dayton airshow part 2 and one QUESTION !

agodbie · Jul 18, 2004

as i mentioned earlier, i couldnt get close enough with only my 717, but i did get a good experience taking motion pics.

initially it was difficult to figure out the flight path as the planes were doing rolls and other manouvers, but as i got a hang of it, pics became less blurry..
for some reason i am finding the shutter lag too much !

so my question is: is there anyway to reduce it, or is that the limit of the 717. i was shooting at 1000 but it still seemed too slow to capture after the button was pressed !

i know 2000 can be achieved somewhere in A or S or P modes but can i control that

reason im asking is because, even after i setup the camera in the flight path, pre focussed it and pressed the button when the plane was in the screen, it still took that split second the capture and the plane was gone by then !

well btw some of my stationary samples are as follows: btw, all are on Full digital zoom (which explains the sharpness, or rather lack of it), no addons lenses and minimal post

this one was cool, the plane was right above the rocket powered truck, just a few feet above, wish i had a bigger lens !

vaegasschmoe · Jul 18, 2004

I feel your pain. I took my 707 to the Las Vegas Air Show and had a real difficult time getting any good action shots. The problem is not a function of the shutter speed but simply the shutter lag of the camera itself.

What I found out works is to track the plane in the viewfinder and when you hit the shutter release button keep following through until the focus locks and the shutter fires. I came home with a lot of shots of the rear half of planes but was able to get some that were fairly good after some practice.

Here is a link to the gallery.
http://Vegasschmoe.smugmug.com/gallery/89062/1/3196170

--
; http://vegasschmoe.smugmug.com/

Steven W. Bennett · Jul 18, 2004

agodbie said:
for some reason i am finding the shutter lag too much !

so my question is: is there anyway to reduce it, or is that the
limit of the 717. i was shooting at 1000 but it still seemed too
slow to capture after the button was pressed !

Depending on how far away you are from the target,
try manual focus set to infinity, which will probably work
fine for anything over 100 feet away. Your shutter lag
should be next to nil.

Steve

agodbie · Jul 18, 2004

i checked your gallery, you seem to have gotten pretty good images, well at least better action than mine. i am assuming that you had the 'ringside' view of events, cos i was standing like at one end of the show (cos i went late) and besides the center and closeup areas were for those who paid more ! heheh.. so i cant complain overall

thanks

Ashish

vaegasschmoe said:
I feel your pain. I took my 707 to the Las Vegas Air Show and had
a real difficult time getting any good action shots. The problem
is not a function of the shutter speed but simply the shutter lag
of the camera itself.

What I found out works is to track the plane in the viewfinder and
when you hit the shutter release button keep following through
until the focus locks and the shutter fires. I came home with a
lot of shots of the rear half of planes but was able to get some
that were fairly good after some practice.

Here is a link to the gallery.
http://Vegasschmoe.smugmug.com/gallery/89062/1/3196170

--
; http://vegasschmoe.smugmug.com/

agodbie · Jul 18, 2004

hmm, do i set the manual focus to infinity by focussing on some far away object first and keeping it fixed while shooting the plane ?

and yea, i realized that i was at least getting better framed shots with practice. well theres always next year or so i hope.
thanks for your suggestion

Ashish

p.s. most of my search on airshow pics yielded dslr posts with big lenses (i also noticed they were using at least 200mm on the minimum and with tripods)

Steven W. Bennett said:
agodbie said:

for some reason i am finding the shutter lag too much !

so my question is: is there anyway to reduce it, or is that the
limit of the 717. i was shooting at 1000 but it still seemed too
slow to capture after the button was pressed !

Click to expand...

Depending on how far away you are from the target,
try manual focus set to infinity, which will probably work
fine for anything over 100 feet away. Your shutter lag
should be next to nil.

Steve

ravneet · Jul 18, 2004

agodbie said:
hmm, do i set the manual focus to infinity by focussing on some far
away object first and keeping it fixed while shooting the plane ?

No, switch your Focus from auto to manual (not sure what camera you have, on 717 its in the left siode of lens barrel) and use the focussing mechanism,the lens ring, to set the focus to infinity (717 shows this in the display)

That way your focus is set to infinity and next set your Aperture/shutter values, and track the target for some time before actually clickin it. As said, the lag shoud not be there and the focus shoud be good.
Also, I noticed a lot of noise in your pics.....what ISO were you at ?

HTH
Ravneet
--
F-SevenOneSeven

Lynn Towns · Jul 18, 2004

Set the aperture to f/2.8 (depth-of-field isn't normally important), shutter speed to a value of 1/500 second or higher (I like 1/800 or higher if possible), an ISO speed that gives good exposure (200 or below would be preferable), full optical zoom WITHOUT digital zoom, and 5 megapixel resolution. This will give you:
1. The lowest shutter lag possible

2. A fast shutter speed to stop the action

3. A large 5mp frame to capture the airplane. This would give a larger "target frame" and maximum versatility when using your F717. If you use digital zoom, the camera "crops" the photo right out of the middle of the frame. Without digital zoom, you determine where to crop the photo.

Assume you used full digital zoom, and you just missed getting all of the plane in the frame. There is nothing you can do. But, with only optical zoom (NO digital zoom), you should have caught the entire plane within the frame. Then, you could crop the photo during post processing anywhere within the frame (not just the center). The resulting cropped photo would be similar to the digital zoom photo, except cropped off center to capture the entire plane. To me, digital zoom is really a marketing gimmick to sell more cameras.

You should follow the plane and continue the panning motion for a short time after you have pressed the shutter. This keeps the plane in the frame while the shutter is firing, even if you don't press the shutter exactly when you want, or there is some shutter lag.

Lynn

agodbie · Jul 18, 2004

lol, i just remembered that infinity thing when using manual focus..thanks for your suggestion. i was using iso100, surprisingly there seems to be a lot of noise right ? i have absolutely no idea why.. they were underexposed, since i was shooting at f8, 1000 most of the time, but that shouldnt increase the noise should it?
anyhoo, i'll keep all this in mind for next year lol
thanks

Ashish

p.s. i used 717 with full 10x zoom (optical+digital) which was a reason for the lack of detail, whereas i could have used full optical and then cropped to hopefully yield better results.
no tele addons and no tripod either

Ravneet said:
agodbie said:

hmm, do i set the manual focus to infinity by focussing on some far
away object first and keeping it fixed while shooting the plane ?

Click to expand...

No, switch your Focus from auto to manual (not sure what camera you
have, on 717 its in the left siode of lens barrel) and use the
focussing mechanism,the lens ring, to set the focus to infinity
(717 shows this in the display)
That way your focus is set to infinity and next set your
Aperture/shutter values, and track the target for some time before
actually clickin it. As said, the lag shoud not be there and the
focus shoud be good.
Also, I noticed a lot of noise in your pics.....what ISO were you at ?

HTH
Ravneet
--
F-SevenOneSeven

agodbie · Jul 18, 2004

hey Lynn thanks for your suggestions. ive rarely used digital zoom myself, but the situation was such that there was no way i could get close enough. without digital zoom, i wasnt sure how much detail i'd captured while viewing on my evf.
anyhoo thanks again, hopefully theres always next year

Ashish

Lynn Towns said:
Set the aperture to f/2.8 (depth-of-field isn't normally
important), shutter speed to a value of 1/500 second or higher (I
like 1/800 or higher if possible), an ISO speed that gives good
exposure (200 or below would be preferable), full optical zoom
WITHOUT digital zoom, and 5 megapixel resolution. This will give
you:
1. The lowest shutter lag possible

2. A fast shutter speed to stop the action
3. A large 5mp frame to capture the airplane. This would give a
larger "target frame" and maximum versatility when using your F717.
If you use digital zoom, the camera "crops" the photo right out of
the middle of the frame. Without digital zoom, you determine where
to crop the photo.

Assume you used full digital zoom, and you just missed getting all
of the plane in the frame. There is nothing you can do. But, with
only optical zoom (NO digital zoom), you should have caught the
entire plane within the frame. Then, you could crop the photo
during post processing anywhere within the frame (not just the
center). The resulting cropped photo would be similar to the
digital zoom photo, except cropped off center to capture the entire
plane. To me, digital zoom is really a marketing gimmick to sell
more cameras.

You should follow the plane and continue the panning motion for a
short time after you have pressed the shutter. This keeps the plane
in the frame while the shutter is firing, even if you don't press
the shutter exactly when you want, or there is some shutter lag.

Lynn

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dayton airshow part 2 and one QUESTION !

agodbie

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