Photographing an airshow

[Dean Ingwersen]

Hi all,

This coming weekend the biennial (i.e. every 2nd year) Avalon Airshow is happening near Melbourne, Aust. I'm going for the first time after many years of promising myself I will go but I'm a bit unsure of the kit I need to have with me to get best photographic results. So the lenses I have are:

500mm f4 IS
70-200mm f4 IS
24-105mm f4 IS
10-22mm
1.4x teleconverter
I'm going to take the shorter lenses for crowd shots, static plane images, etc, but I'm not sure about the 70-200 vs the 500. Is 500mm overkill for flight shots, and/or would the 70-200 with or without the 1.4x tele do the job? If also have the option of borrowing an old 300 f2.8 from a mate, but it's non-IS.

Have looked at the archives on here and other sites and think I have my head around freezing the jets, getting prop blur and so on. But I'm just not sure of the 500mm option - it would also be so heavy to carry all day (as would the borrowed 300mm).

Any help greatly appreciated.

cheers, Dean

[Mike Tracy]

I have all or used your listed lens and have photographed at least a dozen air shows. THe 70-200 is too short but works well with the tc. I actually like the 100-400 ( not listed ) or the 300 2.8. I wouldnt worry too much about the lack of IS as you want to keep your SS up as fast as possible with the jets. For the lower speeds you need for prop blur panning is a effective technique. That all said my absolute best images have been taken with the 500. It takes practice getting them fully in the frame w/o clipping the nose or tail.

[Jim Buescher]

Depending how far you are from the action I think something in the 300 range would be good for flight shots. I use a 300f4 at our air shows and can get some good frame-filling images. The 70-200 would be good for formation flights. You do not need IS and I would recommend not using it for flight shots.

Have fun!

Yes to what Mike said also..... must have been writing at the same time.

[Ian Cassell]

I have the 400/5.6, but find it too long for airshows in general. I find that the range of my Sigma 100-300mm f/4 fits the bill perfectly (except for close-ups of the planes on the ground). For that reason, I would use your 70-200 + 1.4x and leave your 500 at home. I don't have IS and have not felt hindered by that.

One thing to keep in mind is that, unlike bird photography, you can shoot too fast on prop planes/helicopters. Frozen propellers look very artificial (the planes start to look like models), so you want to keep a bit of prop blur.

This was with the 100-300 at 164mm
1/320 sec f/10 ISO 100

http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll249/icassell/copperstate%20fly%20in/IMG_3345.jpg

[Mike Tracy]

A reason not to leave the 500 at home.

http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php/68690-F-A-18-Hornet?highlight=

http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php/68159-Oldies-but-Goodies?highlight=

How come I cant find the edit button ?

[Dean Ingwersen]

Hi guys,

Thanks for that info, though based on that feedback and those great images i might be working out how to carry a 500 f4 and 300 f2.8 for the day!

Further quick question - do you guys work mainly in Shutter Priority mode for airshow flight shots?

Getting very excited, but disappointed to learn last night that although the F22 Raptor is here for the first time it won't fly on the weekend. Apparently there is only one officer qualified to fly it at public airshows and he's unavailable on the weekend! So we get to look at it sitting on the ground only. What's worse...it flew for the media day yesterday, so had to watch all the weekend opportunities I won't get on the evening news last night. :-(

cheers, Dean

[Mike Tracy]

Further quick question - do you guys work mainly in Shutter Priority mode for air show flight shots?


Yes to shutter priority. I will sacrafice some SS or bump up the ISO to keep my aperature stopped down so as to give you some leeway if you miss your focus point and to increase DOF at the planes flying towards you.

Thats a shame about the Raptor not flying. Its always a crowd pleaser. Good luck.

Color shifted when posting.

[Jim Buescher]

Nice one Mike...that's one sweet bird!

[Chris Brennan]

Dean -

I've been shooting airshows for about 10 years. My primary airshow lenses have been the 100-400 and the 400mm f4 DO, however this coming airshow season, I'll be using the new 70-300L in place of the 100-400. Although I usually establish a manual meter setting when I get to a show, typically I shoot at ISO400; 1/1600 or faster and usually no more than f8 because of diffraction limits. It's a lot of fun and you have to keep on your toes... especially for those high-speed "sneak" passes. Have a great time!

89531

[Dean Ingwersen]

Hi all,

Thanks so much. I'm off to the show tomorrow...will post any decent images next week.

cheers, Dean
P.S. Chris - checked out your site. If I go anywhere near that level I'll be very happy! Awesome stuff.

[Dean Ingwersen]

Hi again,

Just to let you all know I've started posting some of my images from the airshow in the Friends, Family and Other Stuff forum.

Thanks so much to all who helped with this request last week. In the end I think I ended up with probably the most gear at the show - i took two 7D bodies, the 500 f4, the 300 f2.8, the 70-200 f4, 2 x 1.4TC, the 24-105 and the 10-22! But it was awesome as it meant at any one time I could have the 70-200 with or without the TC on one body, and the 300 or 500 on the other body with or without the other TC. So I had nearly every base covered!

I took thousands of photos, binned heaps of them, and struggled at times with shooting in TV as opposed to the usual AV. But it was sooo much fun to try and learn something new.

Thanks again everyone, more images to come.

cheers, Dean
P.S. Unfortunately this was the most action we saw from the F22 Raptor, but it looks incredible. I was waiting for it to morph into an Autobot and start attacking a Decepticon...very Transformer-like! They also had an F35 JSF on static display too. Way cool.:eek: