What makes a good Airplane photo

I generally shoot wildlife, but when the opportunity presented itself, and after I finished my chicken and potato wedges individual meal, I stepped outside the Royal Farms and shot some of the Navy planes doing touch and gos in merry-go-round fashion. I got some prop blur and managed to keep the plane in good focus. How does this plane shot rate with the plane enthusiasts? What do y'all like to see in such shots.

Well, one thing is what you already were careful to have in that picture: prop motion blur –otherwise the planes look like they're about to fall off the sky.

• In good focus
  
• sharp detail, nicely panned to follow the plane
  
• Plane properly exposed
  
• Some prop blur on a propeller plane
  

Unique composition makes for an exciting image. Straight and level flight perpendicular to the camera is common.
Take-offs, landings, formation flight, jet blast can make the photo attractive. Try to obtain a point of view that's
different from what others are getting. Of course it's easier to say than do.

Let's not forget the background. Besides a nice, blue sky as you have there... F4U-5 Corsair

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And let's not forget...some of the best air show photos are when the planes are not flying...

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/rpv6​yH

Just a personal preference, but getting the planes banking/turning makes for a nice "action shot".

I usually like them to be at something other than dead side on, although that can work too. I also like to process the image so that I get a lot of detail on the lower side of the aircraft, I say lower, rather than bottom, as that allows for the inverted ones . When we look at an aircraft usually our eyes scan across it, and we tend to effectively change the exposure between the dark bits, and the light bits and build what is effectively an HDR image in our heads. For props I'll usually shoot at 1/160 and for helicopter rotors I try for 1/80 although generally 1/60 is better, and 1/30 would be perfect. I'll also try a smaller helicopter at 1/100 as the smaller helicopters seem to run at a slightly higher RPM. Helicopter rotors are normally run at a constant RPM, the pilot increases the pitch of the rotor blades to increase the lift to climb, or move horizontally from the hover using the collective control. This is unlike normal aircraft, where even if fitted with a variable pitch propellor of some sort, the RMP are usually significantly increased during take off, or when doing many aerobatic maneuvers. For some aircraft you could get the same degree of prop blur at 1/400s during take off, as you would get at 1/160s while the aircraft is at cruising power.

Alan