A Small sampling of the Fargo 2011 Air Show

[Paul]

Here are a few air plane photos I shot using a Canon 100-400L lens at 1/500 sec and faster with a B&W circ Polarizer

Thanks for Looking

[fishinchicks]

Awesome!

[Dbl]

Love that first shot, a clear winner! Nice work Paul!

[yakfisher]

Paul, that first shot is awesome! Love the second shot too.

[MuleShack]

Nice work.

[eyeguy 54]

Dandy!

[ThunderLund78]

Great tran-sonic shot on the F-18!

[Paul]

That is actually an F-16 piloted by a former Fargo North High Student.

[yakfisher]

That first shot is actually an F-18 which is a Navy/Marine aircraft, it has 2 engines and an F-16 only has one engine.

[Paul]

Ok, I am wrong and you guys are right, I went back and looked at the pictures in Order and that is the f18- Here is the f16. My Bad

[ThunderLund78]

Beautiful Heritage Flight shot of the Falcon and Mustang. It must be all that pilot can do to keep the falcon in the air and the mustang pilot must have the throttle to the boards

[IA4PATS]

I love the P51 and F16. Two of my favorites together. Do you guys have any suggestion for Airshow photographing. The Thunderbirds are in town this weekend

[Dbl]

I love the P51 and F16. Two of my favorites together. Do you guys have any suggestion for Airshow photographing. The Thunderbirds are in town this weekend

What type of camera will you be using? DSLR or point in shoot?

[Paul]

We posted a bunch of tips out our local clubs facebook page for shooting aircraft. If you are a facebooker you can search out fargo moorhead camera club and look for "Photo Tips", I dont remeber which TIP but it was like 8 or 9.

IF using an SLR camera I would recomend ISO400, 1/500 sec on shutter prioity mode. IF you are uncomfortable with manual modes just put it on a sports mode in automatic section you will do ok. If you have a Zoom Lens with a Hood I sugest using the HOOD and a Circular Polarizer to deal with the sun issues. In Really bright sun, I would go as far as to recomend a .3 or .6 ND filter.

Good Luck.

[IA4PATS]

I use a DSLR Pentax K10. I'll look for the tips on Facebook

[Dbl]

I will offer a bit of different advice. Shooting jets you want the fastest shutter speed possible, you would be better off in shooting in aperture priority (Av). ISO under bright sunny skies in the range of 100 to 200. This should give you a nice high shutter speed, in the range of 1/1000s or more. If it doesn't bump up the ISO to give you a good fast speed. I personally like 1/2000s or higher and will adjust the ISO to give me those speeds.

If you are shooting airplanes with propellers you will have the best success with Shutter priority (Tv). The main reason here is you want to control your shutter speed so that you can show the propeller blurred. Shooting a prop airplane at a high shutter speed will give you a "frozen" propeller shot making the plane look very static, as if it will fall from the sky. If you shoot with your shutter set to 1/250th or less you should be able to get a nice blur of the prop. Experiment with your shutter speed to give you an acceptable blur on the prop but still keep your subject sharp. This is one of the very few times I use Tv mode, but it does do the job. Depending on lighting I may need to go down to 1/60s or so to get good blur but most often I am in the 1/250th range. You will lose some shots to motion blur at the slower shutter speeds so make up for it by taking more shots!

I've never used a polarizing filter or an ND filter. I have had no reason to, it is very easy to control the camera with shutter speed, aperture and ISO to get the combination you want for the specific type of airplane you are shooting without using filters but your mileage may vary.

Good luck and share some shots from the weekend!