MARS wrote:
Dean wrote:
:smt006
More photos!
I am trying to take as many photos as I can. The action is relentless and the event is vast and diverse.
The one problem I am struggling a bit is soft images...?
I think its caused by a combination of humidity, heat haze and using a telephoto lens. The weather is excellent but its very hot and humid, I am shooting using the same settings as a I would at our local shows. The difference though is that Gauteng airshows are in winter at 2000 m above sea level.
I am shooting up to 2500th of a second, so I don't think its motion blur.
could it be humidity?
Great airshow hey Marc
Couple of comments. Yes when RIAT gets full sun, you'll get heat haze. However, I found that it wasn't a problem when the aircraft were close (shooting at 300mm, CF1.6). Best was to get the aeries in the air and not on the runway. Humidity should only do one thing - wingtip vortices and condensation over wings which is what we want to see. Couple of other comments :
1) When shooting at high speed switch your image stabilizer off.
2) leave the u/v and polarizer filters off. You want as little glass between your sensor and the subject (unless you're paying R3,000 for a filter). I found at ORT using a polarizer was messing up half the photos and that's easy photography with slow moving subjects.
3) maybe big day excitement shakes. There's so much going on and you're no doubt constantly fiddling with settings. Don't be fooled by those oke's who handle their cameras like M-61 Gatling guns. It only sounds impressive to those who don't know. Consider a lesson from a bomber gunner from WWII - aim at your subject, track it properly and squeeze the trigger gently. I didn't heed this advice at my first RIAT and most of my first day pics were crap. Draw a deep breath, let the air out gradually as you track your subject and shoot in bursts of two. Up side is you don't have to go through 10,000 images after the show.
4) when you resize your images to 1300 or 800 pixels, the last operation of your editing process is to sharpen the image (unsharp mask). This will go a long way to making your images look nice and crisp (but don't overdo it).
I sat next to a guy with a lens which looked like an RPG rocket launcher. I think it was 600mm or longer. After messing around with it he put it down in disgust due to the heat haze on long distance shots. The great thing about RIAT is that you seldom have to go beyond 300mm on a crop factor 1.6 body.
Oh yes, last word of advice. Get a Canon7D MkII and the new 100-400mm lens