraft?

Ha! As much as I would like to break it I think I'd be shouted at rather loudly if I were to try that.

[gingerpaul]

Using a graduated neutral density filter filter might do it I think.

[mikee boy]

Steve

email sent.

Mike

[VxDuncan]

You're probably gunna want to to knock the sky back a couple of stops to increase the saturation of the colour in the sky - I'd probably do this by shooting in Manual, taking a reading off the sky and then underexposing by a couple of stops. That gives you the exposure for the sky - which you can't change. Than it's a case of trying to balance the exposure of the aircraft - either by somehow adjusting the output of the floodlight (ND gels) to knock it down or adding some off-camera flash to boost it up a bit. That said - trying to get maximum depth of field (to get front and background sharp) is gunna need quite a small aperture (maybe F11 ish obviously depending massively on the lens) which is gunna to eat your flash batteries big time, if indeed your flash is powerful enough to do it. As said the alternative is to either ND grad or do a PS composite of two shots / HDR merge from a couple of exposures (all these methods are really HDR as they are expanding the dynamic range of the image). Obviously a tripod is a must!

[VxDuncan]

Just got to a bit in Joe McNallys new book, "The Hot-Shoe Diaries" (think that's what it's called. He shows the sequence of taking a picture of a plane in exactly the same environment, and trying to expose for the sky. He does however use 48 Flashguns!

(brilliant book btw, absolutely great, though don't buy it if you don't use a nikon as it's very CLS biased)

[raf_gti]

Thanks for the advice but unfortunately I never did get a chance to take the shot A combination of lack of time and the condition's changing has meant I could no longer attempt it!