# Help with shooting tomorrow's WWII Flyover (May 8)



## Vivid Color (May 7, 2015)

Hi,

I work in Washington DC and plan to go to the National Mall over my noon hour tomorrow to photograph vintage WWII planes fly from the Washington Memorial over the Mall and toward the Capitol. I've never shot flying planes before and am asking for your advice.

I plan to bring my Canon 6D with 24-105L and my T1i with 70-300L. I plan to set both cameras on TV and set a limit on auto ISO but I'm not sure what I should set the limits to on each camera. (I know I can set the 6D to a higher limit.) Also, should I max out on shutter speed or what shutter speed do you recommend? I have B+W CPL's that I can use if it is bright and sunny out or do I risk losing too much light? Any tips and suggestions you may have will be greatly appreciated! The whole thing will be over quickly so I want to get everything set up in advance. Oh, and wish me much luck!

Best regards,

Vivid


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## tolusina (May 7, 2015)

Others with actual shooting experience will hopefully chime in soon.

Here's an observer's observation; too high a shutter speed freezes prop motion, to me, that just looks so very wrong as though the plane is about to or already is falling. 
To my mind, you want at least a bit of prop blur, but too slow risks the prop appearing as a disc, that's wrong too.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (May 7, 2015)

Don't use auto ISO, set your exposure manually, unless you have a long enough telephoto to almost fill the frame. If the frame is partially filled, the camera will average the exposure expose for the plane and for the bright sky, and your photos will not look good. You should be able to take a few test shots to determine the right exposure, and occasionally check to be sure the light hasn't changed too much. Spot exposure may help, but if its not right in the perfect place, it will be worse. I would not use it for a rapidly moving aircraft.

Noon is a horrible time for getting back lighting, but you have no choice, so take control of your exposures.


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## albedo13 (May 8, 2015)

As mentioned, frozen props just don't look right, but in my opinion the full prop circle is the holy grail of prop shooting, but is very hard to get. For props, I will usually shoot in Tv mode, and I set the shutter speed I am comfortable with. At an airshow where you will get multiple chances on any given plane, I will go as low as 1/30th or 1/60th; at these speeds, you will get a lot of bad shots but hopefully some ratio of keepers. For a case like tomorrow, I might go as fast as 1/125 or maybe 1/250, just to get some blur but to increase my odds of getting usable shots for one pass per formation. I shoot the sky before any planes are around, and check the histogram, and then adjust the settings so that the sky is as far to the right as possible without overexposing in the histogram. Most of the planes tomorrow will be darker than the sky, so you can be assured you are getting as much light on the darker planes as possible. Just be aware that some planes like Fifi the B29 might be brighter than the sky, and you will need to adjust your compensation downward so you don't blow the brighter planes out.

As far as technique, I shoot as many frames as I can on each pass as I pan with the aircraft; as you start panning and shooting, hopefully you will reach "equilibrium" with the planes for at least a few frames once you are shooting. The more you keep shooting and panning, the better your odds of matching the movement of the planes. I was practicing at the Manassas airshow this past weekend, and took almost 6000 shots, and got some decent keepers at 1/30th of a second.

I plan to go down early, and there are almost always commercial planes flying over DC; use these to practice on before they shut down National for the overflights.

Oh and most importantly, SHOOT IN RAW, so you have the most flexibility in optimizing the good shots you do get. Hope this helps, I look forward to seeing what you get!

Jim


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## Roo (May 8, 2015)

+1 for Jim's comments


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## Vivid Color (May 8, 2015)

Thank you all for your replies and great tips! I greatly appreciate it!


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