Hi everyone, I was wondering what everyone was useing for digital camera's to take photos of the airplanes flying? I just purchased the FUJI S5000 and was wondering what lens mods or lens attachmnets and setting to take the best picture of the airplane in action. I am not up to date on the camera's since they change monthly on technology. Any help would be appreciated. It seems most of the flight pictures I take turn out a little fuzzy and the still pictures turn out great. Thanks

Fast sutter speed, and a good long lens.

We've had people taking photos of planes with digital camera. They do fine if the lens allows the plane to be of any size in the picture.

Its all in the zoom properties of the camera. A digital only zoom with the average portrait focal lengthe of the fixed focus digital will end up with a grainy picture at high zoom. A true zoom lens (where the lens changes physical position relative to the photo chip in the camera) works much better.

I agree with Dr_Wogz about lense speed. However the more you zoom in the slower the shutter speed is going to be, this is because the longer focal lengths (more zoomed in) reduces the amount of light comming into the lense. Also with the camera zoomed in camera shake is exagerated and can cause blurry pictures. Camera shake + shooting a fast moving object + shallow depth of field makes this difficult to shoot. Here is what I recomend.

Use the shortest focal length you can zoom in no more than 1.5X
Uses the fastest shutter speed your camera will allow.
Have the pilot do a close fly by.
Take the picture as if you were shooting clay pigeons. Track the plane in the viewfinder, when it gets where you want the picture to be taken, snap the shutter and continue to track the plane in the viewfinder. this should be all done in one fluid sweeping movement with no pauses, espescially when you snap the shutter.

If your camera allows it use spot or centered weighted metering, this way the camera will expose for the plane and not the sky, you should get some nice images this way.

Some digi cams will allow you to set a simulated film ISO rating in them. Try using ISO 400, this will make your shutter speeds faster but it could induce some noise in your picture. Usually at ISO 800 this is really apparent.

Lead Baloon pretty much has it. Try to get a shot head on (at an angle of course slightly to the side) coming at you. You are looking for a 3/4 shot. It will give the camera the best chance to capture a good shot. If possoble try to manually focus. Pick a spot and pre-focus. Have the plane fly through the area. When it is there take the shot. Also Pheonix (I believe it is Pheonix optical) makes screw on lenses. They screw on the threads on your lens. Some cameras do some do not. Usually the higer end stuff has them. You can get telephoto adapters. I am not sure of the model you have. I am a film guy. Can't afford a digital SLR yet. As stated try to set your ISO speed as high as possible. 400 minimum, 800 if possible. This will give the best (highest) shutter speed and get a non-blurred image. Good luck and have fun. Any real bad shots can just be dumped so shoot as much as you can.

Mark Shuman

Thanks guys for the info. the camera has adapers (lenses ,wide angle and telephoto)that can screw to the front and it has manual focus , shutter speed and aperture settings, also has white balance adjustment iso from 200-800. Nice camera but too complex for me untill I learn about cameras a little more. Thanks and any help is appreciated.

I forgot to mention, if you want to add some dynamics to your picture use a medium shutter speed (1/150 or 1/200) and do the tracking thing. parts of the plane will be in focus but behind and infront of it may be a little blurred. This gives it a sense of motion and makes it a little more exciting to look at. Heres another creative photography hint for yah. Dont have the subject in dead center frame, its BORING.use the 1/3rds rule. visualize a tic tac toe board on your view finder, have your subject centered on any one of the areas where 2 lines intersect, this is a general guide line but it makes the picture more dramatic. Happy shooting! and practice practice practice thats the nice thing about digital, practice is CHEAP.

Oh one more thing. If your camera will support it, shoot in raw mode. This will give you a much bigger lattitude in contrast than what jpeg compression will give you, you're files will be bigger but the quality is worth it. Since it is a 3 MP the files will all be around 3.3 Meg.

I have the fuji s3000 and love the camera. Best way to capture planes in flight is use continuous mode. If you go to the portrait setting on the camera, and select continuous you will be there. What this will do is take 2 pictures about 1/2 second apart. The time delay from pushing the shutter button till when the picture is actually taken can be somewhat a pain in the *****. I first started with auto mode, and tried to lead the planes in the sky so I would capture them. Then I started using continuous mode and got a lot better results. Just remember, you can always go back and review the pictures so you can delete the ones with bare sky.

Also with something with lots of action, like combat, it is best to go to move mode and make small movies of it. You can then run it through editing software and capture the frames you want.

If you want to rely heavily on software zoom, make sure you take pictures at a high quality. The lower quality settings will pixelize when you start to zoom too much.

It's a good idea to invest in some extra cards too, so you don't fill up with bad pictures and have to waste time deleting them and miss the action. I recommend Amazon for the XD card. They are about 40% cheaper than most retail outlets (I found out the hard way).

Also I found the NiMH batteries the best. I can usually shoot non stop all day with them. I purchased a set of four with a rapied charger at Wal-Mart for $30 and got an extra set of 4 for $16. That way I always got a set for back up.

If you want to learn the manual settings, set you camera in a stationary place and take pictures of the same object with different settings. That way you can see what they actually do.

Keep playing with it, and I am sure you will love it. Beats the old days of gonig and getting film developed, or doing it yourself (my darkroom has now become my hangar). After playing with it for awhile I am sure you will get the itch for a digital SLR the same way I have. I am hoping to purchase a Nikon this summer, although that takes away from the airplane budget dramatically.

Have Fun
Jamie

Tell me about it Hovercrafter Id love to get a Canon EOS 1DmII but I dont want to give up my EOS 3 either .

Hey LeadB, I hear ya. I lust after a Nikon D1X. But can't afford it. You could never pry my F-3 or F-4 out of my cold dead pinkies.

Mark Shuman