Here are some pics from the show. It was hard to shoot, since everything seemd to be directly in front of the sun. Add to that that I just discovered that my PS setting are not calibrated to my monitor, and a lot of these pictures look washed out. But here are the ones I like the best. You can see all of them at jerryp.homeip.net by folowing the Miramar links.

This is MININUTS ON THE WAY TO THE SHOW:





Here is actual air show shots:















Now, can some of you photo gurus tell me why I had a difficult time taking shots of fast moving objects? Was it the settings I was using, or equipment limitations? Anything over 175 mph was coming out blurry. Almost like the camera couldn't focus.

 

Just realized some of the links were not working. They are now fixed.

 

Where's the Stealth, Jerry?


Any pic of Yellow 33 with a jet in background?

 

Looks like a good time, Jerry! Sorry I couldn't have been with my fellow Nutheads!


Clover

 

Here 'ya go:



The yellow bomber was parked on the flight line. As far away from jet exhaust as possible.

P.S. Mike, I used one of the photos with you in it from the julian run for a callendar submission. Hope you don't mind.

 

Excellent photos!

I had similar trouble when shooting the chicago air show. It is a combination of things. First, my camera could never lock focus on the fast moving object in time. I instead set it to manual and tried manually focusing, but I don't think I could do it accurately enough. So there was some focus blur. Secondly, if you are zoomed way in, the tiniest movement of your camera translates to a huge movement in the photo, so there is some camera shake blue. Finally, the object is moving, so you have to pan it perfectly, which isn't really that possible, so you have motion blur. So many of my shots were pretty much unusable thanks to all the blur. I'm sure you experienced some of the same issues. You can view some of mine here.

 

You have the Nikon 8800 as I recall. How much shutter lag do you have on that? Just a thought, but that may be part of the issue, since you're trying to pan and almost predict where the object is going to be when the shutter does open. Much of any lag would also mean you were basically focusing on one point, then with the lag, the shutter opening at another.

Also, as you point out the saturation could stand to be bumped up a half a notch to a notch.

This one is my favorite of the bunch

 

Exactly

 

The lag is noticeable. Depending on the battery condition and zoom it gets pretty bad.

Dave, explain saturation. Is it one of the settings in the camera? I don't have it with me, but pretty sure there is a setting for that which I have at auto.

 

Saturation is the richness of the color.

There are two ways to adjust it (just like white balance in the other thread).

1) On Camera - According to dpreview the Nikon 8800 has an on camera saturation adjustment. It's accessible through the menues (you're looking for "saturation control"). You might try bumping that up to "+1 Enhanced".

2) In photoshop you can go to Image > Hue/Saturation and then use the slider to adjust the saturation. I prefer this route because it offers more percision in terms of the amount of saturation your photos have.

That said, if you can get close enough with the on camera adjustment to what you're happy with, that may not be a bad option because it will be that way for all of your photos, whereas the photoshop route will need to be done for each photo.

 

Thanks. That camera has so many options that I tend to leave most of them on Auto. I will have to look into it.

 

Great shots . Makes me want to make sure I don't miss the next air show. Thanks for sharing.

Randy

 

Sitting down and really spending time with the camera and the manual together is one of the best things you can do to improve your odds of getting the shot you're trying to pull off. Even though I have had my D70 for over a year, I still pull out the manual from time to time to review it.

 

Shooting a fast moving object with anything but a digital SLR is almost impossible. The shutter lag has to be almost non-existant and manual focus helps. Also being able to set a high enough ISO to have a nice depth of field really helps. I'm on my fifth digicam and never was happy till I got an SLR. I still crave an upper end one though!!!