Are you getting the best images at air-shows?

Having attended many airshows with a ton of camera gear and heightened expectations, it has become increasingly apparent that ‘getting the best images’ can be elusive at times.

Our experience is that with the arrival of mirrorless bodies and all of their inherent technology, there are more and more reasons why shots are soft or even worse, missed altogether, despite having all of the latest tracking technologies to focus on moving aircraft specifically.

Planning for a day out an airshow anywhere in the world is fairly consistent, as these events tend to take place in the warmer months, and so a ‘Survival Cheat Sheet’ should be as relevant in Australia, as it is in Europe or Nth America.

Some of the planning is straightforward common-sense:

• Have plenty of spare (and charged) batteries, along with enough memory cards to get through a day of much shutter-pressing.

• Don’t forget to pack water and a cap of some description.

• Use plenty of sun screen.

However, there are other more camera-specific considerations that you should factor as part of the planning process as well.

• The first is where to sit! It may seem to be a ‘no-brainer’ to pay the extra and head straight for the Grandstand with the promise of its centralised position, and proximity to the best vantage point, but given the amount of movement during the day, and the constant ‘getting-up-and-down’ to let people past, there are many interruptions that can cause you to miss a key moment; even worse – if you are quite likely using a telephoto lens, there is limited room to swing left and right without nutting the person next to you on the head! It may therefore be prudent to save a few coins, and sit along the fence-line instead, away from the crowd and where you have greater independence. If that is your ultimate decision, then don’t forget to take a stool or chair of some description, as you’ll need to rest your back regularly!

• There is plenty of action at a major air-show. Once the flying list gets into full swing, there is usually not a great deal of time to think about what you’re doing in terms of maintaining your kit. However, a typical warm day at any airport is one where heat and dust are plentiful, and where you may be regularly changing lenses or switching from one camera body to another. So don’t forget to clean your glass regularly, and minimise the sensor spots and dust that can make your editing in post that much longer and laborious.

• Nearly all air shows have a mixture of jet engines and propellor aircraft; you need to be aware of what speed you are shooting at for each type of plane, and whether you are prepared to drop below your recommended setting for a telephoto focal length in pursuit of prop blur. Whatever your decision, don’t forget to then change back each time there is a switch from jet to prop, or vice versa.

• Similarly, plan ahead with your ISO and Case settings. A little bit of research ahead of the Big Day will assist you to set your gear up for the optimal results when capturing fast-moving machines in the sky. This includes ensuring that if your lenses have various modes of stabilisation, that they are on the most appropriate setting for panning sideways and up/down.

• If you happen to use a longer lens mounted to a tripod, and with the help of a gimble your approach is pan in multiple directions to closely follow your subject in flight, don’t forget that you may get better results by turning image stabilisation off.

• Each location is different, along with the weather conditions on the day. When you’re setting up in the morning, keep an eye on where the sun is going to track, and try to minimise the amount of shots you’ll end up taking where the aircraft are going to be just a silhouette. A mix of blue sky and cloud ultimately will create the most interesting images, so be aware of what is happening in the heavens as the hours go by, and don’t be afraid to shift your position accordingly.

• We mentioned at the outset that new technology is not necessarily guaranteeing that we get a sharp, clean image with every shot. In fact, our experience is that on a hot day, the heat haze coming off the hard surfaces, along with the significant amount of engine fuel in the air can actually fool the sensors of newer cameras to focus not exactly where you were aiming at. Keep an eye out for this during the day, and make any subtle change to your set-up to allow for the haze. It may even be the case that you’ll still get more consistently sharper shots with your DSLR than you will with a newer mirrorless body.

• A simple tip that is a real life-saver is to make sure you grab a copy of the flying-program. Especially at a major air show where so many planes can be participating, it can be confusing when you’re editing at some point in the future, as to what you are looking at and this is particularly the case with some of the great old War Birds that we love to watch, to ensure we know which variant is in that specific image.

In general, airshows can be hot, crowded and busy places where it is challenging to have enough space and time to achieve consistently great shots; one consideration that you could make is to attend one of the smaller country showcases where there are smaller attendances, and more room to spread out.

Locations such as Temora, Scone and Tyabb put on great days, and there is always the added benefit of picking up a locally-made pie from one of our great country bakeries for that urgent sustenance intake often needed around 11am!

We hope that these tips help you to have a successful and enjoyable day at your next Air Show – and please don’t forget to share your images with us too!

Another new camera ?!?

As a dedicated Canon snapper for over two decades, I waited alongside millions of others with eager anticipation for the arrival of the Paris Olympics, knowing that this momentous event heralded the release of another exciting camera body; in fact on this auspicious occasion Canon spoilt us with two new models being the R1 and the R5 mkii.

The concept of adding one of these stunning bits of kit to my already-burgeoning collection of bodies (60D, Mk3, Mk4, 5DSR, RP and R6) was already debatable, and a discussion of “how much gear is enough gear” is clearly a topic that we’ll review in-depth in the not too distant future, but like so many other Canon devotees, I admit to sitting on YouTube soaking-up all the reviews for days and nights on end.

And it was not long at all before I realised that the R1 was going to be a bit of an Aston Martin moment for me; lovely to consider having in the garage but fiscally-impossible to justify or ever achieve.

That left me with the only clear decision, being the one that required me to find a way to add the R5 Mkii to the armoury, until – and surprisingly – in a very short space of time, it rapidly became a very unclear decision.

The light-bulb moment was such that there is still a bruise on the back of my head where its impact made landfall; and from nowhere there was a foreign voice where that contusion had occurred asking me:

“Why stick with Canon?”

“Why not try something completely different?”

“Go on! Take a walk on the Wild Side!!!”

And so, in a split second of what could be termed either madness or perhaps mild concussion, the genie was out of the bottle; Pandora’s Box had been smashed open, and a new journey of discovery that perhaps even Captain Kirk would have been proud of, had begun…

As always whenever I faced a decision of this pending photographic magnitude , I consulted my personal oracle and Sensei, Michael Evans; another dedicated Canon disciple as well as a fellow addict in terms of adding new kit to an already overflowing kit-bag.

Like me, Michael was hip-deep in the fast-flowing waters of YouTube, immersing himself in the specs and data sheets of the new R5; it was clear to me that he’d already made an emotional commitment to that new body, and so when I broke the devastating news to him that not only would I not be joining him on that journey, but that indeed I was considering straying from the shared pathway altogether , well….his face definitely twitched in that classic look of shock and awe, and he gazed upon me as if I had become unrecognisable.

Thankfully, that moment of abject confusion which I had unwittingly caused him to suffer passed as quickly as it had arrived, and he gave me that all-knowing Gandalf-esq smile of pride and support meaning that I had his blessing to become a multi-brand ambassador.

And from there – the best bit of all as always for us New-Kit-Junkies.

The hunt began.

And what a hunt it was!

More YouTubing than is medically-recommended.

A few trees sacrificed in the printing of various specs, and then the IPAD battery dying over the course of many all-nighters as all sorts of reviews and assessments were being made and compared.

The initial thought that I had, which was supported in earnest by my spirit-guide, was that I should consider Nikon. A brand that is as highly-regarded as Canon, and which had many bodies to suit my specific tastes of architecture, landscape, birding, aircraft and a bit of Street.

And yet, in a case of making this whole process harder than it had to be – that seemed to be a road that was just too obvious to take, and I determined that I should stray even further from the path and go deeper into the forest of confusion which led me to the door of Sony.

They certainly had a great deal to consider, but a couple of not-so-great comments about battery-life shortened my stay in that realm; and so at that point, I stumbled into the arms of Medium Format, being smitten by the two GFX beasts in the Fuji range that seem to be the popular choice of many of the landscape gurus that I followed with interest.

Research now zeroed-in on the GFX-50, and I could see it easily holding pride-of-place in a brand new kit bag, only to come to that horrible reality that this too was another Aston Martin moment, and I knew it would be many shekels above my comfort zone.

Sights were lowered, the sniper’s sight was sharpened, and the red dot of the laser-light was now very close to locating its quarry.

The deep research of the GFX system had revealed to me the many great qualities of the Fujifilm X range; the more I pored – the more I adored.

I admit to a brief moment of additional confusion where it looked like the roulette wheel was going to stop spinning around where the XT-50 was gleaming back at me in the digital showroom but with one last sudden jolt, the white ball moved one spot further along before setting firmly in place.

The decision was made. I was soon to be the proud owner of the XH-2.

Without wanting to bore you too much, there were a few and important reasons why.

First was simply the challenge of learning a completely different system to Canon; sure all modern cameras can be linked fairly closely to each other on the evolutionary tree, and are really only a branch or two away from each other; but the menu set-up, positioning of dials, and simply the ergonomics in your hand do set each model quite apart from each other.

The camera ticked some other obvious boxes; I wanted mirrorless, absolutely the latest technology, lightweight in my hand, and specifically – the opportunity to use the APS-C format.

I liked the way that the XH-2 made Fuji’s famed set of film pre-sets available in JPEG mode, so that whilst shooting in RAW, there was an additional benefit of having an alternate and potentially arty version of the same image being created simultaneously.

I do admit to not normally being particularly swayed by Megapixel Mania.

Most of my Canon bodies produce stunning images with a pixel count in the low to mid 20’s, and this had always been more than enough to create poster-size prints for various applications, but the fact that the XH-2 had a 40 megapixel sensor, which when converted from APS-C to a full-frame equivalent suddenly became a little over 93 megapixels, well that certainly sparked a level of intrigue for me to add to the ‘tick column’ of why this should be the next camera!

It has recently arrived, and after only a couple of weeks I confess that it has certainly been experimented with, but not given a maiden road trip of any deep intensity.

To perhaps use a sporting analogy, we are still in pre-season training, but the testing to date has been met with many “oohs and aahs”.

Because you and I don’t yet know each other that well, I can’t comfortably admit to how many X-series lenses have been purchased to accompany this wonderful new camera, but I am sure that this friendship will blossom to the point where I can reveal what they are and the reason behind why each of them was purchased, other than to say that the number already sits somewhere roughly between 6 and 8!

An important consideration for me in this whole process was to be able to use the existing Canon glass that I already have, with the new Fujifilm XH-2 and so the research that was undertaken there led to a very clear outcome in terms of what would provide the best compatibility.

Whilst there are certainly a number of after-market options that I could have selected, the most obvious choice in terms of being able to maintain full lens and focus functionality was the ‘Fringer EX-FX PRO’ unit, as this received by far the best reviews in relation to how its electronic aperture ring and weather-sealing made it that ideal nexus between the two systems.

The Fuji auto-focus system is blessed with a range of great options, and it seems to me that there are actually more shooting modes than my trusty R6, and so I wanted to ensure that I didn’t lose any of that functionality when using the Fuji camera with the Canon glass.

All in all, after only a short period of getting to know each other, I am delighted with this new acquisition, and whilst it does certainly feel like I am now learning a new language (something I haven’t undertaken for over 40 years), it is a journey that I can’t wait to travel further on, and perhaps occasionally share with you.

In summary though, I will confirm that the old adage of “The best camera is the one that is currently in your hand” remains absolutely true; as enjoyable as it has been to go on this journey of discovery, I think it is really important that we should remain mindful that the most important aspect of photography is not the gear, but simply in the getting out there…….wherever “there” may be!