Good airshow lens?

Hi all,

Having unsuccessfully tried to use my Panasonic FZ7 and its appalling
shutter lag especially when taking pictures of the flying, I've bitten the
bullet purchased a Nikon D80 body. I would welcome recommendations for lens
that will enable me to make the most of this camera for taking good clear
images of aircraft on display.

Cheers in advance,

Pete

Hi Pete,
I got my D80 this spring for a trip to the UK to take in a couple of
airshows and a number of museums. I got the Nikon 70-300Is lens and it is
nice. But, for the serious photographer, probably something more in the
500mm range would be preferable. I could only afford the 70-300. The
weather didn't cooperate for the UK airshows, so my photo's there were
so-so. I did have a little better luck at Dayton a few weeks ago at the Dawn
Patrol Rendezvous. The 70-300 is very nice, and the image stabilization is
great! I really like my D80 too.

The Dr1 is full scale. The DVII is RC

Mike





"Peter.D.Evans" orbscure.AT.hotmail.DOT.com wrote in message
. 109.144...
Hi all,

Having unsuccessfully tried to use my Panasonic FZ7 and its appalling
shutter lag especially when taking pictures of the flying, I've bitten the
bullet purchased a Nikon D80 body. I would welcome recommendations for
lens
that will enable me to make the most of this camera for taking good clear
images of aircraft on display.

Cheers in advance,

Pete

Oops, that didn't work. Try this.






"Mike Bealmear" wrote in message
. ..
Hi Pete,
I got my D80 this spring for a trip to the UK to take in a couple of
airshows and a number of museums. I got the Nikon 70-300Is lens and it is
nice. But, for the serious photographer, probably something more in the
500mm range would be preferable. I could only afford the 70-300. The
weather didn't cooperate for the UK airshows, so my photo's there were
so-so. I did have a little better luck at Dayton a few weeks ago at the
Dawn
Patrol Rendezvous. The 70-300 is very nice, and the image stabilization is
great! I really like my D80 too.

The Dr1 is full scale. The DVII is RC

Mike





"Peter.D.Evans" orbscure.AT.hotmail.DOT.com wrote in message
. 109.144...
Hi all,

Having unsuccessfully tried to use my Panasonic FZ7 and its appalling
shutter lag especially when taking pictures of the flying, I've bitten
the
bullet purchased a Nikon D80 body. I would welcome recommendations for
lens
that will enable me to make the most of this camera for taking good clear
images of aircraft on display.

Cheers in advance,

Pete

Well, I used to know to do this.


"Mike Bealmear" wrote in message
. ..
Oops, that didn't work. Try this.






"Mike Bealmear" wrote in message
. ..
Hi Pete,
I got my D80 this spring for a trip to the UK to take in a couple of
airshows and a number of museums. I got the Nikon 70-300Is lens and it is
nice. But, for the serious photographer, probably something more in the
500mm range would be preferable. I could only afford the 70-300. The
weather didn't cooperate for the UK airshows, so my photo's there were
so-so. I did have a little better luck at Dayton a few weeks ago at the
Dawn
Patrol Rendezvous. The 70-300 is very nice, and the image stabilization
is
great! I really like my D80 too.

The Dr1 is full scale. The DVII is RC

Mike





"Peter.D.Evans" orbscure.AT.hotmail.DOT.com wrote in message
. 109.144...
Hi all,

Having unsuccessfully tried to use my Panasonic FZ7 and its appalling
shutter lag especially when taking pictures of the flying, I've bitten
the
bullet purchased a Nikon D80 body. I would welcome recommendations for
lens
that will enable me to make the most of this camera for taking good
clear
images of aircraft on display.

Cheers in advance,

Pete

Pete,
Here are a few more with the 70-300IS. These were taken at Old
Warden/Shuttleworth Collection.


"Peter.D.Evans" orbscure.AT.hotmail.DOT.com wrote in message
. 109.144...
Hi all,

Having unsuccessfully tried to use my Panasonic FZ7 and its appalling
shutter lag especially when taking pictures of the flying, I've bitten the
bullet purchased a Nikon D80 body. I would welcome recommendations for
lens
that will enable me to make the most of this camera for taking good clear
images of aircraft on display.

Cheers in advance,

Pete

Peter.D.Evans wrote:
Hi all,

Having unsuccessfully tried to use my Panasonic FZ7 and its appalling
shutter lag especially when taking pictures of the flying, I've bitten the
bullet purchased a Nikon D80 body. I would welcome recommendations for lens
that will enable me to make the most of this camera for taking good clear
images of aircraft on display.

Cheers in advance,

Pete


I have a Sigma 50-500 Bigma

GREAT LENS

A lot of people on Fencecheck have them they are light and have a great
range and do not suck in dust.

I've been a lurker for years, but finally feel like I have something
worthwhile to comment on - and an aviation-related photo to go with it.


I also have a Bigma. It's a terrific lens, especially on my new Canon
40D! I recently decided to sell my Nikon D70 and all the lenses,
flashes, extension tubes and all the rest.

The final straw was shooting the Cape Cod airshow with the D70 several
weeks ago.

I didn't have the Bigma for that show. I had the Sigma 170 - 500 mm,
and I will issue a caution about both Sigma lenses. It turns out that
they both focus BEYOND infinity.

I had so much trouble with the Nikon D70 failing to autofocus quickly
(hunting for focus), I set it to manual focus and spun the focus ring to
infinity - or so I thought. It wasn't immediately obvious due to the
severe haze - everything looked foggy anyway. About 250 shots later I
discovered the error. VERY frustrating.

So far, I really like the 40D and the Bigma. They're a great
combination, if somewhat heavy. They focus very quickly and are a real
joy to use. I expect it will work very well for my next airshow.

Whatever lens you decide to get for airshows, make sure you get one with
the high speed focus, i.e., USM. And pay attention to that focus ring if
you decide to use manual focus!


Attached is a shot of a hot air balloon rising up from the gorge in
Quechee, Vermont. I sure wish I had this setup for the airshow...

Charlie

Charlie wrote:
I've been a lurker for years, but finally feel like I have something
worthwhile to comment on - and an aviation-related photo to go with it.


I also have a Bigma. It's a terrific lens, especially on my new Canon
40D! I recently decided to sell my Nikon D70 and all the lenses,
flashes, extension tubes and all the rest.

The final straw was shooting the Cape Cod airshow with the D70 several
weeks ago.

I didn't have the Bigma for that show. I had the Sigma 170 - 500 mm,
and I will issue a caution about both Sigma lenses. It turns out that
they both focus BEYOND infinity.

I had so much trouble with the Nikon D70 failing to autofocus quickly
(hunting for focus), I set it to manual focus and spun the focus ring to
infinity - or so I thought. It wasn't immediately obvious due to the
severe haze - everything looked foggy anyway. About 250 shots later I
discovered the error. VERY frustrating.

So far, I really like the 40D and the Bigma. They're a great
combination, if somewhat heavy. They focus very quickly and are a real
joy to use. I expect it will work very well for my next airshow.

Whatever lens you decide to get for airshows, make sure you get one with
the high speed focus, i.e., USM. And pay attention to that focus ring if
you decide to use manual focus!


Attached is a shot of a hot air balloon rising up from the gorge in
Quechee, Vermont. I sure wish I had this setup for the airshow...

Charlie

------------------------------------------------------------------------


Apparently, I need to figure out how to make that image smaller...

Charlie

Peter.D.Evans wrote:
Hi all,

Having unsuccessfully tried to use my Panasonic FZ7 and its appalling
shutter lag especially when taking pictures of the flying, I've bitten the
bullet purchased a Nikon D80 body. I would welcome recommendations for lens
that will enable me to make the most of this camera for taking good clear
images of aircraft on display.

Cheers in advance,

Pete


Some points:

Shutter lag will kill you, so if you can do it buy a digital camera with
the least possible lag and shoot single frames after carefully leading
and framing the target;

Closer is always better for individual aircraft; back in the days when I
took a lot of air to air photos, I used a Nikon F body hooked to a 500mm
Nikkor Mirror lens. Those lenses are out there if you can find one.
They were the sharpest of the Maksutov-theory construction; the 1000 and
the 2000 mm Nikkor lenses could only be used from a tripod. Remember
that you don't always need the latest refractor type lens (as opposed to
the reflector style of the Maksutov-Theory lenses) and you don't need
Zoom lenses if you constrain your picture taking to specific subjects
and poses at one time. Zoom lenses are inherently less "sharp" than
apocromatic lenses, which are less than acromatic, which are less than
non-stabilized mirror lenses. The ideal, of course, would be a Leitz
Apocromatic 1000 f2 lens hooked to an Alpa body with motor drive,
shooting Old Kodachrome ASA 25. There was a series of those lenses
specially made for the CIA back in the 1960's which had a
gyro-stabilizer device which circled the lens. It was so rock steady
when it was speeded up to to working revolutions (or whatever gyoscopic
stabilizers do) that it was difficult to pan a moving target. I've used
that lens on some surveillances with Roxal-X Pan film (ASA 1200) pushed
to ASA 12,000 in a hot developer bath and single-chromatic lamp flashing
during development, that worked pretty good. I remember one timje in a
night club in Okinawa where the system actually caught the mid-air spurt
of a certain bodily fluid as the young lady of the night furiously
massaged a certain member of the SUBJECT'S body, grappling it into
submission... I forget what happened to the SUBJECT but that photo was
famous in the annals of military intelligence back in the 1960's.

OK, another point, use color film or settings of the highest possible
speed, that you can without sacrificing grain and enlargement. Remember
that the closer you can get to the subject by using a telephoto lens,
the less you have to crop. This wasn't a problem back when I used a
Fairchild K-series hand held 70mm camera with the ten inch lens. I
could actually see the extended middle finger of the Soviet Bear tail
gunners as I homed in on the new tail gun radar antennas.

There are some marvelous pictures here taken by real experts --
profession air show photographers -- I am sure they can offer better
advice than can I. Anyway, good luck.

Cheers,

Dave

Hi there Mike...

I got my D80 this spring for a trip to the UK to take in a couple of
airshows and a number of museums. I got the Nikon 70-300Is lens and it
is nice. But, for the serious photographer, probably something more in
the 500mm range would be preferable. I could only afford the 70-300.
The weather didn't cooperate for the UK airshows, so my photo's
there were so-so. I did have a little better luck at Dayton a few
weeks ago at the Dawn Patrol Rendezvous. The 70-300 is very nice, and
the image stabilization is great! I really like my D80 too.

Thanks for the feedback...

I am planning, when funds allow, to purchase a Tamron SP AF200-500 to
bridge the gap from 200 to 500mm, but to say that the subject of lens vs
£££ (or $$$) is a minefield is the understatement of the century! The
subject of light conditions here in the UK is about the only feature beyond
my control but I am looking forward to trying out my D80 for the first
time...

Thanks again,

Pete