Air displays

Yeah.

Now it's clear Matt, but I detect a flaw . But a 100 mm lens on any camera is 100 mm, whether it is Large format, Medium format, 35mm, APS, 4/3rds, 126 or 110. You wouldn't suggest that a longer shutter speed is appropriate if you used a format larger than 35mm.

It's been a long time since I've done air shows, I think Flying Legends 1997 was my last one and I coped with a 1/350th shutter speed with a Tokina 400mmm. I agree that for jets the fastest shutter speed is recommended, shows how much photography has moved on since the advent of digital; then I had to wonder if paying extra for ISO 400 mm film was justifiable

Now it's clear Matt, but I detect a flaw . But a 100 mm lens on any camera is 100 mm, whether it is Large format, Medium format, 35mm, APS, 4/3rds, 126 or 110. You wouldn't suggest that a longer shutter speed is appropriate if you used a format larger than 35mm.

It's been a long time since I've done air shows, I think Flying Legends 1997 was my last one and I coped with a 1/350th shutter speed with a Tokina 400mmm. I agree that for jets the fastest shutter speed is recommended, shows how much photography has moved on since the advent of digital; then I had to wonder if paying extra for ISO 400 mm film was justifiable[/quote]Howeever it is achieved a 100mm lens gives the equivalent of a 150mm on a crop camera.

If you stood with a nikon d3 and a nikon d300 with identical lenses back to the wall at an air show and zoomed to 100mm on both the d300 would have a larger aircraft in the viewfinder than the d3 would.

Matt

The K20D instruction manual recommends that we use the crop factor multiplier as the basis for calculating the minimum hand holdable shutter speed.

So 100mm lens x 1.5 = 150mm with a shutter speed of at least 1/150 sec.

No need to multiply again by 1.5, but to be on the safe side by all means go one step faster than the suggested minimum.

Of course SR changes that somewhat, but I always take a few shots to choose the sharpest anyway. The ability of individuals to safely hand hold varies enormously, from day to day as well as from person to person.

I was using my Kaiser Rifle grip at a Paris Airport just a week after a Bazooka attack, There were armed guards everywhere! I must admit i was a bit nervous!!!
I still use it for all of my 300mm shots where a tripod is impractical.
The difference it makes to the steadiness of handheld shots is huge.
Other than a few comments from photographers who are too young to remember the Zenith Photosniper kit or Novoflex i have no problem!


Regards - Pete

One of the guys in my local Aviation society has photographs in all the top Aviation mags uses a Wimberly head on his tripod. It`s a bit pricey at £500 but it does the trick and it looks a lot more stylish than my tatty old customised grip which cost me £8 brand new!

Regards - Pete.

A lens has the same focal length irrespective of the camera it sits on; what changes is the angle of view, which is why the image appears larger on APS-C or 4/3rds than it does on 35 mm or larger....

Gone analogue John I have the MZ-S, Z-1, Z-1p now, and a Mamiya 645. I still can't fully accept what cloudhunter says because my 80mm Mamiya Sekor lens gives the 35 mm equivalent view of 55mm, yet I try not to shoot below 1/90th...

Having sold my K10D yesterday, the recipient received a mint handbook which tells me two things.....

a) I won't have discovered many of the things my K10D could do...
b) The K10D is so intuitive that you can just take it out of the box and start using it....
and
c) We had a fabulous sunset in the Hague last night

And I thought I had more or less grasped this aspect of ratios and focal lengths etc etc But now I am confused again.

So in laymen terms please, so that I don't end up with my grey cells in a spaghetti junction:

If I fit my 300mm lens in a full frame body supposing that a pentax had one and take a shot of a bird and and then use the same lens in my K20 and take exactly the same shot, what is going to be the difference?
Will the bird image in the print from the full frame body look further away (smaller)?

Or in principle these two shots would be similar because if I crop the full frame image to bring the bird closer in size similar to the K20 the IQ of both the images would be the same.

Doesn't the crop factor in the full frame body image reduce the pixels in that case?

A few days ago at SRS I tried the D300 and the D700 with exactly the same lens, at 200mm range and in the D700 it looked smaller compared to the D300 while looking through the viewfinder.
Having said that though I must add that when the lens was attached to the D700 the AF locked faster even than the D300 and when I enquired why that happened I was told that it would be typical to do that in a full frame, being faster I mean.

So I am assuming that if I printed the images they would be different as the D700 would show the far off subject further away than the D300. But I take it that the image would be wider, am I correct in assuming this?

Thats why i said "however it is achieved"

And that 1.5x factor meant that the tip of the tail fin of that A330 at Manchester Ringway was cut off...

I guess it was an A330 on the basis that the crop factor has also meant I can't tell if there are 2 extra engines (as in the A340) or wing tip fences (the absence of which would make the plane an A300 or A310)



As I say it's been a long time since I've been to an air show so at least I'll hopefully get a chance to check what the best shutter speeds are

No my lack of experience in taking photos is what cut the tip of the tail fin off. It was using an 18-200mm zoom so could have easily zoomed out slightly. If i was on a full frame body i wouldnt have had the choice of zooming in as much though would I?

Your making out the crop factor was responsible for making it a bad pic?? No, i purposely cut off the other 2 engines as if i had kept them it would have made the pic look like a panorama. Which i didnt want.

It was either cut off the engines or cut more off the tail.

Be very careful when your photographing seagulls, make sure there flying upside down when you look up!

Seriously, for air shows, forget formula, Shutter Speed 500, ISO 200. Aircraft moving horizontally left to right etc, learn the art of panning with your camera, try to follow the aircraft with your lens and click the shutter when you feel you have a shot.

The upshot of all this is that the traditional advice with a full frame camera would be with a 300mm lens you would need a hand held speed of at least 1/300 sec.

With an APS-C sized sensor you would need 1/450 sec, because you have effectively magnified the image 1.5x

Frankly, often these speeds with long lenses might not be enough to guarantee very sharp images, but SR now comes to the rescue and does seem to help significantly.

Matt,
you misunderstand - I wasn't criticising the photo. I just made the remark, off the cuff to illustrate the difference of FF vs APS-C....

so it was an A340 then

Quite right John, my photos fail due to poor technique more than anything else....