Basic Plane Photography tips?

[Mattaddiction]

Hi,

Novice photograph hear, looking for any tips anyone can give for taking pictures of moving planes (usually landing or departing), usually against the grey/white Suffolk sky?

What sort of settings are a good ball park to start with ? Which is the best direction in relation to the sun to be?

I tend to get get a lot of pictures that would look quite nice, if only the noise or tail wasn't out of the shot... I take it the only thing with that is to zoom out a bit and bee more mindful of where the subject is in the view finder (always looks like its all in but 9 out of 10 times one end is missing.....)


Cheers

matt

[Thunder]

Don’t think there is such a thing as ball park settings. It all depends on focal length, iso settings , shutter speed, aperture, natural light available, distance to and from subject, subject moving or not and how fast or slow. So many variables to compensate for that only practice and lots of mistakes will show you the way. First thing you need to do is understand the functions of your camera

However more often than not the sun at your back is best, and always shoot at a speed greater than the focal length, although in these days of optical stabilising lenses you can get off with lower shutter speeds. With regards to cutting off tails and noses, zoom out a bit and follow the subject before and after you take the picture, too many people take their eye off the viewfinder just as they press the shutter release which results in misplaced subject matter. Also most of the mid and low range cameras don’t have a 100% viewfinder so you’ll have to take that into account if you start getting stray objects at the outer edges of your pictures. Another thing to remember is that the vast majority of pictures you see on here are cropped and will look completely different from the original.

With my 18-250 lens fitted I tend to set my ISO to 100 and shoot on AV aperture priority set to F8/F10, this would mostly give a shutter speed of between 1/60 to 1/200 depending on light which is determined by the focal length and natural light. If I can’t achieve this then either up the ISO or increase the aperture to a smaller number until I can. When I was using the Canon 100-400 I would adjust the ISO up as far as 640 in order to maintain the aperture in the F8/10 range and shutter speed of around 1/500, again that all depends on the lighting conditions available.

Get a book on basic photography to help understand the basics and take it from there, and get out there taking pictures of anything and everything trying out different settings.

[Wallace]

Consult the manual that came with your camera, especially the subsection about photographing aircraft.
Realise that there isn't any. There are no rules when photographing aircraft just exposure and composition.

Learn to take photographs like a photographer and then start taking pictures of planes.

Otherwise your photos will end up just end up like everyone else's.

Basic starting point, learn the exposure triangle, speed, aperture and sensitivity
Learn what Av and Tv modes are for.
Learn to shoot in manual
Make mistakes and learn from them and remember.... Your first 10,000 photos are your worst!

Oh and when all else fails.... P for panic!

[Thunder]

If you look through the photography pages on here, most guys use Flickr. If you click on the picture sometimes it will link directly to the Flickr site and you can read what settings and focal length they used.

[ChrisCwmbran]

Personally I find nothing makes more difference than practice....

And for me thats where Coningsby and Lakenheath (and at the risk of sounding rude Heathrow) come into their own.

You get aircraft after aircraft going past giving you as much chance to practice as you need. Ok the subject of the shots is a bit restrictive but it gives you general practice and the ability to try techniques out without risking not getting the shots you really wanted.

That way when you are RIAT or the like and get to shoot a plane you really want decent images of, hopefully you reap the benefit of the practice shots.

Hope this helps.

Chris.

[James1971]

As Chris mentioned above, get to a local airport/field and practice.

I'd also add having a bit of knowledge on post processing too. A little increase on shadows will brighten up the belly of the plane etc. and reduction in highlights will bring details out in clouds etc. If shooting in RAW, you can make a flat image look 100x better than how it looked when you uploaded it to your pc. Shooting in JPEG is good for space on a memory card, but the camera tries to think what the best processing settings are which are usually wrong (in my experience).

ISO 100 and AV/Aperture Priority Mode set to around f8 should get you a fast enough shutter speed if it's a bright day. If not increase the ISO in increments until you get what you're after - without going too far that results in a noisy image. You want speeds that reduce any blur 1/400 and above would suffice for most Airliners. 1/160 - 1/250 would be a ball park for props, but they were/are a different beast altogether. Also add a little + exposure compensation.

Dont have a too fast speed as you'll lose light in the sky etc. 1/800 and above works for fast jets.

There's plenty of articles on Google if you search for Airshow Photography tips

[ChrisCwmbran]

I'd also say: Don't be afraid to ask other photographers at the location

Several times I've had prolonged chats where people have asked for advice and I've done my best to help them - sometimes with immediate improvement in their results - their reaction to which was very gratifying.

The only problem for me is that one of the people I helped was a Niknocker and whilst the photographic principals are the same, the menu layouts and controls were somewhat unfamiliar to me as a Canon user.

[TREBAX_RAVEN]

Make sure you wear ear defenders so your photos aren't noisy!

[C24]

Chris, as already suggested, practise taking shots to get use to the camera controls/menus.
To save petrol money, find a bridge over a dual carriageway and use the vehicles as subjects. Be careful how you park up and be friendly to the patrol car occupants who will visit you.
What I do recommend is to post shots on here.
Have fun C.

[SCARECROW]

Take pics of what you actually like, I take pics of military, bizjets and airliners, Little civvie stuff bores me and it shows in my pics !

[Unknown74]

I only really take photos of Aircraft when they are still on the ground, as I have a video camera for flying aircraft. Only occasionally do I take photos of flying Aircraft.