Joint Forces Open House Airshow

golfingguy27 wrote in post #10197718
Sounds like the 70-300 should be perfect! There is pretty much always plenty of light in the sky, so you won't need a super fast lens. My Sigma is in the same range, but most of the day I had it stopped down to like f/18-f/22.

I'm really hoping for a sunny day. I've gone to the show every year for about ten years- but this will be the first time I've had a decent camera.

I didn't go this year because the last 3 years its the same thing... Each routine is a little different each year but, mainly the order they do the stunts.

Anyway, i like the pictures but, they do seem soft has someone has mentioned. Almost like the focus wasn't nailed. Yes it is quite difficult to take a picture of plane traveling nearly the speed of sound.

golfingguy27 wrote in post #10197718
Sounds like the 70-300 should be perfect! There is pretty much always plenty of light in the sky, so you won't need a super fast lens. My Sigma is in the same range, but most of the day I had it stopped down to like f/18-f/22.

One thing that might contribute to your shots being soft is that lenses are usually sharpest 2-3X up from wide open. Then they start to show diffraction effects as you go toward the f/22 end. Since most of the air shots are at a distance, you really don't need a small f-stop to keep things in focus.

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hhmmm.. so the question is, if I was to shoot closer to wide open, how would I keep my shutter speeds down (in order to keep the props blurred)? I was already only shooting at ISO 100. Maybe a mild neutral density filter? I will have to experiment tomorrow (or as soon as the weather cooperates) and try taking some pictures of stationary distant objects at different f stops to see what effect it has on sharpness.

Or maybe a CP.

Good idea. I'm not saying that you shouldn't use f/22. Only that, with that lens, f/22 might contribute to the overall softness of your images.

There's no exif in your images. I'm hoping that you didn't use the same settings for the jets?