Air Show Advice Needed

In a couple of weeks, I will be going to the Flying Legends air show at the Imperial War Musem at Duxford in the U.K. I will be taking my EM5 ii along with the Olympus 40-150mm Pro and the 1.4x teleconverter.  However, it's been a while since I took photos at an air show, and this will be my first time with the EM5 ii, so I am hoping to get some advice before I go.

1) If anyone is familiar with Duxford, will the 40-150mm + 1.4 teleconverter have enough reach? That would be a maximum of 210mm, or 420mm full frame equivalent field of view.  The only other time I've taken photos at an air show was with a Canon 10D and a 100-400mm (640mm full frame equivalent field of view). That seems like I'll be coming up short, and the smaller planes may be quite small in the frame. Long term, I plan to get either the 100-300mm or 100-400mm, but that's unlikely to be an option before the show (100-300mm may be possible, 100-400mm definitely not).

2) I am aware that the EM5 ii doesn't have the best continuous autofocus, so is it best to just stick to single AF? Also, which focus points would be recommended? I had problems recently when I tried to photograph F15s at RAF Lakenheath using a single point, would it be better to use the 9 point group to give the AF more chance?

3) Related to the previous question, what drive mode would be best, single or continuous?

4) Is there anything else I should do, e.g. settings etc.?

My long term plan is to upgrade to the EM1 ii, but that won't be happening until later in the year, so I want to try to get the most out of what I have at the moment for this air show.

Thanks,

Dave.

I would say that your setup is a bit short for Duxford.   I'm not an Olympus user so won't comment on your other questions.  An nd filter could be useful at a show that is totally prop.

i think your setup will be too short for Duxford, maybe going to the far right of the crowd line where a little bank is with the tanks behind it might help as the aircraft tend to turn and come in closer there, standing on the bank if there is room would help too

Think you will be fine i shot at duxford with the 35-100mm f2.8 the runway is fairly close and it would be a good choice to get some early morning shots of statics if they still do this but more focal length is always useful and i am not sure how close they will be using a shorter focal length gives you a chance to get different aspects of the show ,never been to the legends so do not know what will be flying i take it the b-17 and other historic aircraft will be there i assume mostly prop planes not sure if there will be jets ,but if you take airshows seriously i would get the 100-400 mm for its large focal lengths 200-800mm is quite a good range . But if it is cloudy your quids in f4 or f2.8 56-210 f4 or 40-150mm f2.8 ,you will get plenty of shots i am sure ,shoot frame bursts with s-af if c-af is letting you down many still prefer s-af over any kind of c-af .

Also the 40-150mm is sharper than any other m43 zoom so cropping not such an issue

https://www.flickr.com/photos/58365044@N05/

Thanks for all the advice so far.

Trevor, I've started looking through your plane pics, there's some great stuff in there. I had a quick look at some Heathrow Ines, I've been meaning to get down there some day for some spotting / picture taking.

Skeeterbytes, thanks for the info. The tip about snap MF @ infinity looks like a good idea, it's not something I've ever thought of using, but will definitely have to try. I was planning on using spot metering linked to the AF point (thank you firmware 3!), would you recommend spot-shadow instead of regular spot?

Wu Jiaqiu, I know the hill, I might check it out.

rashid7, like you, I'll only have one day there, so no chance to practice before hand :-(.

paul cool, you're right, Flying Legends is mainly prop planes, I think the only jets will be the Red Arrows. I'd love the 100-400, but if I do get it, it'll probably have to wait until after this airshow. We shall see how the 40-150 does in the mean time :-).

Thanks,

Dave.

Sorry  for the wee bit of OT:

The D7100 is woefully short for an an airshow because of its lack of buffer. It's the main reason I got rid of mine. The D750 is much better with buffering, and you can try shooting in DX mode to get more range (I'd test this first to verify you're happy with crop mode results). Or perhaps a tele-converter?

HTH,

-Jerry

Trevor Carpenter is the expert here. Anything he says, I would follow closely.

Regarding airshows in general, I have a few tips, which may or may not work for you, as my venues at small regional airports in the United States are quite different than IWM Duxford, but the tips probably apply to any photography. Most of my shooting was with WWII bombers such as the B-17, B-24 and B-29. Single engine planes, not so much, too fast, too small for me.

Neutral density filter for propeller driven aircraft because there is so much light, and you want to keep from shooting at f/16 all the time.

Shutter priority so you keep your shutter speed low for a moving object, so that you can get a prop blur, 1/125 for more of a disc, and up to maybe 1/320 max, but at that speed or higher, you risk almost freezing the prop, which makes for the look of a propeller driven airplane in trouble.

Exposure compensation, +1 stop, or more depending on the lighting. The camera will meter the bright sky and underexpose the aircraft.

Panning is a critical skill, especially when shooting such slow speeds, 1/125, 1/200, 1/250

Back button focus. I set up my GX7 for back button S-AF so that I can always focus the target and release the shutter whenever, not dependent on finding focus before the shutter releases.

Speaking of shutter, make sure you are on mechanical shutter, made the mistake of forgetting to turn off silent shutter....

Speaking of focus, it depends again on the subject and background. I tend to use a larger, center box, or multi segment focusing. If you have a lot of trees and stuff in the background, vs sky, stick to the center box. Never use pinpoint, as contrast will be an issue with blue sky and white clouds.

I don't have a great big buffer, so I use medium burst mode to make the most of a pass, and to get a live view feed back.  You get very little EVF feedback in the GX7 if you are in high speed burst, so the target will get lost as you are panning.

I shoot small JPEG + RAW because my old 45-200 Panasonic is  just not that great a lens beyond 150, and I am not skilled enough to always expose correctly, so I am generally working in RAW to bring up the shadows on shots that I like, so I need the most help I can get.

It is really hard to get shots as Trevor has done.  But good luck and have fun with that great lens.

Practice if you can before you go, at a local airstrip.  Use The Photographers Ephemeris and Google Maps to scope out potential locations so you are not shooting into the sun, which makes life much more difficult.  Google Maps for us is useful because I thought I had found a great place, only to find that it was well below grade of the runway, and really awful.  Had I used the Google Street View, i would have clearly seen that.

By the way, for static shots, get close if you can, or zoom, shoot from low angles.  Nothing worse than an airplane wing with tree growing out of it.  A lower angle and you can get blue sky instead...

Most of this is rookie stuff, but there you have it.

Chas2, thanks for the reply, lots add to my list of things to remember and try out at the show.

I notice that several of you have recommended ND filters... I've never used one at all, so any suggestions for how many stops would be good?

Thanks,

Dave.

Dave Abrey wrote:

Chas2, thanks for the reply, lots add to my list of things to remember and try out at the show.

I notice that several of you have recommended ND filters... I've never used one at all, so any suggestions for how many stops would be good?

Thanks,

Dave.

all good advice but some one once said do not waste your whole day chasing prop blur well certainly full prop ,anyway always sounded good advice to me .

Dutch, thanks for the reply and taking the time to look through your library for similar shots. I'll be sticking with the 40-150 + TC for now, then see how it goes before looking for possible lens options.

I actually live not too far from Old Warden (probably closer than I am to Duxford), but to my shame, I've never been there! Maybe this year will be the time I finally get myself in gear, and go to one of their shows...

Kind of depends on how much you want to spend, especially with that big 72 mm filter.

I would do minimum 3 stop

Since I hardly go to airshows, I did the cheap solution for my 52 mm front filter, and bought a cheap fader filter to experiment...  I don't use much more than 3 stops with the fader because it starts to change the color (purple) and at certain sun angles, you get artifacts.  I see the value in ND now, so I might invest in a 3 stop and 6 filter.

I wanted to keep my lens at between 6.3 and 8 with 7.1 being the target

Dutch,

OK, I promise I'll try to get there soon :-).

Chas,

Ouch! I just looked at the price of 72mm ND filters :-(. Looks like even 3 stop Ines aren't cheap!

Dave Abrey wrote:

Dutch, thanks for the reply and taking the time to look through your library for similar shots. I'll be sticking with the 40-150 + TC for now, then see how it goes before looking for possible lens options.

I actually live not too far from Old Warden (probably closer than I am to Duxford), but to my shame, I've never been there! Maybe this year will be the time I finally get myself in gear, and go to one of their shows...

ironically the 40-150 + TC would be perfect for Old Warden as the aircraft fly very close

Got a weekend ticket for headcorn looks like they do fly close a real bargain £16 pound for the weekend or £12 for the day ,i am getting ready to get some practice in for riat first airshow of the year

https://www.flickr.com/photos/58365044@N05/

Looks like the lancaster has had a new paint job also black back to matt

https://www.flickr.com/photos/58365044@N05/