I'm Doomed

Just noticed a article to the right titled How To Take Good Photos At Airshows so I clicked on it and it's for Pentax User Plus Members Only.

Now I am doomed to take mundane pictures at the Bournemouth air show next month.

Maybe I won't bother going.

Mike

That's also probably to keep the pure pentaxians club intact.
As you are not a genuine pure pentaxian (having that twin flash hidden in the cupboard at home) you don't belong to the elite

Well Mike to be honest I don't think you are missing anything. I found the article a little disappointing. It is quite short and seems to be aimed at the beginner or someone who has not tried shooting aircraft, particularly at air-shows, before. I thought that the tips that it gave are largely constrained to choosing a good spot, making sure that you have charged your battery, using anti-shake and that you have enough storage space on your card. All of which I'm sure is embedded in the subconscious of anyone with half the experience of yourself.

I was rather hoping it was going give a few more tips on shooting the fast moving stuff like picking the focus point, how avoid the frustration of end-to-end auto-focus hunting, the advantages of having a quick-shift lens, like the DA55-300, possibly using a mono-pod and a bit more detail on what compromises need to be made on things like the aperture and iso settings to achieve decent shutter speeds. Here the article was limited to an example using a 18-200mm lens in TAV mode to achieve a shutter speed to freeze a rotating propeller. I also thought the presented example looked a little noisy.

Glyn

If you're going to pre-focus, the edge of the grass at the side of the runway isn't a bad choice for the stuff that's coming down the runway centre-line at low level. At the very least, it means that the AF will have very little to do.

Airshows are the only occasion I switch the camera to auto-select the focus point. It means you don't need to nail the passing aircraft to the centre of the frame, which I find almost impossible.

Can't be overemphasised. If you do lose the focus you can get it back very easily, and the closer you can get the ring to the right position, the less the AF has to move it, so the quicker it will lock.

Waste of time except for the static displays maybe.


The worst situation is trying to expose for the aircraft against bright cloud. Blue sky is easy, white cloud is almost impossible. You'll need to overexpose the sky, probably by quite a lot, to avoid hundreds of silhouettes.

Apart from that, look for 1/500 or less for the FJs, and if you want to capture the moment where two fast aircraft are passing head to head, you'll need either split second timing and a stationary camera, or, panning on one only, much, much shorter than that. Otherwise, you'll end up with something like this:

[IMG]http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t244/chris5gd/Aviation/Farnborough%202008/IMGP0627.jpg[/IMG]

Had the author even been to an airshow?

I let my PU mag sub lapse mostly because of what I felt was the lightweight nature of the articles. It's a shame to hear that the tradition seems to be continuing.

I note some news articles click and open to non readers, some don't.

Can anyone who has paid up tell us what us outsiders are missing please?

What are the discounts now and are they worth while?

We've read the old mags so what's the ...and much more please with this subscription idea that doesn't have a current mag?

They could at least have the decency to attach a note to the links that require a payment.

Yup, no point now is there. I've cancelledtonights' trip to a Stock Car Race meeting as I figured that althuogh most of them stay on the ground they are fairly fast moving.











....

If you go to Shop>Exclusive Discounts there's a list and full explanation of the applicable discounts.

Hope that helps!

Thanks John,

I didn't realise it was hidden in the shop menu. I note though all say Join Pentax User Plus to find out more about this offer.

Looks much the same as when I had my mag subscription which sadly had run out by the time I bought my KR from SRS. Doesn't look as if they'd have called that an accessory for a DISCOUNT though!

Will RICOH sponsor the return of a mag I wonder given their plans to expand Pentax?

Thanks Chris that sounds like a really useful tip which I must try. I had been using centre focus and found that I had to keep tracking the subject well before the point where I wanted to take a shot just to stop the camera focus hunting. Certainly if it did start to focus hunt the quick-shift was a life-saver.

I think your comments just reinforce my disappointment with the article not really covering any of these issues or the techniques that you raise.

Here is one of my attempts at a fast-moving subject although I think the lighting is a bit of an issue:

[IMG]http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w20/GlynM/Farnborough%202010/IMGP6028-small.jpg[/IMG]

Glyn

Not much wrong with that, at this size anyway.

It would be worth pulling up the shadow detail a bit - if you haven't already, I'd bet there's quite a bit of latitude there.