Aviation settings

You'll get 2 answers, both work, so it's really down to preference.

Answer 1. Use Shutter priority for jets, set it to a high speed, around 1/1000th, and snap away.
The down side is that unless you have a fast lens, and with the UK's lack of sunshine, you wont get 1/1000th with an available apature. So you will need to increase the ISO, which isn't a good idea.
For props, set the shutter speed to around 1/200th, and take lots, you might get a sharpe photo, with a nice disco prop, then again, you might not. But don't worry if you don't, it happens to most of us.

Answer 2, which is what I use, is use AV. Set the appature to wide open, unless a miricle happens and it's sunny, then you can stop down a stop or 2, depending on your lens. The upside is you don't have to worry about running out of appature. but you may need to watch the shutter speed. Then again, I've gone down to 1/125th and got some nice sharp jets photos. I almost never change from 100 ISO.
For props, go to TV and set shutter speed to around 1/200th, as in answer 1.

Which is best? Neither, or both. Some people swear by answer 1. Doesn't work for me, I use answer 2. Proof of the pudding is look at some aircraft photos on flikr for example, along with the camera data. But at the end of the day, I'd suggest try both, and use whatever works best for you.
 
Natty94 said:
Hi,

I'm off to an Airshow on Saturday and would like to know what the best settings would be as I've never photographed one before, it will have a mix of prop aircraft and jets.

Thanks in advance!
Nathan
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Camera settings for aircraft will depend on the weather conditions and what you can achieve with your lens and camera, but you have a few options.

Me personally, I use TV (shutter priority), AISERVO and a single focus point (depend how comfortable you are with a single focus point). For jets I use shutter speeds around the 1/800-1250 sec mark, prop aircraft 1/250-400 sec depending on the aircraft, if you want the halo effect, then you'll need slower shutter speeds, the same with helicopters to get rotor blur, but you'll get less keepers and this takes time and practice to get it right.

You could use AV (aperture priority) and set an aperture of f8-9 and let the camera set the shutter speed, but I would rather have control of the shutter. You can control aperture settings set by the camera by increasing the ISO setting. Of course this depends on the lens you're using and the light conditions, grey overcast skies don't make for good images.

If you're pannning to take your shot, start early and focus on the aircraft, as the aircraft starts to fill you screen think about taking 2-3 shots (2/3 fill focus screen), don't machine gun, waste of time unless you have a pro body, take small burst of 2-3 shots and continue to pan post taking the images, a smooth pan will get you better images, jerky pan will take soft (out of focus) images.

Of course you can play with the settings, but I'd rather have a sharp image than a blurry one.

Summary - AISERVO, single focus point, shutter speeds of 1/1000 sec jets, 1/320 prop using ISO to adjust your aperture setting made by the camera. Achieving these settings will depend on your lens and the weather. Hope this helps

Peter
 
You could use AV (aperture priority) and set an aperture of f8-9 and let the camera set the shutter speed, but I would rather have control of the shutter. You can control aperture settings set by the camera by increasing the ISO setting. Of course this depends on the lens you're using and the light conditions, grey overcast skies don't make for good images.
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Most lenes will give you a reasonably good image wide open, and you certainly don't need to have 1/1000th as a shutter speed to get a sharp image. The higher the speed though the more chance you have.

I'd steer clear of 1/320th, you need to be much slower for most props, and a lot lot slower for helicopters.

But as I mentioned, there's 2 schools of thought, Pete's methods obviously works for him, mine works for me.
 
Bernie174 said:
Most lenes will give you a reasonably good image wide open, and you certainly don't need to have 1/1000th as a shutter speed to get a sharp image. The higher the speed though the more chance you have.

I'd steer clear of 1/320th, you need to be much slower for most props, and a lot lot slower for helicopters.

But as I mentioned, there's 2 schools of thought, Pete's methods obviously works for him, mine works for me.
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As Bernie mentioned 2 schools of thought, but word of warning about slow shutter speeds, you need to be very accomplished to get decent results, too many times I've seen advice saying 1/125 or 1/80 sec and see rubbish results, you need a lot of practice to achieve a reasonable hit rate. As its the OPs 1st time, personally, I would rather have lots of images from the day, so usng TV and keeping to those settings will achieve this, but once you have a few images you're happy with, then start to play with the settings, but I would rather bag some shots 1st
 
You can indeed use grass but it has many different shades!

Most airshows involve a runway - you can try to use that (it'll be a bit dark so meter it at -1/2 or something like that)
 
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