New lens added to my arsenal

[Canonbassist909]

Hey everyone ! how goes it ? 

I just added the Sigma !50-600 contemporary lens for canon, I will be mounting this to my Rebel t7 , and the use will be for Military Airshows,, 

I can't wait to set this animal up for the a couple of the following : F-22 Raptor, Blue Angels 

are there any suggested settings on my camera that I should change for this lens at all.. 

thanks all ! and see ya on the flight line ! 😁

Alexander aka Reaper

[stevet1]

Alexander,

You have a tough row to hoe.

1) Your lens looks like it is big and heavy, which means it will be hard to shoot handheld for any great length of time. You will probably be using a tripod, which means,

2) It's going to be difficult to follow your subject through the sky.

3) one option would be to focus on an area ahead of time where you know where they are going to be and Shoot as they pass through.

4) Birds in flight are usually shot at shutter speeds of 1/1000 to 1/2000th's of a second. Your planes are going to be a lot faster than that. The closer they are to you, the faster their apparent speed will be, and the less time you will have to react.

5) If you are shooting at high shutter speeds, you'll need to widen your aperture to compensate, but at 600mm, the widest your aperture will go is f/6.3, so you'll need to boost your ISO.

6) I'd shoot in burst modes of 5 or 6 shots at a time, in the hopes of catching at least one of your shots in focus.

Steve Thomas

[Canonbassist909]

I know the lens is an animal as far as weight. But that’s no problem … I’m able to muscle it .. tripods are a nice idea.. I’m researching one 

Do you think an iso of 160 would work along with f/5.6 ? 

[stevet1]

Alexander,

It could. It would depend on the lighting conditions, I think. Try putting your camera in Live View and make sure your Exp Sim, or Exposure Simulation is turned on, and see what you think. You may find you need to boost your ISO to a higher number.

Work with the zooming range of your lens and jot down at what zoom length your lens changes from one aperture to another, i.e., at 150mm, the minimum aperture is X, at 300mm, the minimum aperture is Y, etc.

Steve Thomas

[Canonbassist909]

you're giving me some good tips here..ill try the live view and see how that works... there's been some other settings that have been suggested.. ive been writing them down .. im going to do some plane spotting before I hit the air show to get a feel for what this lens can do at various settings 

[stevet1]

Alexander,

Good. I wish you well.

Steve Thomas

[Canonbassist909]

Thank you sir 

[wq9nsc]

The Sigma 150-600 Contemporary is actually fairly light, I bought one as a general hiking lens.  It is around 4.5 pounds and the T7 is pretty light.

Before you shoot with it seriously, go out and take some test shots and get a feel for how it handles!  Shooting the airshow with a new lens will be a bit of a learning curve so get used to its characteristic with some stationary followed by moving objects before the serious shoot begins.

I shot these cropduster photos a few years ago hand holding my Canon EF 800 f5.6 with 1DX III body attached.  The lens is 2 feet long and weighs just under 11 pounds.  I wouldn't want to hold it for hours but holding it for a few minutes is very doable.  The Sigma 150-600 probably won't be an issue and even with a Wimberly style tripod head, it isn't easy to follow a fast moving object over the area an airshow covers.

ISO will depend upon your shutter speed and the lighting but in good daylight, the f6.3 maximum aperture at 600mm and the needed shutter speed (try to stay at 1/1,000 minimum) shouldn't be an issue.  Experiment with the image stabilizer on and off, you will find it works against you in some situations and you won't need it for actual stabilization at the shutter speed you need.  In some cases it will help you stay on target BUT the Sigma will do some focus searching and jumping with its IS.  The Canon EF 800 f5.6 will do that a little but it is better than my Sigma in that respect.

I am not sure what your camera has in terms AF point selection but for situations like this, I use a center point with a few points expansion around the center.

In terms of exposure, set your shutter speed to 1/1,000, aperture wide open (f6.3 at the tele end), and ISO to auto.  See if the ISO is reasonable (too high and the image gets noisy), if necessary drop the shutter speed a little but 1/500 is on the ragged edge where it will be hard to avoid both blur from both object movement and from camera shake.

If your T7 handles RAW files with enough buffer space, RAW file format gives you a lot more leeway for correction in post.  But the T7 probably has a pretty limited buffer so if you shoot in RAW, be careful not to fill it and miss shots while it is flushing the buffer to the card.  Make sure that you have a fast memory card so the camera can reach its speed potential.

Have fun!  I just shot a few photos last week of my daughter going for a flight in an ultralight with a friend.  That looked like fun and I will be going up in it in the near future 🙂

Rodger

[Canonbassist909]

ill more than likely mosey on down to the airport and try some sample shots of the airliners there coming in on final approach to land with the suggested settings you mentioned . as far as lighting .. it will in broad daylight.. its always sunny for the airshow, I don't expect any cloud cover .. 

and you are right, it isn't easy to track fighters lol .. but I have been lucky ive got some seriously good shots .. ive attached one of them shots of the blue angels diamond during the burner 270 maneuver .. that was shot with a measly 75-300 canon lens that came with my camera.. this shot was massively lucky to get... 

ill try the 1/1000 setting and see how I fare .. 

nice shots of that duster by the way ! and congrats to your daughter on her flight ! I hope you also enjoy your time in the air 

[wq9nsc]

Very nice shot of the Blue Angels!  And you will love that lens, it performs a whole lot better than it should given its very reasonable price.  It focuses quickly and provides sharp images, just give it and your camera a little help by keeping the point of interest near the center of the viewfinder as much as possible.

I grew up near Keesler AFB in Mississippi and I loved watching the airshow there every year.  The USAF Thunderbirds were flying F4 phantoms the first time I saw them and it was great fun.

I am looking forward to my ultralight flight experience!

Good luck with the airshow and please share some photos.

Rodger