Getting ready for an air ahow

[deadshot]

Sarah,
Thanks for the nice remarks ( you may remember recommending the outfit to me some while back, when I was looking for my first DSLR ) and also the info on the Aircraft. I knew it was an American plane but that was all I knew . What I should have done was to have taken notes on what I was photographing but you know what us men are like at multi tasking.

[mtclimber]

Thanks for the post, deadshot-

And again, thanks for posting the great aircraft photos.

Have a great day.

Sarah Joyce

[raday]

Thanks for all of your help. I took many pictures at the flight demo, but you may be right, Mark 1616, I may need to change my shutter speed and exposure, to get better contrast and a better image of speed. They mentioned at the demonstration that in honor of the anniversary of the start of the Battle of Britain this week they will be flying their Hawker Hurricane and their Spitfire this coming weekend I hope to try and get more pics.

[deadshot]

There's something that I forgot to mention with spot metering and that is that (you may already know this) it is linked to the auto focus point so if you are not covering the subject the exposure will be way out. If you have three A F points and have the left hand one selected that is where the spot metering will come from. I had the centre A/F point selected and that was what I endeavoured to keep over the subject.
The planes are not in the centre of all my shots because mostly I cropped them flying into the picture for better effect.
I was a qualified marksman in the armed forces, so following things closely is second nature. Hence the name deadshot

[raday]

I was using the center mark for focusing. I had to figure out not to totally release my finger off of the button to keep it focused. I was able to follow the planes and get several in a row.

The old pilot mentioned that you had to shoot ahead of the target to hit it, He was an Ace so I guess you and he would have gotten along well.

One drawback to the digital camera is when you take the picture you have instantaneous feed back (good thing) but in the bright sunlight you can't see the display to see if you have the exposure right (bad thing).

So do you think I need to adjust the exposure to get more of the picture showing?

raday

[JohnG]

Originally Posted by raday

So do you think I need to adjust the exposure to get more of the picture showing?

raday

Yes. In the posted photo the plane is very under-exposed. Part of getting such a close-up of these wonderful machines is being able to see the detail. The detail is completely lost in the current shot you posted. But don't get down - it's not easy at all to shoot aircraft - especially the props because you do want slower shutter speeds so you have to worry about propper panning technique as well as exposure adjustments. And the planes are smaller. In many ways the jets are much easier to get good photos of because you are using faster shutter speeds. But keep at it. And keep seeking feedback. Every time you do it, you'll get better. You're off to a good start. You just need work on getting exposure adjusted so details are visible and working on a panning technique so you use slower shutter speeds and shot prop blur.

Now, my panning technique is poor - I don't shoot enough subjects where I've improved it enough to get sharp results like Mark - but this is the concept of the blur with a better exposure so you can see some details. Asuming I actually practice panning, the sharpness will come around too.

[raday]

I will keep shooting. thanks for the feedback.

Here is a pic of the US Navy SNJ4 that they flew the guest speaker after he spoke. (He is 91 years ol)


I again thank all of you for your help.

raday