How To Shoot At An Airshow

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BarryDawsib

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On thursday I have been invited to the Marham Airshow by one of my relatives, and insist on me taking my camera :p

Never been to an airshow in my life so other then planes flying dont know what difficultys I might expect.

Any advice on shooting? any problems I may experience?
Anything at all!
 
I shot the Blackpool Airshow on Sunday which was only my second time of shooting aircraft. I shot at around f8 to f13 and a shutterspeed of around 1/320th for prop planes to get some motion blur or faster for jet planes.

At Blackpool I had no choice but to shoot in to the sun but if you can avoid it then I'd highly recommend it. Ideally you'd shoot with the sun behind you so you can meter for the sky and still have the under side of the aircraft lit up by the sun. To get detail in the sky and the aircraft can be hard in the wrong light so be prepared to experiment and get a lot of them wrong.

If you have the option, use a 300mm or longer lens, have your camera set to continuous focus and when trying to capture multiple aircraft flying past eachother use your fastest burst rate to help you get the timing right.
 
-Rob- said:
I shot the Blackpool Airshow on Sunday which was only my second time of shooting aircraft. I shot at around f8 to f13 and a shutterspeed of around 1/320th for prop planes to get some motion blur or faster for jet planes.

At Blackpool I had no choice but to shoot in to the sun but if you can avoid it then I'd highly recommend it. Ideally you'd shoot with the sun behind you so you can meter for the sky and still have the under side of the aircraft lit up by the sun. To get detail in the sky and the aircraft can be hard in the wrong light so be prepared to experiment and get a lot of them wrong.

If you have the option, use a 300mm or longer lens, have your camera set to continuous focus and when trying to capture multiple aircraft flying past eachother use your fastest burst rate to help you get the timing right.
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Good advice, depending on what lens you will be using then a tripod will come in handy.
I use a 70-200 with 1.4 extender hand held and a 300mm f4 on the tripod.
If the sky is grey them you may need to adjust the W/B but i think the rule of thumb is shoot as many pics as you can as there will be a lot of duffers.
 
As well as what has been mentioned above you'll need to be familiar with exposure compensation or manual metering or you'll end up with a lot of partial silhouettes. The sky behind it will generally be brighter than the plane and will fool the camera's meter.
 
For the first time shooting planes I'd say 1/125 is a bit to slow and will result in a lot of OOF shots. 1/200 or 1/250 will still give decent prop blur on spitfires etc and if the OP is pretty confident with panning then drop the shutter speed on the slower prop planes

1/200
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question is the vignetting on that shot intentional?
 
trencheel303 said:
question is the vignetting on that shot intentional?
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I think the vignetting adds to the shot especially with it being in mono.

With there being space on the left of the photo for the plane to fly in to the vignetting makes the space less expansive.
 
any tips for airbourne as im told its harder being over the sea.
 
paul_g said:
For the first time shooting planes I'd say 1/125 is a bit to slow and will result in a lot of OOF shots. 1/200 or 1/250 will still give decent prop blur on spitfires etc and if the OP is pretty confident with panning then drop the shutter speed on the slower prop planes
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Hmm, maybe you are right although I shot at 1/125 from my very first prop plane because that was what I was told to do. Saying that I did have a lot of OOF shots :LOL:

You learn pretty quickly though.

4 day airshow here in Bournemouth next week :clap:

1/125

4776428005_0b930b667a_z.jpg


1/180

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as above, shoot nearly all my stuff at +1 ev with centre weighted metering. Black aircraft may need slightly more if the sky is really bright.

Helicopters are really tough, you need about 1/80 to stop prop blur, and with prop planes shoot around 1/320 to start with. For fast jets, just stick it on 1/1000 to make it nice and sharp, up your ISO slightly if you have to.

If using a budget zoom, keep it slightly off max zoom to avoid softening the image too much. Don't get carried away with burst or you'll fill those memory cards up quick :)

Have fun!
 
So, how many of us are descending upon Eastbourne this weekend? Due to work & prior arrangements I'm only going to be free on the Thursday, but it will be my first proper outing with the 70-200 F4L!

I'm going to miss the Eurofighter :crying:
 
paul_g said:
Yep
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-Rob- said:
I think the vignetting adds to the shot especially with it being in mono.

With there being space on the left of the photo for the plane to fly in to the vignetting makes the space less expansive.
Click to expand...

Absolutely! i think the vignetting is a great addition I just wanted to know whether it was the lens doing it or whether it was added in Post production.
 
As air shows are generally few and far between you could do worse than get along to your local microlight airfield to practice. Whilst any decently run airfield would not want you on the field it’s self you will still get up close and personal with the pilots and much closer to the aircraft as they fly lower and slower than commercial/military aircraft.

Good way to practice before the main events so to speak. Look up BMAA or MICROLIGHT FIELDs on google, you will be surprised how many there are.

M.
 
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