Airshow Photography
The Power and the Glory
The airshow season is upon us and it is time to dust
off the telephoto lens, clear the memory cards and practise that rusty
panning technique. Excitement, power, movement, action, fast jets with
afterburners roaring, graceful Spitfires, their Merlin engines purring, it
is all there waiting to be captured on pixels.
Airshows are one of the most popular events held during
the summer months, the season running from May to October. There are
hundreds of different events within reach across the UK and in Europe to
cater for all tastes from vast military might to humble fly-ins. Most
events will also have ground action and stalls, food, funfairs, enough to
keep all family members busy and interested.
What to shoot
In the air
The biggest draw of the airshow is seeing aircraft in
action where they belong – in the air. This is where a good telephoto zoom
lens is essential with a reach of at least 300mm, although 400mm or more is
best. Zoom lenses give maximum flexibility allowing you to pull back to
capture a large formation or zoom in for a frame filling shot of a single
aircraft. Where you stand at the display can also make a dramatic
difference to how close you are to the aircraft and also the type of image
you can get. The centre of the display line will be the focal point for
many manoeuvres, especially for formation teams such as the Red Arrows.
However, for single aircraft displays this is often the point where they are
furthest away from the crowd and generally flying straight and level, which
can limit the drama in your images. Standing at one end of the display line
however can change this, especially at smaller shows where the crowd line is
not as long. Aircraft will be positioning for their flybys, perhaps curving
round from one end of the display line for a run along the crowd. They will
often be closer at this point and also banking or turning making for a more
interesting topside or underside view of the aircraft. Standing at one end
also gives good opportunities to capture the aircraft as they are taking off
or landing. The aircraft will be necessarily flying slower and therefore be
easier to track, and have undercarriage and flaps hanging down making for a
different view.
Take offs and landings give a different view of the
aircraft and are easier to track as the planes will be moving more slowly
Sometimes it is too close! – this frame filling shot
was taken on a 400mm zoom lens at one of the smaller shows, Rougham 2004
With afterburner roaring and vortices of condensing
air streaming from the wing roots this Belgian Air Force F-16 makes for a
dramatic subject
Smoke trails criss-cross through the sky as this F-16
Fighting Falcon manoeuvres above the crowd
Technique
The best technique for capturing aerial action is
called ‘panning’ which is basically following the aircraft in the viewfinder
with your finger ready on the shutter. When you see the picture you want
you squeeze the shutter gently and continue to follow the movement of the
plane as you take the shot. Setting the camera on continuous autofocus will
ensure you get a good proportion of your images sharp, although a Tornado
F.3 flashing past at 400 mph will challenge even the cleverest camera! For
aerial shots shutter speed is the most important setting and it is best to
set your camera to shutter priority. For helicopters and aircraft with
propellers you need to set a speed fast enough to prevent blurring but not
so fast as to ‘freeze’ the motion of the turning propellers making the plane
look as though it is just sitting in the sky. As a guide use 1/180th
for aircraft going up to 1/250th if it is a faster machine, and
for helicopters I find 1/125th gives the best amount of movement
to the rotor blades although this can also lead to more blurred images and
1/180th is probably safest until you are happy with your
technique. For anything without a moving propeller or rotor then the
fastest shutter speed is the best, for example you will need at least 1/350th
to capture a fast moving Harrier. As with all rules these can be broken.
With practise the panning technique can be used down to 1/15th or
1/30th of a second, which will keep the aircraft sharp but leave
the background as a big blur giving a tremendous impression of the speed of
the machine.
A shutter speed of 1/30th of a second has
nicely blurred the background as this Sea Hurricane comes into land at a
Shuttleworth Sunset display in 2004
A shutter speed of 1/125th of a second has
kept the rotor blades on this Belgain Army Helicopter nicely blurred at the
Koksijde Airshow 2006
Formation teams
Formation teams come in all shapes and sizes and, as
most use smoke generators and some dramatic sky filling manoeuvres, can make
for great images. Crowd centre is a good place to stand here, particularly
if you want to capture one of the most thrilling manoeuvres, the opposition
pass. This is where two aircraft fly towards each other and pass in front
of the crowd, seemingly inches from each other. With a combined closing
speed of up to 800 mph great timing is essential to capture the two machines
in the same piece of sky. If you see them both in your viewfinder it is
already too late! The technique I have found to work the best is to follow
the aircraft coming from the right (I am right handed) using the panning
technique while keeping both eyes open. With your right eye keeping the
aircraft in the centre of the viewfinder the other is seeing the sky outside
of the camera and can see when the other aircraft approaches from the left.
You will then be ready to press the shutter as soon as you see them crossing
with your left eye.
An example of capturing an opposition pass of two
Stearman biplanes at the Lydd 2007airshow
Red Arrows break opposite crowd centre captured at
Dunsfold 2007
Red Arrows smoke on as they come down the outside of a
loop at Dunsfold 2007
Exposure
With film you always had to compensate for shooting a
small, dark object against a large bright sky by using exposure compensation
to overexpose the camera’s reading by varying degrees of half-stop
increments depending on the weather conditions. Anything up to 2 stops
overexposure could be the norm on dull days. However, with digital it is
best to shoot on the camera’s reading and use the histogram or highlights
display to fine tune your exposure compensation as you may still need to
overexpose by at least half a stop on a dull grey day. However, with
digitals tendency to easily loose highlights, particularly in the sky, you
may find half a stop over is as much as you ever go and in bright conditions
with a highly coloured aircraft against a blue sky you may even need to
underexpose to prevent loosing detail.
On the ground
Shooting the action, both moving and static, on the
ground can give far more opportunities to exercise your individual
creativity. If you go to a large show and just look around you during the
flying display you will see hundreds, if not thousands of big lenses all
pointing at the same aircraft in the same piece of sky taking essentially
the same picture.
Static Aircraft
Most shows will have some form of static display of
aircraft on the ground where you can get close to the aircraft. Here look
for different angles or interesting combinations of different machines. Use
a telephoto and go in close looking for abstracts and details or go wide and
use a large aperture to focus on one part of the aircraft while throwing
everything else out of focus. Fly-ins are best for this sort of image as
you can usually get a lot closer the aircraft than you can at larger shows
where the aircraft are behind barriers. Try different viewpoints as well,
for example get down low to emphasise the form of the aircraft against a
dramatic sky.
34 years separate the first flights of these two classic airliners, the
Boeing 747 and Douglas DC-3 - a good example of putting two aircraft
together to get a nice aircraft combination taken at Dunsfold 2007
A telephoto lens has picked out this nice detail of
the cockpit area of B-17 Bomber Sally-B at Duxford 2007
Using a wide aperture has concentrated the eye on the
turret guns of this Lancaster bomber while throwing the background out of
focus taken at Lydd 2007
Look for unusual images, particularly at museums, and
don’t be afraid to speak to people! – I took this interior shot of a Hawker
Hurricane fighter under restoration at the Brooklands 2007 centenary show
after chatting to the restorers who were there to speak to the public about
their work.
Moving aircraft
When you get to the show look to see where the aircraft
are that will be flying later in the day and put aside some time to go back
to that spot. Prior to each flight ground crew will be readying the
aircraft, adding fuel, removing cockpit covers, polishing plexiglass. As
the time for the display approaches the pilot will carry out a pre-flight
walk-around checking all the major components of the airframe for any
visible problems. The pilot will then be climbing in, strapping him or
herself to the aircraft and then it is time to start engines, usually
accompanied by a big cloud of smoke if it is a piston-powered machine. Then
the aircraft is taxiing out to the display line, and if it is a big warbird,
the propeller will be turning, the pilot weaving the machine from side to
side with his or her head stuck out of the cockpit to see over the long
nose.
This gives plenty of opportunity to add a human element
to your images and, with so much concentration on the aircraft, it is
sometimes easy to forget that nothing would be moving or flying without the
people involved, be they military or civilian.
Peter Teichmann taxiing his P-51 Mustang at Shoreham
2006. A telephoto lens has got nice and close to concentrate on the
dominant parts of the image – the whirling propeller, the nose art on the
aircraft and the pilot.
Using a telephoto lens here has created a strong
composition of turning propeller and pilots in the cockpit taken at Lydd
2007
Many shows now use re-enactors to bring the aircraft
to life. Call over to them and get them to pose for you. You could also
convert your image to black and white to give it a more period feel as below
Try and add a human element such as this RAF pilot
strapping into his Hawk Jet prior to displaying at Lydd 2006
© Andrew Critchell 2009
|