N8Ability

October 16th, 2011 – Great day for an air show!

If you have never been to an air show – do it!  Whether you are a photography, love airplanes, or just want to spend a fun day outside an air show is a great way to spend the day.  Especially if you are the type of person that gets goose bumps from loud engines and horsepower.  Nothing rumbles quite a like an airplane passing low over head.

Pack light or share the load with your friends that came with you.  You will be standing/walking for a long time.  What doesn’t seem like a lot of weight at first, feels like a bag of bricks by the end of the day.  Also, find out if you can re-enter the show for free.  If you can, think about leaving some stuff behind in the car and getting it later – assuming that you were able to park close to the flight line.  Maybe you leave your long lenses in the car and just shoot the static displays – where you will be doing more of the walking, then come back and get your long lenses before the aerial displays start?  Just an idea.  Once the flying starts get to “your spot” and get settled in.  A good spot by the fence line is prime real estate and you don’t want to give it up.  Hopefully you are there with friends and you can take turns running for food/drinks/bathroom and “save” your treasured spot along the fence.  I bring all my gear in a backpack and I put that on the ground in front of me while I shoot.  I keep it between my legs and against the fence so even while I am shooting I know it is safe and sticky hands haven’t come by and swiped it.  Yes…we live in a world full of asshole thieves so you have to keep that in mind.  Just because you are in a family environment, that doesn’t mean you can put your guard down.  You eye is in the camera and your mind is in the clouds, literally with the airplanes.  How hard would it be for someone to steal your gear and it could be minutes if not longer before you even realized it.

Sun block!  This may seem obvious, but towards the end of the show I’m always surprised when I look around and just about everyone around you is fried from the sun.  Wear a hat, sunglasses, a collared shirt…whatever you can do to protect yourself from the sun.  Just remember sun block is like kryptonite to a camera.  Make sure you wash your hands after you apply the lotion and prior to touching your camera again.  Sun block is water resistant…if you get it on your lens or LCD you will have a mess on your hands.   Plus you don’t want your camera to be greasy.

Yeah, yeah, I know…this is a photography blog!  Get to the photography tips!  Just had to get that stuff out of the way first because it is important and if it was at the bottom of the post, you wouldn’t read it.  Lol

Bring lots of memory cards!  How many?  That is a decision you will have to make for yourself.  Are you shooting RAW or JPG?  How many megapixels does your camera have (effecting file size)?  Do you shoot like crazy in motor drive?  Or carefully select the images you take and sparingly push the shutter release?  Personally I fire away and sort it out later.  Not “spray an pray”…when I shoot it calculated and composed as best I can.  But I would rather take 8 shots of a plane passing by then just 1 or 2 and hope I capture the “peak of action”.  Why?  First, the planes are flying fast and you might miss what you wanted.  Secondly, interesting things are always happening.  The angle of the plane may change.  You may get vapor off the wings, the pilot looking your way, sun glare off the fuselage, etc.  You may not pick up on these things until post.  So personally, I would prefer to just shoot like crazy even if that means I spend a little more time in post sorting through my shots.  As an example, I shot 4,500 shots at the last show.  Some people shoot only a fraction of that.  Some shoot many more.  That’s all up to you.

For this last show I actually brought my computer with me.  I know that violates the “pack light” rule.  But I was with a friend that was just along to hang out and he helped me carry all the gear so it wasn’t that big of a deal.

What mode to shoot in?  Well we obviously aren’t shooting in AUTO mode!  Hopefully if you are interested enough in photography to be reading my babble, you have advanced in your photography skills to the point where you aren’t using AUTO mode anymore.  Good!  I shoot in aperture priority when making photos of jets and shutter priority when making pictures of prop planes.  Why shutter priority for prop planes?  Because you want to have your shutter slow enough to capture the motion of the propeller and give you a nice motion blur.  However, this slow shutter speed comes with a trade off.  You have to be VERY steady with your hands as you pan so that your image isn’t blurry.  You will probably be shooting at a focal length of 200-500mm range with a shutter speed around 1/160^th, 125^th, or even slower if you can do it.   The real “pros” will be shooting down in the 1/60^th or 1/80^th range…some even slower.  As your shooting make sure you review your images and make sure you are steady enough or the shutter speed you have selected.  If you aren’t getting good images, consider raising the shutter speed until you have nice sharp images.   I rather sacrifice the motion blur of the propellers and get a nice sharp image if I had to.  Just keep practicing.   On the flip side,  jets typically are moving much faster and don’t have any external moving pieces (like props) to catch the motion blur, so crank up the shutter speed to make sure you get a great image.  This is why I shoot jets in aperture priority.  It is a quick switch back and forth between “A” and “S” on my camera and I can leave both modes setup with the ideal settings.  Rather than spinning the dial to change my shutter from 125 to 1250…I just change modes.  Works perfect and it’s quick.

What lens to use?  This will depend heavily on how close you are to the flight line.  I will assume that you are standing at the fence line (front row).  Using a crop sensor – which is what most DLSR cameras have – you will probably be shooting most of the aerial shots in the 200-400mm range.  If you don’t know what size sensor  you have in your camera figure it out because it will affect the equivalent focal length of your setup.  For the static displays and planes passing right in front of you as they taxi, you will probably be in the 18-75 range.  Most likely you don’t have a lens that goes from 18-400mm, so this means you really need two lens…and preferably two cameras so that you aren’t changing lenses all day.  This last show I show I brought a 24-70mm and a 80-400mm and the combination worked great.  If you are really into the static images (which I’m not) you may want to bring another lens for the static shots.  Wide angle, fish eye, etc…whatever your preference is.

The light is usually pretty good, so don’t worry about needing a fast lens like a 2.8.  It would be nice for the DOF on the static images, but you probably will be at a smaller aperture for the aerial shots.

What to do to prepare?  Practice panning!  Your technique will be critical when taking the action shots of the aerial displays.  Just like you were swinging a baseball bat, stand with your feet apart and rotate your entire upper body as you pan from left/right or vice versa.  Use both hands as supports for the camera and pan with your body rotating, not your arms.  Tuck your elbows in front of your chest.  This will make it easier to support the weight of the camera and make your panning motion more fluid since your arms have a steady foundation.   Can you support the weight of the camera with just your arms?  Sure.  But remember, you will be doing this ALL day.  What seems easy two or three times…may not be by the end of the day.

Make sure you gently depress the shutter button.  Especially at the slower shutter speeds.   My tip is to not take your finger off the button before you press it down.  Sounds silly right?  You would be surprised at how many people actually lift their finger slightly before they depress the shutter.  This slows your reaction time and also increases the likelihood that the camera will move as you push the release which will give you crooked (and possibly blurred) images.

Also, when panning, the picture taking process starts before you push the release and doesn’t end when you let go of the button.  Just like the baseball swing…follow through!  That means you start tracking the plane in the view find well before you want to capture the image.  This may mean you lock in on the plane while it is still maneuvering to pass by show center.  For a smooth shutter release I position my finger on the front edge of the button and then roll it back over the button to trigger the release.   Get your finger ready…keep tracking the plane and when it’s time, push done the release AND CONTINUE TO TRACK THE PLANE.  Too many people stop panning as soon as they hit the release.  1/125^th of a second doesn’t seem like that much, but if you stop panning, early, you will see the results in your images…just like not following through when swinging a baseball bat even though the ball as already hit the bat.

Most of us have a motor drive/continuous shot/burst mode on our camera.  If you do and you want to use it, now is the time!  Using the same technique for panning as described above but trigger the release even sooner and lift your finger a shot or two later.  That way any movement in the camera from your triggering the shutter release will be in the shots before/after the actual peak of action.  Remember these are just digital images.  So if you end up with 6 shots and the 1^st and 6^th shots are junk because of camera movement, who cares?  Sure you can get better but in the mean time, the 2^nd-5^th images are sharp, in focus and exactly what you wanted!

I could continue to ramble….but I think by now most people have checked out…