Duxford - BBMF 50th Anniversary

[John Harper]

Hi there

Following on from my post in the Sports section showing the RAF Falcons parachute display team. I now post some shots from the air display itself celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.

I was trying to get shots that were acceptably sharp while still showing some blur on the props. Don't know if anyone else has experience of this but i found that if i went below 1/320th I was starting to struggle on the sharpness front and frankly even at that speed they were not really crisp.

It may well be that i just need more practice with panning, but i tended to err on the side of caution and get a sharp plane with a frozen prop, rather than a nice blurred prop.... and a nice blurred aircraft as well.

Still as always comments and critiques welcome..... and apologies if you are not keen on aircraft!

 

[Ray West]

Hi John,

If you want blurred props, then photoshop them may be the best answer. I do not think you can really expect to be able to pan with a plane nearly filling the frame, getting both the plane sharp, and the props blurred, in the sort of random flight patterns you have at an air show. It may be different if you can get the plane to make a number of passes at the same speed, i.e. you know the pilot, can set up your position, etc.

But how much prop blurring is the right amount?

Best wishes,

Ray

.

 

[Mark Johnston]

No photoshop! Practice!

Hi John,

If you want blurred props, then photoshop them may be the best answer. I do not think you can really expect to be able to pan with a plane nearly filling the frame, getting both the plane sharp, and the props blurred, in the sort of random flight patterns you have at an air show. It may be different if you can get the plane to make a number of passes at the same speed, i.e. you know the pilot, can set up your position, etc.

But how much prop blurring is the right amount?

Best wishes,

Ray

.

If I may, I would suggest that the "right amount" of prop blur is an amount that conveys a feeling of motion and energy from the powerplant/prop and avoids the appearance that the aircraft is about to fall out of the sky.

And as someone who shoots a lot of prop aircraft, I would offer the following:
- the amount of prop blur at a given shutter speed depends on several factors including the energy state of the powerplant, and the type of engine/prop combination.
- in general, 1/320th is a good place to start for a lot of aircraft - but to get a nice amount of blur on an aircraft that turns a big prop at relatively slow rotational speeds, you might want to go lower.
- you will probably need to go to a lower shutter speed on aircraft that are descending or landing, as they are usually backed off on the throttle and therefore turning the prop slower. Conversely, aircraft that are taking off can usually be depended on to be running at their highest prop speeds.
- aircraft starting their take-off roll are moving relatively slowly, and applying a lot of power, therefore you have a good chance of getting nice prop blur [prop is moving fast] and a sharp aircraft [aircraft is moving slow].
- doing air-to-air is easier than ground-to-air, because the relative motion between the shooting platform and the target is usually lower [assuming you are shooting air-to-air with a cooperative aircraft attempting to fly in formation with your photo ship!]

And finally - you are so right - panning with a fast-moving aircraft and shooting with fairly slow shutter speeds is hard!

1/320th, f/8:

Lastly, I would object that using Photoshop to fake the prop blur after the fact is cheating, and that any resulting image should be identified as an altered image, not an actual photograph

Regards,

Mark J.

 

[John Harper]

If I may, I would suggest that the "right amount" of prop blur is an amount that conveys a feeling of motion and energy from the powerplant/prop and avoids the appearance that the aircraft is about to fall out of the sky.

And as someone who shoots a lot of prop aircraft, I would offer the following:
- the amount of prop blur at a given shutter speed depends on several factors including the energy state of the powerplant, and the type of engine/prop combination.
- in general, 1/320th is a good place to start for a lot of aircraft - but to get a nice amount of blur on an aircraft that turns a big prop at relatively slow rotational speeds, you might want to go lower.
- you will probably need to go to a lower shutter speed on aircraft that are descending or landing, as they are usually backed off on the throttle and therefore turning the prop slower. Conversely, aircraft that are taking off can usually be depended on to be running at their highest prop speeds.
- aircraft starting their take-off roll are moving relatively slowly, and applying a lot of power, therefore you have a good chance of getting nice prop blur [prop is moving fast] and a sharp aircraft [aircraft is moving slow].
- doing air-to-air is easier than ground-to-air, because the relative motion between the shooting platform and the target is usually lower [assuming you are shooting air-to-air with a cooperative aircraft attempting to fly in formation with your photo ship!]

And finally - you are so right - panning with a fast-moving aircraft and shooting with fairly slow shutter speeds is hard!

1/320th, f/8:

Lastly, I would object that using Photoshop to fake the prop blur after the fact is cheating, and that any resulting image should be identified as an altered image, not an actual photograph

Regards,

Mark J.

Hi Mark

Thanks for the advice, and thats a great shot of the Grumman F7F Tigercat.

In the past i have mainly concentrated on fast jets, so i could shoot away at 1/2000 and above and not worry.

But trying to get decent shots of prop stuff (without the prop stopped dead) and still get them crisp is a much greater challenge. Still as they say practice make perfect.

Just as an aside i was wondering what lens you use mainly at airshows

Are you at 400mm and above for the single planes or are they close enough to use something a bit shorter

John

 

[Mark Johnston]

airshow lenses

Hi Mark

Just as an aside i was wondering what lens you use mainly at airshows

Are you at 400mm and above for the single planes or are they close enough to use something a bit shorter

John

Hi, John - -

I think perhaps the most versatile all-around airshow lens for Canon is the 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L. It is not particularly fast, but on a sunny day shooting slow enough for some prop blur, it will be stopped down anyway. If I could only take one lens to an airshow, I think that would be it - you can cover taxiing aircraft on the ramp at the short end, and aircraft flying down the line with the long end.

But my favorite is the 300mm f/2.8. It is just so optically "coherent" and sharp, and it focuses really fast. And you can slap on a 1.4x or 2x teleconverter to go longer and it still delivers nice images - the Tigercat shot is one from the this lens.

But it is a bit of a bother to carry. If I can, I usually use a 28-70mm f/2.8 on the ramp and the 300mm and teleconverters for shooting the flyers.

One other thing I tried a bit last year was sticking an ND8 neutral-density filter on the 28-70mm so I could use slow shutter speeds but still access the larger apertures, in an effort to get narrower depth of field and blur out the backgrounds on my ramp shots. It did help a bit.

I am also going to use some TS/E lenses this year - they are so much fun to play with and provide a lot of interesting capabilities for controlling what's in focus and what's not.

Best regards,

Mark

 

[John Harper]

Hi, John - -

I think perhaps the most versatile all-around airshow lens for Canon is the 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L. It is not particularly fast, but on a sunny day shooting slow enough for some prop blur, it will be stopped down anyway. If I could only take one lens to an airshow, I think that would be it - you can cover taxiing aircraft on the ramp at the short end, and aircraft flying down the line with the long end.

But my favorite is the 300mm f/2.8. It is just so optically "coherent" and sharp, and it focuses really fast. And you can slap on a 1.4x or 2x teleconverter to go longer and it still delivers nice images - the Tigercat shot is one from the this lens.

But it is a bit of a bother to carry. If I can, I usually use a 28-70mm f/2.8 on the ramp and the 300mm and teleconverters for shooting the flyers.

One other thing I tried a bit last year was sticking an ND8 neutral-density filter on the 28-70mm so I could use slow shutter speeds but still access the larger apertures, in an effort to get narrower depth of field and blur out the backgrounds on my ramp shots. It did help a bit.

I am also going to use some TS/E lenses this year - they are so much fun to play with and provide a lot of interesting capabilities for controlling what's in focus and what's not.

Best regards,

Mark

Hi Mark

Well i agonised over which lens to get i had the 70-200 F2.8L IS and the 300mm F4L (would have liked the 2.8 but it was just too expensive!) so i plumped for the EF400mm 5.6L as i had read various threads on the net that the 100-400 is soft wide open at the 400mm end.

I hope to take some more shots of prop planes this year and will take onboard your tips.

Thanks again

John