fuji f 100 fd

hello. i own a fuji f 100fd. in malta there is going to be an airshow soon. do i stand a chance of gettin some good moving objects photos with this camera. its a 5x zoom not much but i guess its about enough for me to have fun...am i right? i dont expext miracles from this camera but i took some good photos with it, but i never took sporting photos with it. can somebody help me what can i do please. ex. shall i use manual focus or auto focus? if someone could help with some settings examples please..thanks.

Sorry, but it's unlikely that you'll get anything usable with planes in the sky with a compact ... see the recent thread showing how weak the S100fs is with action shots ... and that's a much more capable camera.

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joseph farrugia said:

hello. i own a fuji f 100fd. in malta there is going to be an airshow soon. do i stand a chance of gettin some good moving objects photos with this camera. its a 5x zoom not much but i guess its about enough for me to have fun...am i right? i dont expext miracles from this camera but i took some good photos with it, but i never took sporting photos with it. can somebody help me what can i do please. ex. shall i use manual focus or auto focus? if someone could help with some settings examples please..thanks.

Click to expand...

The best you can do is set it to Sport mode, full zoom, and track the plane as steadily as you can before/during/and after you press the shutter.

As far as in the sky fast moving aircraft, you will be disappointed. You might get lucky and get one or two.

Do no discount the ability to shoot lots of static shots of aircraft on the ground before they go airborne, or remain static. You should do well with this type of shots with this camera!

I have been to more airshows than you can shake a stick at, and the static photos are always remained my favorite. Go in for details and crowd shots as they inspect the planes.
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I agree, nice 28mm will be ok for static park shots.

As for flying shots, don't discount use of the digital zoom. Its going to depend where you are at the airshow, whether it is on an airfield, or out over sea.

BUT LIMIT IT to say 2x digital. you have a 28mm-140mm zoom. I used to shoot a lot at airshows with a 300mm lens on 35mm. 140 with a 2x digital is going to give you 280mm lens. You have 12MP's to play with....the digital zoom will limit the actual resolution you have. I have seen some great 3 and 6MP shots blown up to quite a size.

What size will you be printing out your shots?

If screen resolution, you have more than enough resolution.

If you use the cameras digital zoom limit it to just approx 2x or so of the 8.2x digital zoom on offer in the camera. Keep the digital zoom as low as possible. I would never use 8.2 digital zoom, in fact I usually have D.Z. turned off. Preset your zoom, and keep it there....you may have to follow a few aircraft to find a suitable setting for different sizes of aircraft.

ALTERNATIVELY, turn off the digital zoom and just crop to frame the images on the computer. 12MP is quite a high resolution.

When shooting pan with the aircraft and shoot at a reasonable ISO speed... around 400ISO. I am not familiar with the F100 not sure what control you have over the ISO setting.

Good luck with the show...I had a great holiday once, staying in Marsascala, Malta is a lovely island, and the people there were so friendly and we had a wonderful time....we did however stay away from many of the 'tourist' beaches and clubs.

many thanks for all the help....thanks mr loghlan. and when or if someday youll be coming back to visit us in malta youre most welcome....thanks for everything. the info was perfect....

Joseph,

I did some shooting last year with my F6500fd on an airshow of the Royal Dutch Airforce. Zooming was 70, 100 and 300mm, 6Mpixel. So the last one should be comparable with > 2x digital on maximum zoom on the F100fd (> 280mm) and using 12Mpixel. It is mainly a question of moving the camera in the line of movemement of the airplanes...

See the following page and find the planes... :
http://www.xs4all.nl/~ator0407/Technical%20camera%20stuff/index.html

Rgds and good luck!

Bart

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