Help on Photographing Moving Aircraft

Photographing moving objects

A couple more thoughts (for what they are worth):

1. If your camera has a delay between pressing the shutter button and actually taking the picture (as most non SLR types do while they sort out auto focus and auto exposure etc), try to anticipate the delay. I find that my first few shots at an airshow are usually poor, but then I learn to judge how much “lead time” to give the camera, and things improve – one advantage of digital is that you can screw up any number of shots and then simply delete them! Practice makes perfect!

2. If your camera has a “multi-shot” function try using it – this means keeping you finger on the shutter button and letting the camera take a series of photos rather than just one. Obviously this might increase the chances of getting/keeping the plane in the frame – especially if you “pan” the cmamera at the same time (as mentioned earlier in the thread by Papa Lima). You can then preview the results on site, keep the best one or two and delete the rest. A warning though – this approach can means you can miss a good shot if you choose to review the previous set at the wrong monent 😮 . Memory space may be a problem if the card is small, so you may have to reveiw and delete the bad shots fairly frequently. This approach can also deplete batteries rather quickly 🙁 – so ensure you have a spare set.

3. With a 5MP camera you can afford to leave plenty of room around the subject and then crop the image down afterwards to remove too much empty sky – this means you can afford not to zoom in too closely, which again leaves more room for error in terms of centering the subject at point of exposure. Given earlier comments about your camera this may happen anyway as the maximum zoom is relatively small in 35mm terms.

4. Using a high ISO will force the camera to use higher shutter speeds, and give less blurred images, but unfortunately it also tends to “freeze” propellor and rotor blades (and car wheels), resulting in photos which look odd. Lower shutter speeds help keep blades blurred, and the end image tends to look more “real”. It’s a trade off, and with experience you may find you can use far slower shutter speeds on moving objects than you think – panning means the speed of the object relative to the camera position is much reduced, so slower shutter speeds can still keep the subject sharp, yet blur the background nicely, giving a real impression of speed.

Hope these tips help. The good thing about digital photography is that it does allow you to make and learn from errors without spending masses of cash on D&P costs only to find many of the prints are close to useless 🙂 .

Cheers – happy snapping!

Paul F

Here are some basic photography tips:

http://www.richard-seaman.com/Photography/PointAndShoot/index.html

and some tips specifically about photographing moving aircraft:

http://www.richard-seaman.com/Photography/Airshows/index.html

I hope they’re helpful.

Richard.

My camera is actually a Nikon Coolpix S1, and is a SMP camera.

Anyway, I found the ISO thing and had various options, from 100 to 800 or something. Its currently on Auto.

The Coolpix S1, with 5MP, is already a much better camera than the Coolpix 2000. However most of my earlier remarks still stand, especially as the reach of the zoom lens is equivalent to only 35-105mm on 35mm film. You could try to use the digital zoom to increase range, but usually it degrades the picture quality. A higher ISO value (e.g. ISO 200 or even 400) will result in a higher shutterspeed at the expense of increased noise, but it is certainly worth to try. Anyway always choose the highest picture quality setting. Apart from the AUTO setting, you should try to use the SPORT and BEACH/SNOW settings and see which gives you the best results. As there normally is a tendency to underexpose when taking photographs of aircraft against a bright sky, you should also try the D-Lighting setting on your camera to correct the exposure. Good luck!

Your camera is probably a Nikon Coolpix 2000, which is a 2MP camera with very limited choices of operation. The zoom range is equivalent to 38-114mm on a 35mm camera, which is very limiting to photography of aircraft in flight. Other limiting factors are that you can’t preselect a shutterspeed, ISO values and/or exposure correction factors. Best results will probably be obtained at the AUTO setting or at the BEACH/SNOW scene mode. I’m afraid that for acceptable results you’ll have to look for a camera with longer tele-reach (at least 135-200mm equivalent on a 35mm camera) and a wider choice of operation modes (shutterspeed pre-select, ISO choices, exposure correction, etc.).

My camera is actually a Nikon Coolpix S1, and is a SMP camera.

Anyway, I found the ISO thing and had various options, from 100 to 800 or something. Its currently on Auto.

Oh I see.

Well just had a look on my camera and this is what it says: ZOOM NIKKOR ED 5.8-17.4mm 1:3.0-5.4

Your camera is probably a Nikon Coolpix 2000, which is a 2MP camera with very limited choices of operation. The zoom range is equivalent to 38-114mm on a 35mm camera, which is very limiting to photography of aircraft in flight. Other limiting factors are that you can’t preselect a shutterspeed, ISO values and/or exposure correction factors. Best results will probably be obtained at the AUTO setting or at the BEACH/SNOW scene mode. I’m afraid that for acceptable results you’ll have to look for a camera with longer tele-reach (at least 135-200mm equivalent on a 35mm camera) and a wider choice of operation modes (shutterspeed pre-select, ISO choices, exposure correction, etc.).

Oh I see.

Well just had a look on my camera and this is what it says: ZOOM NIKKOR ED 5.8-17.4mm 1:3.0-5.4

Ah yes, I saw an ISO sign coming up on the screen yesterday and wondered what it was about.

As for shutter speeds, I’m not really sure if I can change it or not. I probably can, but I have to change it via a scene mode (you see my cam’s not very advanced).

And aperture, hmm. I’ll see if I can find something on that, whatever it is.

Thanks. 🙂

Put simply, the aperture is how wide the opening is when the camera takes the photo. A narrower aperture (confusingly, a higher f number!) gives you a greater depth-of-field. So a narrow aperture such as f10 will mean that the whole plane, from back-to-front, is in focus (say for example that it was flying towards you). A wider aperture such as f6.3 will mean that maybe just the front of the plane is in focus, and that he rear is blurred out of focus.

Ah yes, I saw an ISO sign coming up on the screen yesterday and wondered what it was about.

As for shutter speeds, I’m not really sure if I can change it or not. I probably can, but I have to change it via a scene mode (you see my cam’s not very advanced).

And aperture, hmm. I’ll see if I can find something on that, whatever it is.

Thanks. 🙂

If anything, I’d say that cars are more difficult. They may be moving slower than a plane taking off, but they are smaller, and you’re standing closer to them. This will make them move through the frame faster.

Have a look through your camera’s handbook, or if you’ve already found it yourself, to see if there’s a manual shooting mode. If you can find one, then try setting the shutter speed above 1/200 (I actually like to take my photos at lower speeds for various reasons, but when you’re starting up, you should want a shutter at 1/200 or higher to stop the blur). See if you can also set the ISO to 200 in good lighting, 400 if it’s not too sunny. I wouldn’t even bother if your ISO is going above 400. Set the aperture around f8-11 to keep the plane in focus from back-to-front (especially if you’re taking the shot with the plane coming towards, or going away from you).

That’s a very standard set-up, and is obviously not going to work for every photo. But in general, you should be able to practise quite well at those settings.

Thanks for the advice! I’m currently practising on cars, and then will go on to planes when I get the chance to encounter one.

No, the subject (aeroplane or car) should be sharp, but the background will blur – giving the proper impression of speed, if the shutter speed is low enough. However for aircraft the sky (unless cloudy) blur won’t show up.
Have a look at the excellent aircraft photos on this Forum, although most of them are taken by experts with VERY expensive cameras!
If you are using a digital camera, don’t be afraid to take lots of pictures and erase the duds, that’s what every one does! Also you can usually check immediately on a digital camera whether you managed to get the subject in the frame, amount of blur, and so on.
Good luck and practise, practise, practise!

Moving the camera? Hmm, I’ll give that a go. Will it not make the subject of the photo a bit blurry though?

And don’t stop moving the camera when you press the button! (The technique is called “panning” by the experts.)
Some digital cameras have a delay when you press the button, which can mean that you only get the tail or even perhaps nothing at all in the picture if you stop!

Besides a faster shutter speed, the main trick is to follow the moving object with your camera en keep following when you open the shutter.