The Best Lens for the Job

All eyes are pointed upward when the Blue Angels fly overhead.  Thousands of outstretched hands holding iPhones and iPads follow the action from one horizon to the other.  Hundreds of SLRs record the action.  Everyone is a photographer.

The serious photographers are a much smaller group.  They arrive with the longest lens they own and shoot until the planes are tiny or their buffers are full.   We can't help but check to see who has the longest lens.  Today the guy with the 600mm was the winner.  

We all photograph the same thing from the same place.  During the peak action, the crowd will produce thousands of virtually identical photos.  How many Blue Angel photos does the world need?

I don't have many opportunities to photograph air shows.  Budget cuts have reduced the size and frequency of the performances.  The Blue Angels didn't fly at all last year.  This could be the last year that they fly.  

All my experience and decisions converge as I follow the aircraft with my lens.  I do the best I can.  When the show is over, I'm exhausted.  I spent 10 hours standing on a concrete flight line on the day that is statistically the hottest day of the Nebraska summer.  

As I walk a mile back to my car, I pass the guy with the 600mm lens.  He also has a huge tripod and a couple of other cameras and lens.  I don't envy him at this point.  

I downloaded all my images before I quit for the evening.   Overall, I was very  pleased.  However, the peak action takes place at "Show Center" and the 400mm was too long to show all the aircraft in the larger formations.  A zoom would have helped.  I also missed one aircraft in some of the opposing solo flights.  Finally, I was unable to photograph the smoke trail patterns left by the planes without a wider lens.  I definitely didn't need a 600mm lens.  Perhaps a shorter zoom would have worked better.

The Offutt Air Show is a two day event.  I decided to photograph the Sunday show with my very sharp 70-200mm lens.  I would be almost as close with the close-ups and could back off to 70mm to photograph smoke trails and the solo passes.  

Day 2 wasn't as hazy.  I took fewer photos because the Blue Angels had to be closer to me before they were large enough to shoot at 200mm.  Most of the time I wanted to zoom in more than the 200mm position allowed.  70mm wasn't wide enough to capture smoke trails very well either. 

I reviewed the  Day 2 photos after downloading.  If they had been the only photos I took,  I would have been very pleased with them.  They were properly exposed and sharp.  They could be cropped in Lightroom.

I wanted to see how they compared in more detail.  I found a moment were the shot from Day 1 and Day 2 were nearly identical.  I loaded them both in Photoshop.  I increased the size of the Day 2 shot until it was the same size as the Day 1 shot.  (200% larger)   The image below is a close-up of a small portion of the 200mm image.  When you place the mouse on the image, it switches to the 400mm version.

The aircraft were in a slightly different position on each day - the tire of the rear aircraft is noticeably higher on day 1.  The 400mm version has more detail - you can see a difference in the sharpness of the lettering.  The overall appearance of the 200mm version looks noisy - this is visible in the blue paint and the canopy. 

This isn't a unique photo -thousands of photos were taken as the aircraft overlapped.  Both lenses produced an image with more detail than the iPhones and most of the SLRs were able to capture.  The 400mm lens worked best for me and produced the shot that I wanted.  

The complete image is shown below - put the mouse on the image to shift from the 200mm version to the 400mm example.

 

Thank God the Blue Angels Didn't Fly

Things started going wrong long before the start of the air show.  Offutt's long and proud air show tradition has started to fade.  They have been unable or unwilling to attract the top flying teams.  The 2012 show didn't feature the Thunderbirds, the Snowbirds or the Blue Angels.  

Nebraska had consecutive months of drought this summer.  Ironically, the first day of the air show was cancelled due to rain.  Sunday didn't start out much better.  The show was supposed to start with a Golden Knight jumping out of a perfectly good airplane in order to bring the flag to the show.  We waited an hour for the clouds to clear enough for the jumper to find the ground.  Finally they gave up.

I'm not a fan of the TSA and Homeland Security.  They have taken all the fun out of flying.  The freedom that we treasured is being lost and the United States has become a police state.  Air show visitors were forbidden to bring backpacks, coolers and large purses.  Visitors were checked with metal detectors - the little kids didn't seem to mind.  The adults were comforted knowing that if the twin towers were still standing, they would be safe from the Offutt Air Show visitors.

The purpose of the air show is to show the public what their tax dollars pay for and to encourage young men and women to sign up for a life of adventure.  The base gates are opened to the public and everyone is herded onto the massive runway for the show.  The base commander apparently decided that  this was the perfect opportunity to harass the public with random vehicle searches.  I was lucky enough to be selected.  They looked at my engine, examined the contents of my glove box, checked the trunk. verified my driver's license and filled out paperwork with my name, address and any of their observations.  After a military working dog gave my Honda Element a sniff, I was free to go.  

Offutt is a large base and I was directed to a parking spot at least 1/2 mile from the show.  The hike gave me the opportunity to pass large and nearly empty parking lots.  When I finally reached the entrance, I had the opportunity to be searched again.

I arrived too late to get a prime viewing space next to the fence so I was going to have several rows of people in front of me.  Apparently the air show planners sit in the VIP seats and never see the show from the area reserved for the guests.    The other side of the fence was filled with all sorts objects that obstructed the view of the runway.  There were several large tents, at least a dozen  trucks and cars, two port-a-potties and all sorts of other equipment.  

I had planned well for the show.  I researched the kinds of shots I wanted and reviewed images from previous air shows.   I tested several lens and chose the one  best suited for dramatic close-ups and panned shots that use a shower shutter speed.  I had plenty of compact flash memory,  a fully charged battery , extra water, sunscreen, a folding chair - I was ready to spray and pray.

It was very hot on the flight line and the show started late.  Before the show was over, I had photographed the aircraft that I was most interested in.  I decided to leave when the Golden Knights portion of the show arrived.  The 1/2 mile walk to my car was much harder.  I was hot, tired, thirsty and my camera and lens weighed a ton.  At least I was going to avoid much of the traffic when I left.  My out of the way parking spot had a clear shot away from most of the parking lots.  But, when I left the lot, I was directed to leave going the wrong way so that I passed all of the other lots and all of the people crossing the street on their way to their cars.  It was the worst possible route to leave.  I listen to audio books when I drive so I was able to enjoy several chapters of my book.

The down side of taking lots of images happens at the PC.  I had quite a few bad shots when the aircraft were near the runway.  The camera would try to focus on the Tents, vehicles and Porta- Potties when I panned past them.  

I had anticipated problems with my shot of the propeller planes.  The slow shutter speeds necessary to blur the propeller meant that the airplane travelled several feet during my exposure.  Often my panning was less than perfect and resulted in a shot that wasn't completely sharp.  I found that my best shots were often in the middle of a sequence. 

Contrary to what some believe, spraying didn't produce dozens of identical shots.  Even when my panning was perfect, the propeller planes twisted and turned.  The twists and turns blurred some portions of the plane when other areas were sharp.  

I use BreezeBrowser Pro during the culling process.  It takes at least  1/10th of the time that Lightroom would take.  I compare 4 images at a time, evaluating small details like letters on the plane.  I also look to see which images in the sequence had the best view of the pilot.  When I've decimated my days work, I have chosen images that are well exposed and sharp. I was pleased with what I saw.

I copy the culled images to Lightroom.  I still have many more than I plan to keep.  I work on basic color, contrast and composition adjustments  in Lightroom.   I evaluate the entire image.   If I have several similar images, I decide which one to keep and delete the remainder.

 I had problems with my images in Lightroom.  When I panned the propeller aircraft, I needed to stop down to maintain the slow shutter speed.   Stopping down highlighted any dust on my sensor.  The clear blue sky around my aircraft was dirty.  Spraying hadn't helped, each image was dirty in exactly the same place.  The images weren't ruined, but they will need more post-processing now.  

I tend to use fast lens and shoot wide open so the sensor dust has to be large before it shows up.  The self cleaning sensors do a pretty good job  or so I thought.  It was a stupid mistake to shoot the airshow without checking the sensor for dust. The silver lining to this cloud is - At Least the Blue Angels Didn't Fly.  I don't even want to think about making a stupid mistake like this at a wedding.

Air Show Preparation

Spraying and Praying goes hand in hand with air shows.  The big plane that you see in the viewfinder turns into a tiny dark speck when the images are downloaded.  No one, not even your best friend is interested in looking at a thousand nearly identical specks.  

The Thunderbirds and Blue Angels are a photographers dream.  It's difficult to take a poor photo of them.  They are in perfect formation when they pass in front of the crowd.  Unfortunately they will not fly at the Offutt Air Force Base Air Show this weekend.   Military budget cuts have taken their toll.

Air Shows feature some of the latest military hardware as well as historical aircraft.    Propeller driven aircraft are much more difficult to photograph than jets.  It isn't difficult to stop a jet mod-air with a fast shutter speed.  While the same shutter speed  will stop a propeller plane, it also stops the  propeller so that the image doesn't look normal.  Ideally the plane should be sharp and the propeller should be blurred.

My air show preparation needs to include a lens that will make the aircraft bigger than a speck.  I need to use a show enough shutter speed to blur the propeller.  I need a very sharp lens along with the skill to make the aircraft sharp while the propeller blurs.

I researched air show photos from previous years.  I learned that the propellers of different aircraft blur differently at the same shutter speed.  In general 1/250 of a second is the fastest I can go and the blurs are much better at 1/125 and slower.   As a rule of thumb, the shutter speed should be no more than  the focal length of the lens.    That's a problem because a 135mm or 200mm lens isn't long enough to prevent airplane specks.

Longer lens present logistical problems.  They are heavy and I don't have the credentials that would remove me enough from the crowds to make a tripod feasible.   I think that I can handhold a 400mm lens long enough to capture the pass of an aircraft.

I'm fortunate to be able to shoot at 400mm with three different lens combinations.  Two of the combinations have IS and the third doesn't.  I can only take one lens.  I took thirty shots this afternoon to decide which lens to use.

The test needed to determine which lens produced the sharpest images while it was handheld.  I already know that most lens are sharper when stopped down a stop.  I decided to test the lens at f 8.  I took one test shot at ISO 100, 200 400, 800 and 1600.  This resulted in a shutter speed that increased a stop at each new ISO.  The faster shutter minimizes the amount of sharpness destroying shake. 

Spraying and Praying is the perception of an outside viewer.  Digital photography has made it possible to select the best of many similar images.  My preparation will allow me to pick my best images from a group that has big airplanes, sharp airplanes and realistically blurred propellers.