Warbird Information Exchange

Well I don't know. Kind of disapointed in my shots I took. Second year at Geneseo with my Nikon D80. The following are the settings I used for my shots. If any of these are incorrect please let me know:

-Shutter Priority
-ISO 100
-Image quality "fine"
-Image size large
-Speed between 1/200-1/360 for prop plane
-AF-C
-White balance auto

As for uploading: Im just loading them onto the computer to photobucket then onto the forum.


Anyway here are a few photos I took. Some turned out kinda dark and not very clear. I only stayed Saturday so I didn't get to photograph the planes that flew on Sunday.

Enjoy,
Nathan

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I think your ISO was a little slow?

I usually go with Auto if all else fails, you just cannot go wrong with setting your D70 on Auto settings, except the dreaded frozen prop deal which you have and can adjust your arpature. (sp)

Hey Nathan, I think you did good. Nothing wrong with 100iso on a sunny day. With a shutter speed that slow you need to practice your panning technique as you can’t have any shaking and need to follow the plane perfectly to have it sharp. With a little PS work they can look much better. When you see a good slow shutter speed shot there is usually a dozen blurred photos the photographer is not showing you that it took to get that one shot. Some need to be brightened a little. Watch out for distracting objects in the background like the white truck in two of the images. Geneseo has almost a perfect backdrop so no need to have that in the photos.

Keep shooting and I hope to see shots from your fly-in. Say hello to your girlfriend for us.

Cheers,

Eric

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The air resounds from the Rolls-Royce roar!
To an enemy the warning is dire: here only eagles soar,
and the last thing he'll see is a mirrored Spitfire!

Like Eric said, although they aren't bad.



Here, I think it's clear you aren't panning well enough with the aircraft's movement, as it's covered more distance in your pic than the background has during the exposure.

As Eric's pointed out, the best shots have both a lot of losses around them, but also a lot of practice and experience. A good camera is just the tool for a good photographer to get decent pictures with. And the photographer has to learn how to get the best out of his equipment - which can be a lifetime's (fun) learning.

As an editor, I'd rather get pics from a good photographer with average equipment than a average photographer with good equipment. There's a lesson there. (And this from someone who made a real mess of getting any pics from someone's loaned DSLR recently!)

In other words, learn the why and how of your equipment rather than expecting it to deliver for you when you point it.

Massive simplifications, but I HTH.

_________________
James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

Great point guys.

I bought a 24.00 DVD for my Nikon D40 and learned more in 20 minutes about the camera, then I would have just tinkering around.

It takes practice, I can tell just from my photos that I am getting more aware of what is going on around the photo, etc. etc. now too.

I am not an expert by all mean, but I am practicing. I think out of every 500 shots, I get at least 50 that are what I call, great shots. I do a lot of deleting still!

Also, what kind of zoom are you using? What I do too is basically keep my subject centered and then fire that bad boy until I think I got a decent shot.

The one click method, just doesnt work for me.

Here are a few photos I took yesterday afternoon at KMSP As you can see, I still have issues with frozen prop syndrome!

Thanks guys. The lens I used was a Nikor 70-300mm with VR. Yep...I learning. I try different things all the time and a few months ago I bought me a manual for my D80. Read it a few times. Still learning but getting the hand of it.

Thanks,
Nathan

P.S. Eric, Lisa says hi!

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Nathan
Like Eric wrote, practice panning, the best practice is at airshows or airports. I've found hat my first airshow of the year I have a lot of pictures tossed, by the end of the season I'm doing much better. It is a skill that needs be be kept sharp and used as often as you can.

The other things you will have to learn is how to use your camera at the edge of it's capabilities. Most auto focuses do not work well on moving aircraft. I have stopped trying to use the tracking focus options and just use the single shot focus. I loss a few shots but I've found it helps over all and is worth it.

Keep asking questions and advice, you have a resource pool here that love to share and help out. Take advantage of it!

Tim

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www.tailhookstudio.com

Hmm, Yes to improve your shots, think you better hand her the good camera Nathan.

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Bill


Website

As for exposure, you might get better results if you meter on a ground target and lock the camera manually into those settings. Otherwise, light from the surrounding sky can trick your camera into underexposing the planes, as may have happened in your 4th pic.

You may also be having focus issues. Remember that autofocus is a convenience, it is not an improvement over manual focusing. You can often get sharper pics if you focus manually.

As others have said, shooting at low speed to get prop blur, especially without image stabilization, guarantees a limited success rate even if you're quite practiced. When I am shooting a plane that I really want to nail and I'm only going to get one or two passes, I back off to 1/500. I am not so hung up on the fashionable fetish of prop blur that I am willing to risk not getting any sharp shots of a plane I really want. Once I am sure that I have nailed a few good shots, I'll go to 1/250 or even 1/125 and try for blur. If you can't live with a lot of rejects, get a stablized lens or don't go there.

August

Yes. I am lucky that my lens has Vibration Reduction. So I have that step down.


Also it seems my photos are compressed when I post them on a forum-losing clearness. Darn!

Generally if I am going to crop a picture what is best to do that? I have tried cropping but it makes the photo pixelly and fuzz? I do have Photoshop Elements and photo studio 5.5.

Still learning.... Thanks for the help!

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Shop the Airplane Bunker At
www.warbirdbunker.com

Use photoshop or equivalent software when resizing your pictures, my photo editor that came with my camera slaughters the picture when I use it! Sometimes they might need to be sharpened after being sized down, but be very careful with that tool, it can make your pictures look bad and over edited.

And no need to have your pictures over 72DPI when you post them.

Tim

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www.tailhookstudio.com

Photoshop is always a big part of the final product as you can see by the before and after shots. You want to take the best possible image at the time but it is important to learn PS skills to tweak the image. I grew up in the darkroom developing my own images so it was only natural to want to tweak digital images. Things like making the horizon level and brightness adjustments.

_________________
The air resounds from the Rolls-Royce roar!
To an enemy the warning is dire: here only eagles soar,
and the last thing he'll see is a mirrored Spitfire!

Try shooting propeller aircraft in shutter priority, the aperture will take care of itself. Start at 400/sec, you will not get much prop blur on the warbirds but the modern stuff should have a higher rpm and look better. If your shots are good at 400th then drop the shutter speed to 350th/sec then 250th/sec. This way you can find where your best shutter speed is for moving aircraft. The prop movement on a Corsair between 250th and 400th/sec is not that great so you will not be gaining that much more of a prop blur.

For jets shoot aperture priority set at 5.6 or 6.8 and then you will get the highest possible shutter speed available for the lighting conditions.

As for auto metering it can be greatly effected by the background. Light or bright background will often make your photo dark when auto metering. A dark background will often make your photo to light as the metering sees all the darkness and will brighten the image. Metering can’t tell what you subject is. You have shot beside me at shows and must see how many times I tweak my settings. It is an ongoing thing for almost every sequence of images I shoot. It has also come with 35 plus years of shooting experience.

_________________
The air resounds from the Rolls-Royce roar!
To an enemy the warning is dire: here only eagles soar,
and the last thing he'll see is a mirrored Spitfire!