I just wanted to share some of my lessons with some fellow aviation photographers. I took 5300 pictures Saturday and Sunday at the Reno Air Races this weekend. I learned a lot on Saturday on how NOT to take aviation action shots...3500 pics worth on Saturday!
The pics below are from Sunday after I learned what NOT to do on Saturday!
Rule #1: Don't shoot in "Vivid" mode. I spent a lot of time post processing it out. You can always increase color and contrast later in PS.
Rule #2: For the fast action shots, use full field focus...not spot focus. I missed some great shots on Saturday because they were slightly out of focus. The camera is smarter than you and will focus on the closest object...in most cases anyway...i.e. the plane instead of the mountain behind it.
Rule #3: Use Shutter Priority to achieve the effect you want..ie. blur in a propeller at 1/50th sec, or if shooting a jet, use a fast shutter speed...there's no prop to freeze. I used aperture priority on some. The aerial action shots were all shot hand-held with my Nikkor 80-400 VR (with VR turned off...a must). This lens is sharpest at f/11, so I just bumped up the ISO to 400 to get the shutter speed I needed to stop the action where I wanted it.
Rule #4: If you want to get a perfectly timed shot, start shooting the action about half a second before you THINK it's going to happen, then release the shutter a half second after you THINK it's happened. The pics below are the best of a 12 or 13 shot sequence. My D3 shoots at 11 frames per second, so I was able to get some well timed shots.
Rule #5: If you wear your hat backwards to take the shots, put some sunscreen on your forehead so you don't have a dome-shaped sunburn on the front of your head like me!!!
Thanks for looking!!!
Here's a link to the thread with the rest of my shots:
http://digital-photography-school.co...9-preview.html