you'll be at Andrews? Big tip- bring lots and lots of memory! A couple years back at Andrews I ran out of memory before the Thunderbirds even took off!

RaptorF22 wrote on May 10^th, 2012 at 10:15pm:

I only shoot RAW if I know the shooting conditions are going to be bad or I really want to control the photo conditions.  JPG only is the way to go for airshow stuff by far.

I'm going to have to disagree with skoker here.   

I always shoot in raw, no matter what. Last airshow I took pictures at I had several otherwise excellent shots of hard-to-catch moments, aside from the fact that they were overexposed by 1.5-2 stops. I was able to at least salvage them (quite well) with DPP, which I could not have done with JPG.

So it depends. I would highly suggest shooting in raw, and taking time to dump the ones that aren't good.

I don't shoot airshows that much though, so someone with more experience would probably know better.

gtirob01 wrote on May 14^th, 2012 at 11:14am:


Do you find the max burst of 17 frames restrictive?
I would like to shoot in raw, but I really do not have the budget to buy more cf cards at the moment, and I don't think 550 pictures will be enough.

RaptorF22 wrote on May 14^th, 2012 at 2:14pm:


I did not find it restrictive as I only used the bursts close to the aircraft crossing. Id say if you are gonna shoot static a/c... use jpeg, its easier to control the camera and set up the shot, and saves precious card space. I have an 8gig card and I found it to be enough for me.

Staying at or below ISO 400 is usually good, as a general rule of thunb. Since I don't have a 40D, I don't know about it's noise preformance.

RaptorF22 wrote on May 14^th, 2012 at 9:32pm:


Or so you think..... You'd be suprised at what you can do with a tele lens.

Now that I've had a liittle time to think about what I said in my last post, I would add this:

RAW will give you all 10MP to crop down with (very useful in shots of planes in the air farther away), while sRAW and it's 2.4MP doesn't give that much to crop with. HOWEVER, because of various factors (heat distortion over long distances, sharpness of the lens, etc.) the 10MP image has a good chance of being so soft when cropped that a 2.4MP image would give the same amount of detail when cropped the same amount. If that makes sense.....

Bottom line, just experiment with your camera before you get there, it always helps. 

Interesting comments. In the end it all comes down to what you want to use the photos for. I've been taking photos at all types of air events for several years now. I take literally 1,000s of photos throughout the display season.* (I took over 800 at a fly-in at Popham on Sunday.) Everyone tells me how much better RAW is. After trying it a few times I decided I can't be bothered messing around with all that post-processing. For one thing I just haven't got the time.

It's better to get the camera settings right. IMHO This takes a bit of experimenting & practice, practice, practice. My favourite camera for aerial photos is my trusty Canon 40D with either a 70 - 300 or 120 - 400 mm lens depending on the venue. I find it very easy to use & change settings on the fly. I find that two 4 Gb memory cards are more than adequate for one-day events. Most important is carrying spare batteries & making sure they're all fully charged. Nothing more disappointing than having the battery run out just after you've arrived.

Also, I rarely use the burst feature. I prefer to take individual shots & the 40D is capable of taking as many shots as I want as fast as I can press the shutter button.

*You can see some of the results from the "My photo gallery" link in my sig. Please note that these images have been resized & compressed for posting on the Internet. All were taken in JPEG format.

Bloody hell! How many shots do people take at airshows??

I very rarely fill an 8Gb CF card (shooting RAW) and that's with a 7D and the temptation of 7fps.

Moderation is the key....look for the shot

Also, it depends what you want out of the airshow....many people simply want to record everything that happens and take lots of photos. Nothing wrong with that, but I prefer to plan shots and look for them. If the aircraft doesn't fit nicely into the frame (not just filling the frame, but composed nicely), I don't bother taking the shot. Similarly, if the aircraft is just doing a straight and level pass, take a couple of shots, but don't machine gun it

.mic (click on the sig for example photos )

RaptorF22 wrote on May 17^th, 2012 at 2:59pm:



Bearing in mind that a digital 300mm lens depending on how wide it is can be the equivalent of up to 450mm of a wet film lens, I would just suck and see. Use this display as a learning experience. And don't expect too much from your first day out with it, digital and all the setting that are possible is a steep learning curve. I had just got the hang of my Nikon D60, when my wife surprised me with a 20th wedding anniversary present last year in the form of a Nikon D7000. It was back to square one even though quite a lot of the functions, setting and switching is the same.

Matt