Rodney Campbell's Blog

Joined three friends for an epic day of photography. Our gourmet feast of photographic delights included a 3:30AM start, a sunrise seascape session, a day shooting at an air show, a sunset seascape session, a light painting session in an abandoned railway tunnel and a post midnight finish.

Part two saw us head to Albion Park for the Wings Over Illawarra Air Show. I’d never been to or shot at an air show before and didn’t really know what to expect so I packed my BigMos – the Sigma 50-500mm lens to accomodate my expected need for a long focal length along with some focal length flexibility in case I needed it (which I did). I also packed my Sigma 15mm fisheye which I was planning to use up close to or inside any aircraft for some distorted perspective images but I hadn’t quite anticipated the enormous crowds around every publicly accesible aircraft and the sheer number of people going inside any of those which were on show so I didn’t even take it out.

It was a warm day with mostly blue skies with a touch of random clouds which was pretty much ideal for capturing aircraft in flight – a little more light cloud covering the sun to diffuse the light a little and a bit less haze would probably have helped but you can’t have everything 🙂

The trick was to work towards a shutter speed slow enough not to freeze the propellor blades (in planes that have them) so there’s a sense of motion; whilst being fast enough to freeze the aircraft in the sky (especially when some of them are moving quite quickly relative to your position).

Note: These images (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger – so click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer.

Up first were some trick aircraft and the Roulettes which put on a good stomach churning show

Inverted

NIKON D600 + 50.0-500.0 mm f/4.5-6.3 @ 500 mm, 1/1000 sec at f/6.3, ISO 720

Four

NIKON D600 + 50.0-500.0 mm f/4.5-6.3 @ 210 mm, 1/250 sec at f/8, ISO 100

Full Spread

NIKON D600 + 50.0-500.0 mm f/4.5-6.3 @ 380 mm, 1/320 sec at f/8, ISO 100

Then it was time for the old warbirds to put on a show. In this first I’ve gone for a really slow shutter 1/40 sec to capture the blur of the full rotation of the propellor. To do this I had to stop right down and I had the lens on a monopod for stability.

P-51

NIKON D600 + 50.0-500.0 mm f/4.5-6.3 @ 420 mm, 1/40 sec at f/16, ISO 110

.

NIKON D600 + 50.0-500.0 mm f/4.5-6.3 @ 460 mm, 1/500 sec at f/8, ISO 100

P-51 Mono

NIKON D600 + 50.0-500.0 mm f/4.5-6.3 @ 78 mm, 1/400 sec at f/5, ISO 100

and a couple more images to finish off the day

Army

NIKON D600 + 50.0-500.0 mm f/4.5-6.3 @ 500 mm, 1/1000 sec at f/6.3, ISO 900

Flybyes

NIKON D600 + 50.0-500.0 mm f/4.5-6.3 @ 500 mm, 1/1000 sec at f/6.3, ISO 400

Don't forget to Share...

Google

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin

Pinterest

Email

Print