I can't compete with a Nikon P900

I like to take some pictures of high flying aircraft as a test of iQ and as my cameras have evolved I have seen some improvement to where I am now with my G80 and 100-400.  Here's one I'm took this week, cropped to give me some detail.  This is a Eurowings A330. Planes with con trails are generally between 30,000 and 40,000 ft, so it is reasonable to compare images from different cameras although atmospheric conditions have some impact.  The second picture below was posted by a guy named Tom Whitelegge and is shown here with his permission. It's a Boeing 777.  It was posted on an aircraft forum and saved by me directly from there.  It was taken with a Nikon P900 bridge camera.  It's a bit noisy but I think I could clean that up but more importantly the detail is better than anything I can achieve with my G80 and better than anything similar that I have seen from m4/3s.

Interested to hear your thoughts.  Can you achieve the same details as Tom with m4/3s.

We have no way of knowing how close he was to the plane he shot, he may well have been located much closer to an airport and therefore in a better position to grab more detailed images,. yours definitely looks to be flying a lot higher, there's haze/atmospheric blurring, showing quite a long distance between you and the plane.  Drive to an airport and grab shots of planes landing and taking off and you'll get much better detail.   Those bridge cams are great for zoom shots, but crap for anything besides tbh

Trevor Carpenter wrote:

I like to take some pictures of high flying aircraft as a test of iQ and as my cameras have evolved I have seen some improvement to where I am now with my G80 and 100-400. Here's one I'm took this week, cropped to give me some detail. This is a Eurowings A330. Planes with con trails are generally between 30,000 and 40,000 ft, so it is reasonable to compare images from different cameras although atmospheric conditions have some impact. The second picture below was posted by a guy named Tom Whitelegge and is shown here with his permission. It's a Boeing 777. It was posted on an aircraft forum and saved by me directly from there. It was taken with a Nikon P900 bridge camera. It's a bit noisy but I think I could clean that up but more importantly the detail is better than anything I can achieve with my G80 and better than anything similar that I have seen from m4/3s.

Interested to hear your thoughts. Can you achieve the same details as Tom with m4/3s.

Well according to the OP contrails mean more or less equal distance. As has been said on these forums time and again: digital zoom cannot compete with optical zoom.

The lesson I learn here is optical zoom always best sensor size.  Match the zoom magnification and m43 would be better.  You should see the moon shot with that P900.  Pretty amazing.

It looks like the atmospheric conditions are significantly different.

The wobbly distortion around the edges of the airplane in your shot seem to suggest a lot of heat haze, or something like that. It seems like if you zoomed in more optically, you'd just get a bigger but-still-blurry version of your photo.

That said, for photographing extremely distant subjects, the longer your focal length and the greater your pixel density the better you'll do.

So the difference is not surprising.

Chi Pham wrote:

The lesson I learn here is optical zoom always best sensor size. Match the zoom magnification and m43 would be better. You should see the moon shot with that P900. Pretty amazing.

I'm not so sure...
Compare this shot taken with the P900:

https://3.img-dpreview.com/files/p/E~forums/56410076/eea02f8da8fe4e4287de16d3d3323906

with this crop I took with the EM1.II + 300 F4, resized 333% (taken in the awfully polluted by light-smog-humidity Rio de Janeiro):

Full image (observe it is almost a full moon, so little contrast!):

Of course 2000mm will always be 2000mm. But what I see in the P900 is also a mess of sharpening artifacts, CA, noise...
For the particular example posted by Trevor, IMO the images are impossible to compare. Trevor's plane is clearly much higher, and atmospheric conditions may be very different. For long distances, atmospheric conditions become the most important factor.
BTW, I still love and use my Pany FZ50 superzoom !

Cheers,

L.

I don't think you have too much chance to compete on a purely optical zoom level - 2000mm is pretty big...while those superzooms may not be big sensors, can be noisy, can't track or focus all that well with moving subjects, etc - for pure distance work, they're in their element as long as it's daylight.

Of course, planes flying with contrails are at a mostly consistent altitude between 25,000-40,000 most of the time, there can be some variations...namely when it's colder and more humid, and the altitudes that form contrails can drop. If the P900 shooter happened to be shooting in those conditions, that might have produced contrails at 18,000 to 24,000, and your shot might have been of a plane at the upper end of that altitude, around 40,000. Obviously, the clarity of the shot can be affected by an additional 20,000 feet of distance to the subject...not to mention the atmospheric quality differences between warm and humid air and cool air.

The other factor is your own elevation when you took the shot. Someone photographing a plane with contrails over the Rocky mountains located in a city at 7,000 feet elevation will be significantly closer than someone shooting a plane at the same altitude from sea level. All told, there can be some pretty big swings in distance in comparative shots.

I also like to occasionally shoot high-altitude planes flying overhead when I'm in my pool - mostly due to curiosity about what planes are flying past and where they're going. I am the unfortunate victim of some of the worst possible conditions for such shooting: SE Florida, elevation sea level, extreme high heat and humidity, atmospheric pollution from urban sprawl, tropical cloud cover and humid moist air. Essentially, I need to be lucky to catch a break from the heat shimmer, a clearing in the clouds, and just the right moment to shoot, and even then, at sea level I'm always as far away from the planes as almost anyone would be.

An example of a mega-crop shot with an APS-C camera and a 100-400mm lens at 400mm of a plane flying over my house at around 30,000-35,000 feet:

Not as clear as the example from the P900, but enough that I could make out the Brazilian flag on the plane's belly and the general paint scheme, enough to know it was an Azul Airlines, probably an Airbus A320. The sky was very cloudy, but the clouds were fairly high that day - I found it interesting that the plane was flying right at the edge of the clouds, and the shadow of the plane's tail was visible in the cloud.

Another shot, not with as much detail, but ended up being interesting...same lens and sensor combo at 400mm - this one was not only at the 30,000 foot altitude or so, but also not directly overhead - it was several miles out from me as you can see by the angle I was shooting...it seemed a strange shape which is what made me take the shot - I then had to blow it up 100% for a 1:1 pixel crop, just to make out what it was:

Taken in late September 2017, I was able to make out that this was a USAF plane...and the largest one in the U.S. arsenal to boot - the ginormous C5 Galaxy.

To find out why it would have been flying over my house, further research online revealed that C5's out of Nevada were picking up supplies and personnel from Travis AFB in California, and shuttling them to Puerto Rico to help with hurricane recovery. This plane was headed westbound, likely back to Travis for more supplies and more people.

luisflorit wrote:

Chi Pham wrote:

The lesson I learn here is optical zoom always best sensor size. Match the zoom magnification and m43 would be better. You should see the moon shot with that P900. Pretty amazing.

I'm not so sure...
Compare this shot taken with the P900:

https://3.img-dpreview.com/files/p/E~forums/56410076/eea02f8da8fe4e4287de16d3d3323906

with this crop I took with the EM1.II + 300 F4, resized 333% (taken in the awfully polluted by light-smog-humidity Rio de Janeiro):

Full image (observe it is almost a full moon, so little contrast!):

Of course 2000mm will always be 2000mm. But what I see in the P900 is also a mess of sharpening artifacts, CA, noise...
For the particular example posted by Trevor, IMO the images are impossible to compare. Trevor's plane is clearly much higher, and atmospheric conditions may be very different. For long distances, atmospheric conditions become the most important factor.
BTW, I still love and use my Pany FZ50 superzoom !

Cheers,

L.

Check the link below. I am impressed with the optics.

https://goo.gl/images/xk7qk7

It's very impressive consider the fact that it's a $500 camera, lens included. 😀

As for sharpening artifacts, I believe you can overcome that by shooting RAW.

Chi Pham wrote:

luisflorit wrote:

Chi Pham wrote:

The lesson I learn here is optical zoom always best sensor size. Match the zoom magnification and m43 would be better. You should see the moon shot with that P900. Pretty amazing.

I'm not so sure...
Compare this shot taken with the P900:

https://3.img-dpreview.com/files/p/E~forums/56410076/eea02f8da8fe4e4287de16d3d3323906

with this crop I took with the EM1.II + 300 F4, resized 333% (taken in the awfully polluted by light-smog-humidity Rio de Janeiro):

Full image (observe it is almost a full moon, so little contrast!):

Of course 2000mm will always be 2000mm. But what I see in the P900 is also a mess of sharpening artifacts, CA, noise...
For the particular example posted by Trevor, IMO the images are impossible to compare. Trevor's plane is clearly much higher, and atmospheric conditions may be very different. For long distances, atmospheric conditions become the most important factor.
BTW, I still love and use my Pany FZ50 superzoom !

Cheers,

L.

Check the link below. I am impressed with the optics.

https://goo.gl/images/xk7qk7

It's very impressive consider the fact that it's a $500 camera, lens included. 😀

As for sharpening artifacts, I believe you can overcome that by shooting RAW.

Sadly, it cannot, because the P900 cannot shoot RAW.

That's pretty much a deal-breaker for me, right out of the gates.

Androole wrote:

Chi Pham wrote:

luisflorit wrote:

Chi Pham wrote:

The lesson I learn here is optical zoom always best sensor size. Match the zoom magnification and m43 would be better. You should see the moon shot with that P900. Pretty amazing.

I'm not so sure...
Compare this shot taken with the P900:

https://3.img-dpreview.com/files/p/E~forums/56410076/eea02f8da8fe4e4287de16d3d3323906

with this crop I took with the EM1.II + 300 F4, resized 333% (taken in the awfully polluted by light-smog-humidity Rio de Janeiro):

Full image (observe it is almost a full moon, so little contrast!):

Of course 2000mm will always be 2000mm. But what I see in the P900 is also a mess of sharpening artifacts, CA, noise...
For the particular example posted by Trevor, IMO the images are impossible to compare. Trevor's plane is clearly much higher, and atmospheric conditions may be very different. For long distances, atmospheric conditions become the most important factor.
BTW, I still love and use my Pany FZ50 superzoom !

Cheers,

L.

Check the link below. I am impressed with the optics.

https://goo.gl/images/xk7qk7

It's very impressive consider the fact that it's a $500 camera, lens included. 😀

As for sharpening artifacts, I believe you can overcome that by shooting RAW.

Sadly, it cannot, because the P900 cannot shoot RAW.

That's pretty much a deal-breaker for me, right out of the gates.

That's really sad.  They purposefully crippled it then so it won't compete with their own lens lineup.

Deal breaker for me too.

Ken Croft wrote:

Chi Pham wrote:

The lesson I learn here is optical zoom always best sensor size. Match the zoom magnification and m43 would be better. You should see the moon shot with that P900. Pretty amazing.

The problem is that the Nikon P900 has an optical zoom equivalent focal length of 2000mm. To get that equivalent on mft would mean a 1000mm lens. Unfortunately no such auto focus lens exists in mft native format, and if it did you would need a wheel barrow to carry it. And at Panasonic or Olympus prices it would be put of reach of all but the die-hard mft enthusists.

Ken C

You can get close with a front-mount TC at the cost of some loss of IQ (sharpness, vignetting, light loss).

you're fighting against a long focal length and atmospherics on this one, i get a few airliners pass over each day and sometimes take a shot just in case, most are garbage due to the conditions but every  now and then you get a clearer day and a much sharper shot.

this is with a 10mp Nikon V1 with a 300mm/4 prime (810mm equivalent) and heavily cropped, i have similar shots that are grainy and wobbly looking, i was just lucky this time

Chi Pham wrote:

luisflorit wrote:

Chi Pham wrote:

The lesson I learn here is optical zoom always best sensor size. Match the zoom magnification and m43 would be better. You should see the moon shot with that P900. Pretty amazing.

I'm not so sure...
Compare this shot taken with the P900:

https://3.img-dpreview.com/files/p/E~forums/56410076/eea02f8da8fe4e4287de16d3d3323906

with this crop I took with the EM1.II + 300 F4, resized 333% (taken in the awfully polluted by light-smog-humidity Rio de Janeiro):

Full image (observe it is almost a full moon, so little contrast!):

Of course 2000mm will always be 2000mm. But what I see in the P900 is also a mess of sharpening artifacts, CA, noise...
For the particular example posted by Trevor, IMO the images are impossible to compare. Trevor's plane is clearly much higher, and atmospheric conditions may be very different. For long distances, atmospheric conditions become the most important factor.
BTW, I still love and use my Pany FZ50 superzoom !

Cheers,

L.

Check the link below. I am impressed with the optics.

https://goo.gl/images/xk7qk7

It's very impressive consider the fact that it's a $500 camera, lens included. 😀

Sorry, but I don't think that shot is impressive, much less its processing. It is hard to distinguish detail from sharpening mess.

Cheers,

L.

Looking at your photo, I don't think P900 would help. There's clearly a lot of heat haze there.

I never really did stuff like that. One I took a photo of a plane when testing 100-300 II, but it was at a relatively low altitude. But the air was much clearer than in your example. Here's a full-res:

As for getting more reach, I guess the cheapest option would be a telescope. And now that I mentioned it, I'm tempted to try that myself. Now that would be one heck of a challenge.

Cagey75 wrote:

We have no way of knowing how close he was to the plane he shot, he may well have been located much closer to an airport and therefore in a better position to grab more detailed images,. yours definitely looks to be flying a lot higher, there's haze/atmospheric blurring, showing quite a long distance between you and the plane. Drive to an airport and grab shots of planes landing and taking off and you'll get much better detail. Those bridge cams are great for zoom shots, but crap for anything besides tbh

because it has a con trail is plane is at least at 30,000 ft ie 6 miles away from the photographer

zackiedawg wrote:

Another shot, not with as much detail, but ended up being interesting...same lens and sensor combo at 400mm - this one was not only at the 30,000 foot altitude or so, but also not directly overhead - it was several miles out from me as you can see by the angle I was shooting...it seemed a strange shape which is what made me take the shot - I then had to blow it up 100% for a 1:1 pixel crop, just to make out what it was:

Taken in late September 2017, I was able to make out that this was a USAF plane...and the largest one in the U.S. arsenal to boot - the ginormous C5 Galaxy.

To find out why it would have been flying over my house, further research online revealed that C5's out of Nevada were picking up supplies and personnel from Travis AFB in California, and shuttling them to Puerto Rico to help with hurricane recovery. This plane was headed westbound, likely back to Travis for more supplies and more people.

just to be pedantic it's not a C5 it's a USAF C17 Globemaster II,  great capture