My first images

Really excellent shots, only comment I can give to help you is leave a bit of room in front of your images so the eye sees somewhere for the aircraft to fly into If that makes sense, but I’m jealous of your pictures 🙂

Great photos. You will find that its a great Hobby.
But do remember to identify each aircraft with at least Type & Serial Number. Even better if you can record the when & where and who does it belong to.
Today, this week or month you may think its not necessary, but 50 years down the line like myself you will be thankful that you did.
Have Fun!

Andy / JUR

what lense do you currently use?
(Sorry to hijack thread)

Thanks

Rob

Nikon 300/f2.8 lens and I’ve just bought the Nikon AFS 80-400mm lens that I’ll be taking down to Dawlish with me, the 70-300mm VR lens just didn’t cut it for me in terms of image quality any more.

Rob,

My main lenses for airshows are Nikkor AFS f/2.8 70-200mm and AFS f/4 300mm; both with or without a TC14EII converter. For the static show also a Nikkor AFS f/2.8 28-70mm.

Cheers

Andy / JUR

what lense do you currently use?
(Sorry to hijack thread)

Thanks

Rob

Jur – thanks very much for the advice, I shall try that approach at Dawlish and see how it works for me.

Cheers

This is the first time I took the D7100 out and I’m still not quite sure what focussing mode is the best one for airwshows, any advice would be more than welcome.

For airshow photography my advice would be to use the “AF-ON method”, which I’ve been using with D2x, D300, D700 and D800 camera’s. To set up the D7100 for this method, you have to do the following:

1. set camera to AF-C
2. set a1: Selection AF-C priority to Release
3. set a4: AE-L/AF-L button to AF-ON (focussing can now only be done using the AE-L/AF-L button)
4. set Dynamic Field AF to either 9 or 21 points for fastest focus acquisition.

Now you just follow your target and keep the AE-L/AF-L button pressed to keep the target in focus. You can release the shutter at any moment. This method may take a bit of time to get used to, but you might like it and also prevents “hunting” of the auto focus.

One other point of advice: be careful not to frame the aircraft too tightly, especially into the direction of flight. A bit of air around the plane often gives a more balanced and natural look. This of course is not a hard rule, as sometimes a very tight crop as in your Chinook head-on picture can also be very pleasing.

Couple more shots

Great photos Andy, the Chinook turning is my fav.

Hi Andy,great shots ,I too have just bought a D7100 i’m no expert haven’t been doing aviation photograhy for that long but have found that using it in AF-C mode and with 21 or 51 focus points works for me with a Nikkor 70-300mm lens.

Very kind especially as I’ve marvelled at your images, not up to the standards of others here but given the gorgeous blue sky it seemed right to try and ensure there was a record of a cracking airshow.

Haven’t still quite mastered the different focus modes on the D7100 yet – got to work out what the best option is for these fast moving subjects.

Lovely shots.