Photograph Settings

mitchell · Post by **mitchell** » 11 Jun 2008, 07:52

Hallo,

I am quite new with camera's like Canon EOS 350D.
But my question is what are the best settings to photograph airplanes with.

With helicopters I put my shutterspeed on about 300, but its still a bit unsharp.
With Jets I put it on 600, but still unsharp too.

Can someone explain to me what are the best settings that other spotters use too?
I already used the Search, but could not find what I needed.

Kind Regards,
Mitchell vd Berg

Key · Post by **Key** » 11 Jun 2008, 08:23

Hi Mitchell,

Your question is a bit like 'what is the best gear to drive your car in': it depends on the circumstances, and what you want to accomplish. If you mean unsharp because of movement, just keep practising in 'panning' - following your subject with the camera. The shutter speeds you use are generally OK.

Erik

mitchell · Post by **mitchell** » 11 Jun 2008, 08:31

Hello,

Thanks for your answer.
I will try to practise and practise then

Kind Regards,
Mitchell vd Berg

DJMikey · Post by **DJMikey** » 11 Jun 2008, 08:34

Hi Mitchell, in my opinion there are no 'ideal' settings wich aply to every occasion or circomstance. Weatherconditions at the time you are photographing and your iso-settings can influence your shutterspeed and maybe in your case therefor the sharpness of your pictures.
You can get sharp pictures by using the automatic setting 'sports', but as you probably already know, that setting limits your possibilities.

In my case, I use different settings each time, depending on the earlier mentioned weatherconditions. On top of that, not every propellor or rotor of every helikopter or plane has the same rotationspeed. Therefor, if you like to show some propblur on your picture, you will have to adjust your settings every time depending on the current weather-/lightconditions and depending on the kind of aircraft.

In general I use a shutterspeed between 1/60 and 1/200 when I'm photographing helikopters and props.

In conclusion I can only say that you will get the desired result, if you only pratice a lot with the several possible settings. Good luck with that! Maybe someone else can give you some more tips.

Grt, Mike.

Spooky · Post by **Spooky** » 11 Jun 2008, 08:37

Hi Mitchell,

It is important to determine where your unsharpness is coming from. Is it the motion or is there a focussing problem with your lenses.

Make some photo's from non-moving objects and check if these are sharp. Also check your settings for your jpg compression if you are shooting JPG. You can select sharp or soft.

In general you should be able to shoot good photos with the shutterspeeds you mention although I would choose a faster speed for jets (1/1000) since there is no need for prop/rotor blur.

Ciao,
Anno

FISHER01 · Post by **FISHER01** » 11 Jun 2008, 15:09

Hi Mitchel,

I have also a 350D.

you have tell me fist how big is your lens? If you are using a 400mm lens then you have to use at lease a shutterspeed of 400+ when fotografing a fast jet. slow movers for prop blur, lower then 300 but you need a steady hand.

keep in mind that your F (diafragma) (on display) is not blinking and i mostly use a F 8.0

the best setting (for me)iso 100, shutterspeed at 800 an a diafragma F8.0 or higher but that means a lots of sun light. I think you unsharnes comes beacause a lack of sun/light (blinking diafragma on display)

mitchell · Post by **mitchell** » 11 Jun 2008, 15:29

Hello,

Thanks for all the tips.
I use a 55-250mm lens.

Kind Regards,
Mitchell vd Berg

Key · Post by **Key** » 11 Jun 2008, 21:31

FISHER01 wrote:the best setting (for me)iso 100, shutterspeed at 800 an a diafragma F8.0 or higher but that means a lots of sun light.

Actually, it means more sunlight than on a clear day. Full sunshine, no clouds = 1/500 f.8 @ ISO100. Of course, there are scenes you may want to make darker than this average, and you can correct a lot from RAW. But these are the default values.

Erik

mitchell · Post by **mitchell** » 11 Jun 2008, 21:36

Hello,

I now got a other problem and that is that if I make a photo at about 21:00 with a clear sky and I use Shutterspeed 500, ISO 100 the photo is very dark.

Why is that?

Kind Regards,
Mitchell vd Berg

Key · Post by **Key** » 11 Jun 2008, 22:05

My guess is, because there was not enough light to take a photo at 1/500 at iso100 with your lens... I suppose your camera has indicated you were about to make an underexposed shot, advise to study the manual to know what all the indications mean.

Erik

FISHER01 · Post by **FISHER01** » 11 Jun 2008, 23:27

indeed!!! not enough light. i see you got an 55-250mm (IS) and it is F4.5-5.6 lens that means you can not go lower then diafragma 4.5 at 55mm and not lower then 5.6 at 250mm.

what i said watch out for blinking diafragma on the display (when pressing the button half you can see if it is blinking or steady) when it is blinking lower the shutterspeed till it is steady. how lower the shutterspeed- how longer the the time is that your shutter(spiegel) is open (so a little movement when it is open makes it blury,exept when you are moving whith the same speed with the moving object (panning))

at 21:00 it is not realy daylight anymore so for a diafragma 5.6 you should probebly use a shutterspeed of /60 or even lower, but that means that you need a (very) steady hand or a tripod (statief) you could try to put the iso on 200 or 400. but my experiance with the 350d is that you get more noise (ruis) on the pics.

somebody correct me if i'm wrong

marcel32us · Post by **marcel32us** » 12 Jun 2008, 11:26

FISHER01 wrote:.... how longer the the time is that your shutter(spiegel) is open ....

somebody correct me if i'm wrong

All is right, except that a shutter is a "sluiter" in Dutch, while a "spiegel" is a mirror.

Just to make sure we're all on the same page. The shutter being open for a longer time is what causes the motion blur, and not the mirror being up.

Marcel

mitchell · Post by **mitchell** » 07 Jul 2008, 11:00

Hello again.

On what options does the most spotters here shoot?
AV or TV or an other one?

I photograph on TV now but if its a dark day my photos are very dark, but if I shoot with AV its better but unsharp because the camera chooses the shutterspeed automatic.

What now??

Kind Regards,
Mitchell

marcel32us · Post by **marcel32us** » 07 Jul 2008, 11:27

TV or AV shouldn't make the difference.

If you use TV for control of shutterspeed, watch for the Aperture indication in your viewfinder. If it blinks, there's not enough light for the shutterspeed you've chosen, so your pic will turn out too dark. In that case just choose a longer shutterspeed (lower number). If the shutterspeed gets too long for sharp pics, you might choose a higher ISO-setting (don't forget to set it back for the next sunny day).

If ISO is at 1600 and your shutterspeed still gets too slow with maximum aperture, go home and sleep. There'll be another day

BTW: I use either TV or AV depending on what I want to shoot. If it's a fast moving jet, I'd choose TV on a high setting to make sure I get a sharp pic. If I want rotor blur, I experiment with shutterspeeds between 250 and 60. If I want to control depth of field (scherptediepte) I use AV. One other occasion I use AV is when it gets dark. By chosing AV I make sure my aperture is max, so that I get the highest shutterspeed possible. A picture that is too dark is useless, while it may be harder but not impossible to make a sharp pic even with a shutterspeed of 125 or lower.

An example of a pic taken with TV set to 125, resulting in an aperture of 20, to make sure I got propblur:

Marcel

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