Photographing large formations

[BMrider]

Some photo opportunities coming up for large formation photography, how do you take yours? I have of course got the usual wide angles (Can go as wide as 10mm, but the subjects are small and there obvious distortion, thinking of using a 35mm prime (50mm on my crop sensor D300) and stitching them together in photo shop, but can see all sorts of problems, has anybody tried this and could post up some examples?

[Mark]

I've done a few photostitches, but not for aviation. Manual mode is the way to go

[jeallen01]

Given the variabilty of formation sizes, I would use a Zoom - probably something around at leeast 70-200mm in FF terms or equivalent in terms of the sensor size & format, and don't forget that most formations will be flying fairly high and so the individual planes will be pretty "small".

Anyway, you will probably need a body with a large sensor and high pixel count if you want the images of the individual planes to show any real detail!

[John flightpath]

Its pretty difficult to photograph a flypast satisfactrilly . What I tend to do is photograph the groups individually that make up the formation. Then you can crop to individual aircraft afterwards if you wish to do so.

Good look with your efforts.

Cheers
John 'flightpath'.