A little help please…

The Spitfire exhaust shot is a personal favourite. My RIAT shots will follow in a new thread shortly….

Many thanks,

Dean

would I be right in thinking this can affect the focus if the ap F-number is low?

It certainly can. Using a low aperture (the lower the number, the bigger the aperture) has the effect of lessening your depth of field so the area that’s in focus is very shallow. This is generally an effect you don’t want in aviation photography because if, for example, you’re taking a head on shot and focus on the front of the aircraft, the tail may be very soft. Even for side on shots if you focus in the middle of the fuselage, on larger aircraft the front and rear of the plane may be soft. As Adam quite rightly says, f8-11 generally works well for aviation.

I was going to say more, but Adam’s already said it! 🙂

Paul

Hi Dean,

Really like that fire shot!

There is a program called ‘Neat Image’ which would get rid of some of that grain. Here’s the link for the free download: http://www.neatimage.com/download.html

Good luck, and hope my post doesn’t set off an argument or offend anyone. That RIAT Arrivals thread got way out of hand, and got blown totally out of proportion.

Cheers,

Alex

Thanks for the assistance chaps. I shall be posting some RIAT shots in a separate thread, I think there is great improvement (but I would say that!)

Many thanks,

Dean

Thanks Adam, I’ll have a play about. Hopefully the resulting shutter speed is slow enough to blur props but not the picture? I usually stick my old digi in shutter priority mode, but would I be right in thinking this can affect the focus if the ap F-number is low?

If you were shooting at ISO 1600, that would have definately been the reason for the grain (noise). Question is, why was it at 1600?

Well, the max ISO that you should really ever use in outdoor aviation photography is ISO 400 in my experience. If you were shooting in auto mode (with auto ISO) (?) the camera will have bumped up the ISO to take into consideration the dark conditions.

The polarising filter may have also have had an effect; it may have reduced the amount of light coming into the camera, and so the camera may have bumped up the ISO to compensate. Is the filter really necessary on an overcast day – they are, to be honest, pretty much totally useless on overcast days such as that on which your photos were shot. Polarising filters work best on clear, blue sky days. The filter will have darkened the image (the sky atleast).

For aviaton photography, use your camera in aperture priority mode (not sure what that mode is called on the Canon camera), and set the aperture from between f9 and f11 on good, bright, sunny, blue sky days and down to f7.1 – f8 on cloudy days. ISO should be around the 200-320 (max 400) mark on cloudy days and ISO 100-200 on nice, sunny days.

hope that helps! 🙂

btw, the last photo you’ve posted is really cool!

Good one BR, I hadn’t thought of that possibility.

Luckily the EXIF image information is preserved in each of photos. Would the high ISO setting (1600) account for the graininess? Were you shooting in an automatic mode?

What would be good is to know what settings to use when the light (as often happens at UK airshows) is less than perfect. Any pointers there?

No problem, if we don’t ask we don’t learn. I’m just sorry I can’t be more helpful.
Actually when you get to my age you ask, you learn and then you forget the answer.:)

That could be the case, but images that I haven’t touched (such as the exhaust flames) seemed to suffer.

Many thanks for taking the time to respond Mike, I appreciate it.

Dean

Might it possibly be you’ve enlarged them a little too much? This is very easy with wet film cameras if you are using 400 or higher film. They tend not to stand much enlarging. Sorry but I’m not familiar with the 400D so I don’t know what type of camera it is. You will no doubt get some helpful replies from people far more knowlegable than me as soon as they spot the thread.