Commercial aircraft

Characteristics

Characteristics

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444
Name
Jason
Edit My Images
Yes
Hi,

Is it possible to take photo's of commercial aircraft while they are in the air.

My friend is an avid plane spotter.

As he now lives under in Shirley under the flight path of American bound planes he would like to take photos of them.
He also has a plane tracker on his iPad.

What set up would he need.
He has nothing at the moment except giant binoculars.

He had a play with my D300S with my 70-200mm f2.8 with my 2xconverter.

He seemed happy with the result, I thought it was a bit naff.

Jason
 
of course it is - just look at something like http://www.airliners.net/ ...

directly under imo are not the best shots, you want to be off to th side (ideally sunside).

what does he need?
well, an airband scanner would be useful.
a DSLR with a long focal length lens (if you'll let him borrow your 70-200/2.8 or other lenses then it probably makes sense for him to go Nikon). Just how long he needs depends upon how far/high the aircraft are from him.
If he needs really long then possibly a suitable tripod.
 
Don't do plane spotting myself but have a few friends who do it, and they both have crop cameras + 70-200/2.8 non-IS lenses with teleconverters.. sometimes even stacked! I've asked them why not a 100-400 or 400/5.6 even as they seem to be almost always using the 2x extender but they just shrug and say that 70-200/2.8 is fine.

I have a feeling that many plane toggers just want to "record" spotted planes and don't really care about IQ beyond getting a usable shot. Of course there are stunning pics on airliners.net (and my friends contribute) but often it's more about getting the first shot of said plane or catching it in an unusual location.

Myself, I'd probably get a Canon 60D + 100-400 lens if it was within budget.

Disclaimer: I'm a Canon user, don't know anything about Nikon lenses so can't really recommend them...
 
Thanks so far.

I will forward on your comments

Any others?
 
The cheapest quality option would probably be a ***D canon camera with a 300 f/4 (non IS) and 1.4 TC on a tripod.

Or maybe he should have a look at a m4/3 camera with a 300mm lens?
 
vaizki said:
I have a feeling that many plane toggers just want to "record" spotted planes and don't really care about IQ beyond getting a usable shot. Of course there are stunning pics on airliners.net (and my friends contribute) but often it's more about getting the first shot of said plane or catching it in an unusual location.
Click to expand...
maybe in Finland but I don't think that it's that way here - or at least not amongst the DSLR using aviation photographers.
 
Well i didn't say they are Finnish friends, did I... Ok so one of them is ;)

Did you have a recommendation for the OP now that my slanderous and wholly inappropriate feeling has been ousted?
 
actually you'll see that I already gave some broad outlines/suggestions (which is all that you really can do with the information given) ...
& you said that you aren't a planespotter whereas I am & have been for over 30 years so whom is more likely to have a better feel for that community? ;)
 
Passionate feeling I sense.

Thanks for your suggestions.

I will have a chat with my friend (honest its not me) and try to gauge
Budget
What he is trying to capture
Ie
Plane photo
Or
The planes details

How height are the planes when passing etc

Again that's for your input
 
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