Late Duxford Autumn show 10-10-2010

Fantastic photos and a very nice sun!!

Again, the details are superb – I love the JXOE Hurri shot – one can feel the material it’s made of.
Thanks.

An outstanding set from a great end to the season.

Thanks also for the information about camera settings and where you were standing – very useful and interesting.

CM

More,

Thank you Anna and John.

John,

I think I was probably slightly to the left of you though not much (your right if you turn your back on the runway) but I was a long way behind the crowd line trying to get the aircraft a bit earlier than most in more saturated sky with more sun on the aircraft. Post processing also helped.

The Sea Hawk and the Bearcat were quite low at those points and both did some very nice turns round the corner.

As I was almost directly behind you (thougha long distance behind) and with the aircraft coming round beside each of us, that would account for the similarity in some of the images.

I have sent you a PM re file size etc.

Thanks

Martin

Great shots as always Martin.

Have you got a focussing problem with your kit? I couldn’t read the ‘Warning’ notice below the cockpit of the Sabre…
After the foolishness – a few sensible matters
You must have been standing very close to me judging by your Sea Hawk and Bearcat pictures
See here http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=104063
What size file do you upload when posting? Do you go by the number of pixels or upload a certain file size.
Your skies are much bluer than mine. Is this a consequence of post processing or is that how they come out of the camera? Sometimes mine come out a very dark blue and I don’t know why. Trying to lighten it ruins the main subject.

John

Thank you all very much.

It was a very clear atmosphere and it does make a significant difference to how crisp a photo looks. The only haze I could see was brown, far away and close to the horizon – that’s looking through a lot of atmosphere!

The angle of the sun helps bring out some of the photos with the tiny little shadow areas on an otherwise sunny looking part of the aircraft, particularly the Sabre.

The last shot of the Catalina with the wheels down was taken with the 500mm lens so is quite far away. The original image was about 2/3rds of the frame (bottom/top). At that distance, if the shot was taken during the summer months there is a high chance it would have looked fuzzy due to haze. The Sun would also have been higher up which may not have helped either.

Cheers

Martin

Some more

Gobsmacked! The textures are incredible. I suppose the atmospheric conditions help as well, don’t they? If the air is sharp and clear I imagine it helps to achieve a crisp image.

Pure eye candy! The fine detail in the metal skin of the Sabre is stunning. There is something about these raw metal unpainted jets that stands out and make them look more… “arrogant” than the camouflaged ones… but they sure look great against the saturated blue skies. Great photography.

Thank you everyone.

I added some shooting information above the images I posted yesterday. Should give an idea of what settings I use in other images.

I always us shutter priority and evaluative metering. Where there is sunshine on the aircraft I try not to blow out the so I tend under expose by about 1/3 of a stop. On a few occasions 2/3 of a stop using the exposure compensation dial. The higher the shutter speed I may increase the ISO. Aperture takes care of itself.

With bright sky behind the aircraft or dull weather, I would over expose.

To this day I cannot tell of it is advantageous to just use centre spot focusing or full automatic mode on all focusing points on a 50d . I have changed between both settings from time to time depending on if there is any clutter in the the background but that is still theory for me.

At the moment my 7d is set on AF priority/Tracking priority (have used Continuous AF tracking priority) with tracking sensitivity set at high with Main focus priority (though it can still focus on off centre subjects).

I think most of focusing gizmos on the 7d are more useful for other subjects like birds in flight and where other things are more likely to get in the way that would normally upset the auto focus.

Most of the aircraft are at various distances away from me at the time but very much rely on them entering or leaving the airfield to or from the northeast.

With the Mustang and the Sabre, they turned left to head north east and continued to turn left to come back to the airfield. Then turning right before turning left again for a top side pass round the corner of the crowd line. The images posted above are of them turning right prior turning left for a top side pass.

In the following set of pictures, the two Sabre images are of it turning right (though if they were coming toward you shots they would look like they are turning left for the top side pass as described in the last paragraph) and follow on from the image posted earlier.

The Mustang images was taken at the start of the flying display (no sunshine underneath the wings) and the Sabre at the end of the display (sunshine underneath the wings)

The Sea Fury was fairly similar in manoeuvring when the shot was taken. However it tends to be much higher at this point hence the side view. I think height the angle from the ground for the Sea Fury could have been around 70 per cent whilst it was turning.

No tripod was used. I often use a shutter speed of 1/500 a sec which some say is rather high but I prefer to get more keepers and I can live with the props not being blurred as much as I would like.

The shutter speed for the two Daks looks high but there again perspective wise they were converging, merging then diverging rapidly relative to each other.

I take my photos in RAW and do a bit of editing there before uploading it as a JPEG for final other touches/cropping.

Sorry for going on a bit!

Martin

Airshow Technicals

Focus/crispness of images is superb.

Would you say a few words about aperture and shutter settings, auto or manual metering/pattern metering and whether you used a tripod for those novices of us who have had trouble with suboptimal image crispness
in moving targets?

Were all posted taken with the same camera settings, with subjects at approximately same distance/altitude?

Thanks.

Great shots Martin.

Pictures are brilliant. My only criticism is that you could have posted a few more.