Millville (NJ) Air Show 2011

My first air show with a DSLR. Temp in the high 80s/Low 90s, high humidity, partly cloudy. Took almost 12GB of shots, starting to cull and crop. Here are a few of an F16 and a P-51 Mustang. More to follow.

Canon 50D, 100-400mm lens

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Love the vapor, but it's too bad that the engine quit on the P-51? See the "Airshow guys - prop freeze?" & other links in post #2 of: Shooting airshows in Manual

Good points - hadn't really considered 'prop blur', spent the day in AV at f5.6 for the most part, and it looks like most of the shutter speeds were 1/400th or faster. But I see what you mean after seeing the airshow threads. Thx much.

Definitely need to slow the shutter down for the prop plane. The vapor shots of the F16 are OOF. Were you shooting in servo? Definitely need to be at an air show....especially to get a good crisp shot of a fighter that is flying fast enough to show vapors. It looks like you had some harsh sun though, that is a real bummer at an air show......nothing you can do about that unfortunately.

Takes a fair amount of practice to get good airshow captures - pretty fair first attempt, with some good advice to help you out.

James,

Decent job for your first airshow.

Just curious, since you pointed out that you shot almost 12GB, did you shoot Raw or Jpeg?

Frank definitely hit the nail on the head so to speak. Prop's look very strange when frozen in mid-air. Start at 1/160th and you will capture some prop blur, while still maintaining fairly crisp planes. One thing I will point out, your images look quite under-exposed. Checking your Exif, it shows you did not use any Exposure Compensation (EC). Adding EC, while it will usually blow out the sky, you retain details on the aircraft, instead of the plane appearing to be a black mass in the sky.

Here are a pair of example's of what I am referring to, when using EC. Both yours & my images of the HL Viper are probably the same bird. These are from Indy this year, which is a heavily back-lit airshow.

1st: Viper pulling vapor. EC +1 2/3.

Thanks much for the good tips for next time! I probably should have checked on here to get the goods BEFORE we went, but it was a huge family affair, so I was getting the RV prepped and ready and all that entails ahead of time. With my (extended) family, a day trip of about 20 miles requires as much planning, organization, and setup as the Allied Invasion of Normandy, with nearly as much conflict.

I filled an 8GB card with RAW images, then switched to JPEG for the end of the show on a 4GB card, which happened to be the F-16/P-51 flybys.

I will remember the EC for next time. It looks like that is the ticket, especially when shooting against a bright sky. The day was hazy, but bright, if that makes sense.

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