A small sampling of the Waterloo airshow

[IA4PATS]

You asked for it...here are a few pictures from the airshow in Waterloo. I tried using some manual settings you guys suggested at the begining of the show, but they were not working very well. I need more practice if I am going to try this. So, these are shot in Auto. I'll add a few at a time. Please critique them, so I can learn from your ways oh wise ones

[Dbl]

Looks like a good start! If you look at my response in Paul's post on the Fargo airshow I mention the use of a slower shutter speed to help with prop blur.

Quote:

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!

That is the advice I would give you here as well. Don't worry about manual right now, shoot in Av or Tv depending on jet or prop and you will get some excellent results. Good job with these.

[Steve Foss]

These are looking good. Nicely exposed and sharp. I think the second one is particularly good because of the view you get when the plane is banking.

You might use a focus point that puts the plane a bit off center. In these images, that would be to left of center, since they are flying toward the right. Our eyes tend to want to see a bit more space in the direction a photo subject is traveling, which is the so-called "rule of thirds." You can get the same effect by cropping.

I also notice some sensor dust specks. They really show up when you stop down the aperture. Shooting wide open they aren't as noticeable.

[IA4PATS]

I did try to set it to Av and Tv, but they would show up real dark. So then I tried to do both manually and I did get a few right, but The time it took and the success rate got me worried for the "big show".

And the spots have been there for a long time. I have tried to clean them a couple time which scares me everytime, and even took it in to have done and they are still there. It really bugs the [PoorWordUsage] out of me.

[Steve Foss]

Likely they are embedded dust specks that can't be gotten rid of, then.

But it's easy to clone them out in Photoshop.

In situations such as airplanes and birds in flight, I always have exposure compensation at the ready as well to override the meter and either underexpose or overexpose as needed. If left alone, the meter often will underexpose the sky, which is OK if it's a pale colored plane but not good if the subject is dark to begin with. A lot depends on how much of the frame the subject takes up, but doing some test shots and looking at the histogram will tell you whether EC is warranted.

[IA4PATS]