Aviation photography

I don't know if anyone else has an interest in aviation photography but here is my flikr set from the Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford in Gloucester, England (Sunday 8th July 2012)
I took more but these are the better of the 600 and limited to my flikr upload limit more will appear next month

Riat12 - a set on Flickr

and here is favourite

Great shots! I'm also into aviation photos and would like to know what custom settings (if any) you use.

I use AF-C
AE-L off
Centre weighted metering +0.3 but that depends on the sky
ADL Off
I shoot raw
Iso 200-400
I use my 70-300 sigma lens but it isn't VR so I have to more careful with camera shake so I try to keep 1/400 second or faster with VR could prob do 1/100 but wouldn't go lower as all the clouds would be blurred
due to post processing I use neutral colour scheme as it weilds a slightly higher dynamic range into the blacks

I just walked thru my settings and realized I had switched to JPEG-fine. Some of my recent shots have needed a sharpen mask in post processing, so I'm hoping switching back should help with that. I also try to keep the speed as high as possible even though I do have VR lenses. I haven't played with the metering but may experiment with that soon. Thanks!

I do have a custom image setting for if I shoot Jpegs of aircraft but I only use it if I aam not too bothered about post processing those photo's but that has contrast ramped up to 70% as 300mm on my lens tends to wield low contrast images and I have the sharpen to 70% also but I don't use it often as for me post processing is part of the fun

Been a while since I've been able to shoot any. Here's one from Saturday 9-15-2012

Legacy flight with the F4 Phantom (one of my all time favorites) and the F16 Falcon

Nice shot Mike - fellow Virginian here, just up 29 from you. I had a ball last month with the balloon festival - saw the whole thing from my front yard. These came out pretty good....(hope this works - first time in-thread posting).

nice shot! my main interests are in aviation, which led to photography. this is my flickr account:EasternSketch's photosets on Flickr As you can see I like to take more civil aviation than military, since i havent been to an airshow for a long time, i kind of strayed off. What camera would you guys recommend for aviation photography? I have a D70S with 35-70mm f/3.3-4.5, and I am looking at the 55-300mm f/4.5-6.5(i think, or maybe its 5.5). Im pretty sure that would do. I am looking at a new camera body though, such as the d90, but that wont be for awhile. Im wondering what do you guys use?

My shots above were done with a D5100 using a Nikkor AF-S 55-300 f/4.5-5.6 VR and a polarizing filter.

I think the toughest part of aviation photos is getting the lighting to cooperate - some of my better photos were unfortunately taken during solid overcast, making everything much darker.

true, but you can make it lighter with an editor, but you can only do so much without wrecking the photo

my camera is D5100 and i have a sigma 70-300 f3.5-5.6 i would like to get the OS version when i have the money but i mostly just ramp the iso up to 400 to get the shots on my flikr account
i would like to get a 70-200 f2.8 (with a 1.4x multiplier(f3.5)) as it would make the auto focus more responsive (when i win the lottery)
when you shoot 300mm you tend to loose a lot of contrast so it might be worth having a separate picture mode for extra long shooting with higher contrast and saturation.

on the custom settings on your camera you can set up a custom picture mode, using which you can increase sharpness, saturation, contrast, brightness and hue. For shooting anything on a high zoom level like 300mm I use the custom setting with increased saturation by 1 notch and contrast by 2.
I also use mainly aperture priority set to f/7.1 and adjust the ISO to make sure i get a shutter speed high enough depending on the aircraft or how i want the photo to look.

m4ilm4n said:

My shots above were done with a D5100 using a Nikkor AF-S 55-300 f/4.5-5.6 VR and a polarizing filter.

I think the toughest part of aviation photos is getting the lighting to cooperate - some of my better photos were unfortunately taken during solid overcast, making everything much darker.

Click to expand...

The filter will probably make it a stop or 2 darker...You can increase your ISO to let more light in and in aperture use your exposure compensation...

Nice shots! I missed out on Fairford out this year

I went to Fairford every single year from 1993 to about 2005, I've only been once since then and that was last year when I shot these :


French Air Force Rafale Burn by Forkie, on Flickr

Red Arrows by Forkie, on Flickr

Frecce Tricolori by Forkie, on Flickr

Avro Vulcan by Forkie, on Flickr

Nice shots! I know Ill need alot of cards because I usually shoot like 20 pictures of the same aircraft and then sit at my table deleting a whole lot of them xD

pedroj said:

The filter will probably make it a stop or 2 darker...You can increase your ISO to let more light in and in aperture use your exposure compensation...

Click to expand...

I hadn't thought of that - thanks! Between this and sidewinder's post I've got some experimenting to do before a warbird shoot this weekend...

D70S said:

Nice shots! I know Ill need alot of cards because I usually shoot like 20 pictures of the same aircraft and then sit at my table deleting a whole lot of them xD

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Don't forget battery... My recent (and first) show, I took almost 800 shots. That maxed my memory card. I had an extra card, but my battery finally gave out at the very end and I don't have a spare yet.

m4ilm4n said:

I hadn't thought of that - thanks! Between this and sidewinder's post I've got some experimenting to do before a warbird shoot this weekend...

Click to expand...

One thing you can expect is that after an aircraft goes by at max allowable speed, they will be making slower speed fly-bys It's a whole lot easier to get that great shot at the slower speed.

dang, do you guys have airshows every weekend?