Ideally any long lens should be properly supported with a decent tripod, but at an airshow? No I never use one, I don’t find it practical, and I’d miss far too much. I do use a monopod in some situations, especially with the sigma 50-500 lens which helps at the long end of the zoom for taxiing/takeoff shots, but for displays in the air I always handhold.

If you are getting unsharp images try upping the ISO, don’t be afraid to use 400, 640 or 800 ISO, its much better to have a sharp, well exposed photograph with a bit of grain/noise (film/digital) than an image ruined by camera shake. There are some very effective noise reduction programmes (Neat Image etc) that can help if the noise becomes too objectionable.

A 60-300 lens is likely to have a maximum aperture of F5.6, add a 2x converter and your maximum aperture will be F11, very difficult to use effectively. I’d try loosing the converter and using the lens on its own. A 300mm should be enough to get some decent results if you think carefully about your position at a show, look to see which end they come over the threshold or start their takeoff run and position yourself there, rather than at the centre of the display line.

All the stuff I posted yesterday at Elvington Photos were taken with a 70-200mm lens+1.4x converter (effectively 280mm) so it is possible to get reasonable images with this focal length so long as you think about your location.

Gareth

Not many of the flight line I’m afraid, they had all got their covers on when I arrived, and by the time they were removed I didn’t want to loose my place on the display line.

Here’s the few I did get…

first time I found the ‘curves’ function in photoshop…

guess I overdid it a bit!! 😀

True, I’d love to have the opportunity to try though, now that would be fun 😀 😀

http://www.warehouseexpress.co.uk/ list the sigma 80-400 OS as ‘arriving July’ and give a price of £899.99

hth

Gareth

Been using the 50-500 with my D100 for about 6 months now Septic, done four shows (Coventry, Kemble, Waddington and Legends) with it and am very pleased with it.

Being able to pull back to 50mm (75mm equivalent on the D100) to get a tristar in one minute, then zoom in to 500mm (750mm equivalent) on the next fighter makes it invaluable when it gets busy. For what it does (10x zoom range) it has no competition (for Nikon owners at least), and the price is unbeatable. Nikon does produce a 100-400VR zoom but since it has no AF-S it is slow to focus, not good for aircraft.

The 50-500 does need careful handling however, I generally handhold it but have used a monopod at arrivals days, that improves my success rate at the 500mm end, and relieves the strain on the back, neck and shoulder, it IS a Heavy beast! I prefer to keep it stopped down a couple of stops whenever possible, even if this means pushing the ISO to 400, 500, it certainly improves its sharpness. The 80-400 sounds interesting especially with its optical stabilisation, but I’ve yet to see an independent review of it published so far.

Couple of examples taken with my 50-500

http://www.applied-maths.com/paul/spotkiller.zip

hth

Gareth

Yeovilton circa 1976, aged all of 8 and armed with my dads old rolicord. (wonderful camera for aircraft that, twin lens reflex, 12 shots on a roll, 75mm uncoated lens but hey it had a ‘sports finder’ which consisted of a wire type frame and a little mirror in the middle!!)

PA474 was there with no mid upper turret, and the Sally B was resplendent in polished aluminium finish. Seem to recall a German starfighter crashed on approach whilst we were looking around a radio communication tent, as they tended to do quite regularly then.

Couple of photos from the archive (I’ve a sneaking suspicion my Dad ‘helped’ me with these:) )