Airshow Photography - What Settings?

willbaroo

willbaroo

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Hello all, i'm off to the Yeovil Air Day soon and would like to use my 70-200mm L to its full potential!

Shooting with a Canon 400D.

What are the best settings to shoot with to get some cracking photo's?

ISO, AV/TV mode??!

Thanks in advance!(y)
 
For propeller planes, I tend to use Tv to try and get propeller blur. Something around 1/250s. Set ISO to get suitable f stop - I try to use f/5.6 to f/8 to get the right mix between DoF along the plane and isolating the background. Stopped down a bit gives you more leeway on focus accuracy which can be helpful.

Metering is more important. You need to dial in compensation so that you aren't metering for the sky and ending up with a black silhouette plane.

Other option is manual and to meter off the grass...
 
grumpybadger said:
Other option is manual and to meter off the grass...
Click to expand...

I've heard this a few times. Would you mind expanding on this? :help:
I was hoping to go the Sunderland airshow, if nothing else to see the Vulcan, but i'm nightshift :bang::bang::bang:
 
For manual exposure you want to meter off something as close to 18% grey as possible (as that is what the meter is callibrated to)

So, find a piece of grass that has a similar level of illumination to the subject and then in manual mode, set the exposure so the grass is properly exposed (i.e. meter in the middle of the range). This is because, colour aside, grass is close to 18% grey.

Possible downsides are, if light is changing quickly, you need to keep changing the settings and planes can be in brighter light than the grass on the ground so check your histogram and make adjustments as necessary.
 
does this mean you have to have a mate throw the grey card into the sky so you can take a picture of it against the background :p

Tv 1/125s or 1/250 for prop blur as has been mentioned
if you can, find a control tower and take some test shots against the sky so that you can meter for the object, then go manual and set your aperture/ISO accordingly

well I'll try this anyway. should be at the sunderland airshow myself in a few weeks time.
 
doing fairford this year, but hopefully get to swansea airshow week before as a recce to try out some techniques

cheers all for tips

drew
 
Cheers Badger (y)
 
A bump on this thread!

I'm off to fairford this year. So.... assuming I'm shooting in TV, what metering mode would people recommend to shooting aircraft in flight?

Ta :)
 
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