Aeroplanes - how far?

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Jason
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My friend is an an avid plane buff and want to take photo's of them.

Not unusual, however, our discussion got around to commercial planes at 30,000ft
He has downloaded the plane tracking app
Bought some enormous binoculars and spies them in the air
Even making out which carrier they are

So is his idea even possible?
or
worth while?

What set up would he need
He has no kit, but as I an Nikon, he may borrow my lens

Thanks
 
Surely he's better off just getting them coming in/out of airports?
 
There are a few photographers that specialise in shooting (photographing) aircraft when at cruise, as I understand it they take two routes, the first is telescopes with camera mounted, the second is a long prime with multiple teleconverters and manual focus, neither are particularly easy, and both suffer from distortion from both the nature of the kit and also shooting through 40,000ft plus of air

Basically he will have to spend thousands and only shoot on the calmest of days in order to get clear photos worth using, record shots can be got with say a my sigma 150-500 if all your interested in is a record of the aircraft or to try and work out what it is, however even at 500 and A380 is tiny in frame
 
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Very tricky I would think. I own a telescope which allows me to attach my D7000 to it where it then functions effectively as a fixed aperture 1400mm lens.

This setup would give you the required magnification but then actually focusing on the aircraft as it shoots across the viewfinder would be difficult but not impossible.

The other issue as always is atmospheric pollution but on a clear day, with decent magnification and practice it may well be possible to produce some interesting images.
 
As an example this was apparently shot at 2400mm on a 50D I'm guessing this was maybe 600mm plus multiple teleconverters...I'm sorry it's not something I have any knowledge of as to if it would be 2 or 3 by 2xTC to get to that level, maybe @HoppyUK or @StewartR would know more about the lens and converter combination required
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http://www.airliners.net/photo/Qantas/Airbus-A380-842/2440310/
 
the amount of money and effort people are putting into this- what's the buzz?
 
mrjames said:
the amount of money and effort people are putting into this- what's the buzz?
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The same as what many members on this forum get from photographing little balls of feathers :D hell I know a lady that travels all over the world just to fly on rare aircraft, or often just for the love of flying...recently she had a long weekend of flying I think it was something like MAN-MAD-CDG-LHR-SIN-LHR-BCN-LHR-SIN-LHR-MAN just for the enjoyment she gets from flying, well and she got a absolutely nuts price on it due to some weird glitch in the booking system, and it meant an upgrade to here frequent flyer status with the airline :LOL:
 
Surely he's better off just getting them coming in/out of airports?
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Agreed!

Without the hubble telescope and a lot of deleted pictures, it's a bit of a waste of time in the UK.
There's too much moisture/pollution in the atmosphere to make it worth the effort, not to mention expense most of the time.
 
Thanks guys

This is the second time he has asked me
 
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