First Air Display photoshoot

I had the opportunity to shoot an air display in Bray, Ireland last Saturday. I only had my 70-200 with me. I would've loved to have a bit of extra reach, but I think the photos came out ok in the end. I'm posting a few of them to see what you think, and what I could have done better. Overall it was a very pleasing experience, and will be repeating it as soon as I get a chance. These events are not that common in Ireland.


1

Well for the propellor driven aircraft I would usually suggest that you should be using a shutter speed of LONGER than 1/200s, I usually shoot at 1/160. The aerobatic types in most of the shots tend to have higher revving engines, and that includes the converted Stearmans that the wingwalking team use, with their bigger than standard engines. I don't see exposure data for the Merlin helicopter, but it looks to me as if it is around 1/100s which is good, getting helicopter rotor blur is hard. The jets are then quite easy as you can go as fast as you want with shutter speeds. 200m is very short for an airshow, I think a 400mm zoom is really as short as you want to be, and I now use the Sigma 150-600 C. Even so I still find myself often having to crop very aggressively. Going for the formations is a really good idea when you are short of reach, if you can't fill the frame with one aircraft, use multiple. I don't seem to be able to see the histogram that the forum software usually provides, but I would say that they seem to be generally a bit underexposed. Did you shoot RAW or JPEG? I always shoot my aviations shots in RAW and also employ ETTR to maximise the available dynamic range.

Alan

BigAl007 wrote in post #18078001
Well for the propellor driven aircraft I would usually suggest that you should be using a shutter speed of LONGER than 1/200s, I usually shoot at 1/160. The aerobatic types in most of the shots tend to have higher revving engines, and that includes the converted Stearmans that the wingwalking team use, with their bigger than standard engines. I don't see exposure data for the Merlin helicopter, but it looks to me as if it is around 1/100s which is good, getting helicopter rotor blur is hard. The jets are then quite easy as you can go as fast as you want with shutter speeds. 200m is very short for an airshow, I think a 400mm zoom is really as short as you want to be, and I now use the Sigma 150-600 C. Even so I still find myself often having to crop very aggressively. Going for the formations is a really good idea when you are short of reach, if you can't fill the frame with one aircraft, use multiple. I don't seem to be able to see the histogram that the forum software usually provides, but I would say that they seem to be generally a bit underexposed. Did you shoot RAW or JPEG? I always shoot my aviations shots in RAW and also employ ETTR to maximise the available dynamic range.

Alan

Thinking of getting a longer lens, but the wife wouldn't approve that easy, as I wouldn't have much use for it. I have a 70D, so the real lenght is 320mm, and that helped. Some of them are heavily cropped, but with the quality of the 70-200 L, I think I can get away with it.That is why I was going for formations. I was surprised that the rotor was ok on those stearmans, I did not know that the engines were revved higher than the normal one and I forgot to reduce the shutter speed. The helicopter was shot at 1/80 if I remember correctly. I shot RAW and was lifting shadows a bit. To me they don't seem underexposed, but it was the first time shooting planes against the clouds, so I do not have the appropriate experience to appreciate that.

Thanks for the tips & input!

If you are going to a show and you cannot swing owning a long lens, then rent one. It's what I did for several years before I was able to acquire my Sigma 150-600 C. I don't know what it's like in the Republic, but over here in the UK I was able to hire a 100-400 L ver 1 for about £80 all in, including the courier both ways for a three day weekend, which could work out to be have the lens delivered Wednesday, and ship it back Monday, if you did the hire days right. If it's only going to be two or three, or less, shows a year then this is actually not too bad. Saying that now I have the big lens I do use it for a lot more than just the airshows, it's one of those things that if you have it, you find other uses for it.

Without being able to see the RAW file it is hard to say if your images are underexposed, or could just do with a different approach to PP. My usual technique is to ETTR so that any specular highlights, such as the sun reflecting from the canopy is just at the point of clipping, not that you had that problem I see. The when I process in LR I will normally end up with the Highlights slider at -100, the exposure slider at around -1EV, although that tends to vary the most, it could be between -0.5 and -2. Then the Shadows slider is usually up around +100. I then use the black nad white point sliders to bring the histogram out so that it fills all the way from left to right. Because I am using quite a lot of negative in the highlights and via the Exposure slider the midtones, the really large positive value for the shadows slider doesn't really hurt the image, as it is effectively only bring them back up to the level they were exposed at. Without the pulling applied because of the ETTR you could really run into trouble noise wise if you try that big boost.

Something else to try is installing Magic Lantern on your camera. As well as all the stuff for video, it has some really good features for still photography. One is DualISO, this allows you to expose alternate row pairs at different ISO values. Using a combination of ISO 100 and 800 you can for example get an extra three stops of dynamic range out of the camera. You do lose a bit of vertical resolution, especially if you continue exposing for a full ISO ETTR exposure, as the ISO 800 rows can get very clipped. Something I didn't consider when trying it out, as I was using a feature that allowed alternate shots with and without the DualISO on. With DualISO you need to use a more standard exposure setting.

Finally I always suggest shooting in Manual exposure mode. On a day when the weather is pretty constant the exposure will barely change all the way through the show. I like to use a handheld incident lightmeter, I started doing this back in the 70's with a fully manual Pracktica Nova B, that didn't even have a built in meter, but there are other options that work just as well. I also carry a small folding 12" "reflector". One side is silver and the other is 18% grey. I just spotmeter from that. Or there are a whole load of other "standard" alternative metering targets, green grass is usually quite good, Ireland should be good for that, or even from the palm of your hand, although that requires you add +1EV to the reading, and works for all ethnicities. Consistent exposure is also really important when you are shooting backlit aircraft.

Alan

Never thought of renting a lens. Will keep that in mind for nest time. Thank you very much for taking the time to answer my post. I will try your way of developing in LR later on to see how it changes my images. Thanks very much again. I owe you a pint

Couple more

cubatahavana wrote in post #18078261
Never thought of renting a lens. Will keep that in mind for nest time. Thank you very much for taking the time to answer my post. I will try your way of developing in LR later on to see how it changes my images. Thanks very much again. I owe you a pint

Remember that my processing scheme really only works if you shot a full ETTR exposure. If you do not pull down the highlights and midtones (Exposure slider) boosting the shadows will bring out a lot of noise.

Thanks for the drink offer, a pint of Guinness would be nice, it's just a shame that since I have been on large doses of Opiate based pain medication all alcoholic drinks now taste absolutely disgusting , so you better drink my one for me.

Alan