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Going to try to shoot RC Airplane airshow

ilzho
Rising Star

There is a an RC airshow near me this weekend. This should be fun. I'm just a spectator bringing my camera.

 

I haven't shot this kind of event before, so I'm up for the challenge.

 

Might be putting my 65 focus points to use....

 

Anyone ever shot an RC airshow before?

 

Cheers,

David

38 REPLIES 38

It's not easy predicting what a pilot will do next & I've got lots of photos of an empty sky, sky with part of a plane & simply blurred due to either my poor panning or not allowing the AF to lock on etc. Luckily we're shooting digital & not film so no cost for those throw away frames. More importantly it sounds like you enjoyed it & had fun. I'll wait to see how you did & what was flown. We had a crash at yesterdays event too (it wasn't well attended) when the elevator broke free of it's control linkage. It went straight in at a pretty good speed & was totally destroyed.  

"A skill is developed through constant practice with a passion to improve, not bought."

I had to laugh, one guy started his jet down the runway, but didn't have enough speed to lift off, so right in the high weeds the jet went into, haha.

It was a blast, I did have fun.

Here's a pic from my iphone. There were a lot more planes, but this gives you an idea.

 

FullSizeRender (67).jpg

 

 

So my computer is in the shop getting a new hard drive, but I was looking at some of the pictures I took and here are some. 

They are photos from my iPhone off of the lcd screen of my camera. 

It was fun and I learned a lot about my camera. The planes are in focus, just hard to tell. 

 image.jpeg

image.jpeg

image.jpeg

image.jpeg

image.jpeg

Yes, that's a real hawk. 

image.jpeg

 

Ricci
Enthusiast

I love shooting to rc heli aerobatic flights in photo-sequences like this:

 

IMG_061.JPG

IMG_085.JPG

Just a fun idea in case you have not tried yet.

 

Ricci.

ilzho
Rising Star
Ok that's neat.
How do you get all of the images into one?

You basically need a camera with continuous shooting mode and take the motion sequence on a tripod for a still take. Then you need an image processor as Photoshop to auto-align, cutting out what has not changed position on each frame (leaving in the helicopter in this case) and then merging them all to one image. One of the frames has no cutting to include the background, normally the first one of the stack. 

 

It works with any moving subjects as people, flying objects, all kind of sports, wildlife, etc.

 

A couple of more examples:

IMG_060.JPG

IMG_089.JPG

ilzho
Rising Star
Very cool. I might have to try it, but I only have Lightroom, not photoshop.

 383A8613.jpg

I'm starting to go through my photos.

Clearly I need more practice with the correct shutter speed and post processing for that matter, but I do like this one as the plane is in focus and the trees and pilot are not.

If anyone hasn't tried to shoot one of these events, you should, it's really fun.

It's a challenge but like everything you work at the practice goes a long way at making you a better photographer in other venues. Re the heli set shown it's another way to present what you saw & with heli's doing 3D (a very crazy form of acrobatics) it can capture what a single still frame can't. It also allows high shutter speeds or everything will have motion blur.  

"A skill is developed through constant practice with a passion to improve, not bought."

ilzho
Rising Star
Here's a lot of pictures.
The pilots loved them and asked my to shoot tomorrow at the float event. Water and planes, this could be fun.
https://flickr.com/photos/61106982@N08/sets/72157671478655824
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