A quick guide to DUX photography

[XH668]

We all know how bad duxford can be for photography so what settings would you suggest to a novice with a 500mm lens. Ive been playing around at the local with settings and different light conditions.
I am hoping someone can give me and anyone else tips on what settings to use, especialy to achieve prop blur yet produce a crisp image.

Hopefully this thread could be of some use to people

[AlexC]

It's all a bit contradictory really isn't it? High shutter speed to prevent motion blur, but not so high as to prevent prop blur. Also a low ISO value. My maximum lens is 300mm, (a f2.8, so aperture is not usually a problem unless I use a 1.4 converter) which on my Nikon becomes 450mm. I wouldn't like to go any faster then 1/320th for reasonable prop blur. 100 ISO for maximum quality, hopefully helped by bright sunlight. In fact I wouldn't personally bother to take many or any photos if the weather is cloudy.

[Tbolt]

I use Shutter Priority and center weighted metering, if there is lots of white cloud then usually around +1EV or so is need so you don't underexpose the aircraft depending on the colour of the aircraft, if you've got blue sky you don't normally need any compensation.

I usually use 1/400th with a 420mm lens (on a APS-C sensor, so 630mm EFL) for flying shots as any slower and the aircraft would be blurred. If you are using 500mm on a FF camera you could probably get away with 1/320th but if your are using an APS-C camera I wouldn't go below 1/400th or 1/500th but that all depends on how steady your hands are. With practice some people can panning with a SS slower than this but I find the number of keepers gets very low if I pan with too slow a speed.

[Orion]

I moved over to video before the DSLR could compete with film cameras (now they're better than film cameras), I used to use a 300-500mm Sigma lens on a Canon and I used plus a half stop always, excepting when shooting into the sun (but the sun was not in shot) when it was plus a full stop. I steadied the camera using a shoulder pod.

HTH

[trebleone]

As the question relates to aviation photography in general and is not specific to Duxford, I think this post should really be in the "Photography Hints, Tips & Questions" section ....... perhaps a mod could move it?

I am hoping someone can give me and anyone else tips on what settings to use, especialy to achieve prop blur yet produce a crisp image.

Prop speeds vary; so for take-offs when the engine is revving flat out, you may get reasonable prop blur at a shutter speed of 1/320, whereas on landing, engine speeds are usually slower and your shutter speed will also need to be correspondingly slower - perhaps 1/250.
Rotors turn even slower; so for helicopters, to get any rotor blur will need shutter speeds of 1/125 max, preferably 1/90.

Unfortunately, none of the shutter speeds above are conducive to shake-free shots, especially with a 500mm lens, however good panning technique, a lens with a stabilisation system (switched to mode '2' for panning if it's a Sigma) and possibly using a shoulder-brace, will all help.

For jets, you can wind up the shutter speed to 1/750 or, if there's enough light, 1/1000 ....... unless you want to get motion blur in the background on a low pass, in which case, you'll need to slow the shutter right down again.

Choice of metering mode is a case of try each and see what works best for you ... although it seems to be very much camera dependant, with some cameras giving more consistent results using partial or centre-weighted metering, while others seem to perform better using matrix metering, however whichever you use, a clear blue sky background may, depending on the position of the sun, enable a good exposure at the metered value, whereas an overcast sky will usually need some +ve compensation.