Making my second trip to a WWII aircraft show. ; I am going to try using a slower shutter speed so the props will show the motion. ; Any other suggestions? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
The slower shutter speeds will add a lot of life to the images since prop blur looks better that a frozen prop. ; Somewhere I saw a chart of shutter speeds for several models of planes for 1/2 and whole disk blurs. ; Since each aircraft runs at a different RPM a shutter speed that works for one won't necessarily work for them all. I can't remember where I saw it but it may have been Moose Peterson's blog or maybe his aviation site. ; If I find it again ill post it here. ; Should have bookmarked it when I saw it the first time.
My Pixelmania 2011 t-shirt is covered with little black oil dots from the B-25 that has fired up about 8 times right in front of us to rides. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Getting down to about 1/125 sec will give you nice prop blur. Panning smoothly is the key to sharp images. I'd start about 1/250 for the prop planes and work your way lower as you get keepers at each speed. Jets as fast as you can get given the lighting. Depending on your metering, I tend to set a slight overexposure compensation to get the aircraft exposed correctly against a bright sky. Erich
Thanks Erich! ; Will try some of that tomorrow, it's all prop planes as only WWII aircraft (no Me262 here). Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I can't wait for the chance to go through them Jeff! ; Glanced at them on my camera in the hotel last night and there are quite a few keepers! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Can't wait to see what you came back with. It looks like my only airshow for the entire year will be in October. This sequestration seriously stinks. Erich
Sorry I missed this yesterday. ; For future reference, here are the tips I was given: For jets, shoot aperture priority wide open, since depth of field is not an issue and you want a fast shutter speed. For props, shoot shutter priority. ; I usually start with 1/180. ; Bigger props (like those on bombers) turn slower than the smaller ones on fighters and aerobatic planes, so you can adjust accordingly. ; Use your panning skills. The neat thing about this is you can pre-set your camera for aperture and shutter priority modes, then just switch between the two depending on what's in the air.
Thanks Dennis! ; I shot most of the day at 160 or 200. ; This show is amazing, the line up of old WWII planes is amazing: B-29 B-25's - four of them P-51's - four of them Spitfire F4 Corsair SBD Dauntless TBF Avenger Hell diver C-47 C-46 T-6 trainers (they have different designations based on who they were for Army, Navy etc) Liaison aircraft (don't know their designation) And plenty of things I can't remember! They also have hundreds of re-enactors that have amazing setups as well as hundreds of vehicles from both US Army and German Army. ; Great little show if you wanted to see this kind of thing. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
That does sound like a good weekend. ; Do they allow photographers in early to shoot the flight line in good light? ; Some shows offer special tickets for that access, others don't. I found where I saw the prop blur chart. It is in Moose Peterson's e-book "Taking Flight" which is an excellent resource for aviation photography. ; I won't reproduce the list since it wasn't on a website, but I was able to find a formula elsewhere. ; At 1000rpm, the shaft makes a full revolution in about 1/17s. ; So the formula is: RPM x Number of Prop Blades x (1/Amount of Blur) / 60 = the denominator of the shutter speed So at 2000 RPM with 3 blades, full blur would be: 2000 x 3 x 1 / 60 = 100 or 1/100s 2000 RPM with 3 blades, 1/4 blur would be: 2000 x 3 x (1/0.25) / 60 = 400 or 1/400s
Thanks for the algorithm Mike. ; I will have to remember that next year. ; My father and I are planning on making this an annual outing. ; It is just to easy to drive the 2 hours. ; As for early access, I am pretty sure that they do not do that. ; I will look into that further, but they stuck to the 8:30 opening. ; I think they do that so that the re-enactors are in place.
For anyone interested, the dates for next year are June 6, 7, and 8th, 2014. ; Friday the 6th is only warbird rides, but that means that many of the planes are going up each hour and do a flyby or two. ; Saturday and Sunday there is a show from 1-4 where many more planes go up in the air.
