V & C Impressions

Almost Grey Nomads in Australia

Tag: Air show

  • Red Thunder Air Show – 2018

    Red Thunder Air Show – 2018

    I was looking forward to attending the Red Thunder Air Show, it has been a long time since I had been to an air show. The last air show was Wings over Wairarapa in New Zealand in 2009, at that time I had the Canon 350D with probably a Canon 18 – 55 standard kit lens. Since those days I have been taking more of an interest in photography and post-processing and spent quite a bit more money on equipment.

    Technical Stuff

    Shooting moving objects at speed and using a long telephoto lens has its challenges, so this necessitated a change in camera settings. I usually shoot in Aperture Priority mode (AV), but in this case, I wanted to control the shutter speed. The Canon 6D Mark II was set up as follows. Take note that I was for the morning shooting into the sun, as the day progressed the sun moved over to my left so there was a need for changing exposure settings depending on where the plane was. Rather than me trying to do this all day in Manual mode, I thought it best to let the camera sort it out.
    The reason for using exposure compensation, I didn’t mind blowing out the sky a little, but I did want some color in the planes, not just a silhouette of them.
    All photos are handheld.

    • Shooting Mode Tv (Shutter Priority) Shutter range from 1/180 – 1/1500
    • Iso set to Auto (range from 100 – 12800)
    • Exposure compensation + .5  to +2
    • Zone AF
    • AI Servo
    • Drive mode, Low-Speed Continuous.
    • Sigma 150 – 600 Contemporary
    • Canon 70 – 300 IS USM

    The Sigma lens is a beast of a lens, heavy and bulky, but with a reach of 600mm, it could pull in small planes that are far away. The Canon lens is definitely a lot more manageable and had the advantage of a shorter zoom range which came in handy when the planes weren’t too far away.

    Spitfire MK XVI
    Spitfire MK XVI
    Fokker DR1
    Fokker DR1
    T-34 Mentor
    T-34 Mentor
    L-39 Albatross
    L-39 Albatross
    YAK-3 Steadfast - Red Thunder Air Show - 2018
    YAK-3 Steadfast – Red Thunder Air Show – 2018
    Bristol F2.B Fighter
    Bristol F2.B Fighter

     

     

    Summary

    I am pleased with the images. When comparing to my earlier Airshow photos from 2009, there is a definite improvement. This can be put down to having a better camera and lens setup and also having a better understanding of how to control the camera.
    It was a good day out, and since the airshow is close to Brisbane I will most likely have another go at the next Red Thunder Air Show.