Quad City Air Show pics -- with a macro lens!

[angryhampster]

The only telephoto I've got is my 150 macro..so I put it to good use today. Surprisingly, about 50% of my shots were actually in focus..not too bad.
It was the first time I've ever tried shooting planes, so I had absolutely no clue what I was doing.

Here ya go:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v109/angryhampster/artistic/airshow1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v109/angryhampster/artistic/airshow2.jpg



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v109/angryhampster/artistic/airshow4.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v109/angryhampster/artistic/airshow5.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v109/angryhampster/artistic/airshow6.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v109/angryhampster/artistic/airshow8.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v109/angryhampster/artistic/airshow9.jpg

I'm honestly quite surprised at how good they came out, consider the crappy weather conditions and the lens that I was shooting with. :)

[Eagle]

Nice job, I really like the F18 shot. Can you post the original, that has to be cropped.

[RCoulter]

I don't like how they are all offset to the right. Try centering some of them.

The F-18 shot is great, that is a hard to shot to get, but you did pretty good :)

I also like the 1st Thunderbird shot. Good job with not stopping the props also :)

[Eagle]

I don't like how they are all offset to the right. Try centering some of them.


Alot of people like this better because it looks like they are fling into the shot. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

I like the second Thunderbird shot myself. Using a 150mm I would like to see how much cropping was done.

[angryhampster]

The f/18 is actually not cropped that heavily. It was flying extremely close to the crowd. I just cropped it to center it in the frame. It's very difficult to pan a 600mph target.

f18 no crop (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v109/angryhampster/artistic/f18full.jpg)

t-birds no crop (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v109/angryhampster/artistic/tbirdsfull.jpg)

As you can see, the crop isn't that heavy. I think a 70-200mm lens would be ideal for an air show. Thanks for the feedback :)_

[RCoulter]

IMHO, I have used a Sigma 70-200 and it didn't enough reach for a lot of the acts. I think you really need at least 70 on the short end and at the very least, 300 on the long end.

As you can see, the crop isn't that heavy. I think a 70-200mm lens would be ideal for an air show. Thanks for the feedback :)_

[andrewhuxman]

I have to agree with RCoulter 200 just dosent quite get it.I was at Rockford this last weekend and on Friday I used my Canon 70-200 with a 1.4 extender and that still wasnt enough reach in my opinion so the rest of the weekend the 100-400 was used.