My first plane shot

After seeing some of the excellent shots here im almost ashamed to show this its my first attemp advice welcome cheers...Ray

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Not bad. You have to start somewhere right?

I'd try a slower shutter speed for better prop blur and a tighter frame on the subject. you've got the 100-400L so you will be able to get a lot of good aircraft shots.

As he said, slower shutter speed to blur the prop. It can be tricky as you will need to pan most of the time to keep the subject from being blurred.

Being patient and in the right place at the right time are key. I'm lucky because I have a lot of opportunities in my area to shoot interesting aircraft from very unique vantage points. Try to wait until the airplane is at a 3/4 view coming towards you. Unless it's a jet with afterburners or heat wash, going away from you is usually never flattering. Of course, catching it when it's lower sure helps, head out to a local airport, figure out which direction their landing and try to find a decent vantage point. Have fun!

I know in the UK there is a large contingent of plane spotters with tons of info to help you get closer to your subject.

When you're almost in the plane of the prop like in that shot, it's almost impossible to get a good blur. Read this: Shooting airshows in Manual

. . . pretty fair - as stated, we all had to start somewhere, just have fun !!

you don't wan to see my first tries...

gkarris wrote in post #11823763
you don't wan to see my first tries...

Nor mine! Not too shabby to start! Hey, I'm still learning too.

Think my first was a shot of a Cessna 172 taken by an early Sony point and shoot circa 2001. You could almost tell it was an airplane.

Well I have been shooting aviation since about 1975, I was aged about 11 or so. Starting out with my Dad's old Pracktica Nova B. Even did some cine work, both Std and Super 8 film shooting mostly on Kodachrome 40 stock using Eumig cameras. Now I am using Digital but I can still turn out some real duffers, actually sometimes I miss my old darkroom, even though I just don't have the room to set one up. Seeing the image forming on the print in the dish is so much more magical then seeing it on screen, or even coming out of an ink-jet printer, and of course you had no idea if what you had was good or not. I guess I don't miss trying to decide if I was going to buy one roll of Ektachrome 200 and two of HP5 or four rolls of HP5 if my pocket money would stretch that far, or of course if ASA 400 was going to be too fast and should I use FP4 @ ASA 125. Only having 36 exposures on a roll as against being able to fit two or three hundred exposures on a CF card. Happy days.

Alan