Settings for Airshow photography R5 & R7

D

daniela

Aug 19, 2012
263
4
Tyrol, Austria
#1
Hi!
I need some assistance for airshow photography with the R5 and R7, please!
I have been to two Airshows this year. I took a lot of pictures. But I´m not impressed by my pictures, although I got them in very interesting positions. I even managed to photograph the propellers of propeller planes as a circle
  • At passing planes, most of them are underexposed. If I do manually correct it by +1 or +2 the darker shots are better, but the normal exposed are to bright. Should I change metering mode? center-weighted average or partial metering?
  • A lot of photos are unsharp, because the AF struggles with the speed or focusses not on the plane. Should I go up with the reaction setting? Which setting do you use? I use AIServo, Case 3, reaction +1, Acc/Dec 0
  • On the r7 I will activate pre-burst shooting to get lauched flares etc.
  • I use RAW, better switch to C-Raw?
  • Which shutter mode to use? I switched to electronical, but recognized the mechanical shutter is better for image quality
I did find a lot videos in the web, but most of them are just in common tipps, not canon specific.
Do you know some web stuff?


Thank you for your advice!!
Daniela
 
#2
Have you tried comparing shots with IS on and off? Some lenses have a special panning mode for stabilization, others don’t and a lot of people claim that disabling IS at high shutter speeds gets them sharper pictures.
 
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#4
It can get real complicated. I have both the R5 and the R7. Use Canon CPP to determine if the focus point the cameras "thinks" is focus actually is. I'm many care mine was not. Okay with the tracking and sticky Mrs of the tracking. I never got my R7 to act like I expected.

Regarding exposure. You have a lot of dynamic range the sky will be very bright, the bottom of the aircraft in a shadow. Well I'm excess of 14 stops. You have to decide where the most important part of your image is. Set your exposer, then pray the remainder fall closer to the sensore range. You should shoot raw.
 
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#6
My last airshow is 20+ years ago, using an EOS 10D with the original EF 100-400mm, and the AF (center point) had no problems with fast flying jets. I’ve used the R5 for 4 years and I have trouble accepting that the R5’s AF has problems photographing fast jets.
When I started photographing birds in flight I thought the AF could not cope with birds, but it turned out that my shutterspeeds were to slow for sharp pictures.

Are you sure that your shutterspeed is fast enough?
 
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#7
daniela said:
in most cases I use IS setting 1.
Click to expand...
Afaik mode 1 is for static subjects. You should have a look at the manual of the lens. (rtfm)

P-visie said:
Are you sure that your shutterspeed is fast enough?
Click to expand...
There is a air show thread at CR.
I had a short look and found nice shots with a shutter speed of 1/60s.

Military Aircraft: airshows, operational, whatever, lets see what you have!

I had a quick search on the forum and could not find a topic on this so, here goes. My main photographic passion is military aircraft. Although I do often take shots at airshows or bases, the thing I enjoy most is photographing them in the low level training areas, mainly in the UK. To show you...
www.canonrumors.com www.canonrumors.com
#2045 for example.
Edit:
I tried to post a direct link but it didn't work.

Edit II:
Use mechanical shutter to avoid distortion by rolling shutter.

Military Aircraft: airshows, operational, whatever, lets see what you have!

Biplane is a Stearman E75N1 currently in use by Paramount Overseas Productions. Here's some backstory on this plane. The other plane has a WW II RAF type A roundel (pre 1942). Flipped through a list of planes flown by the RAF but didn't come across it. It appears to be a Yak-52TW training...
www.canonrumors.com www.canonrumors.com
 
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#8
Nemorino said:
Afaik mode 1 is for static subjects. You should have a look at the manual of the lens. (rtfm)


There is a air show thread at CR.
I had a short look and found nice shots with a shutter speed of 1/60s.

Military Aircraft: airshows, operational, whatever, lets see what you have!

I had a quick search on the forum and could not find a topic on this so, here goes. My main photographic passion is military aircraft. Although I do often take shots at airshows or bases, the thing I enjoy most is photographing them in the low level training areas, mainly in the UK. To show you...
www.canonrumors.com www.canonrumors.com
#2045 for example.
Edit:
I tried to post a direct link but it didn't work.

Edit II:
Use mechanical shutter to avoid distortion by rolling shutter.
Click to expand...
You probably mean the first Mustang photo, that is a pan, so you need to use slow shutterspeeds.

The R5’s AF case 1 is a general purpose case, not just for static subjects.
See: https://cam.start.canon/en/C003/manual/html/UG-04_AF-Drive_0020.html

You can directly link to a post by clicking the icon with the three dots connected by the lines (it is next to the “New” indicator in the right hand top corner). That has a direct link to the post.
 
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#9
P-visie said:
The R5’s AF case 1 is a general purpose case, not just for static subjects.
Click to expand...
I didn't talk about the camera settings but the IS settings of the lens!;)

P-visie said:
You probably mean the first Mustang photo, that is a pan, so you need to use slow shutterspeeds.
Click to expand...
From the opening post:
daniela said:
I even managed to photograph the propellers of propeller planes as a circle
Click to expand...
Sounds like panning with slower shutter speed.:cool:

I never did any air shows but IMO panning shots of birds are quite simillar.
I use spot AF on the head of the bird to follow the it with the correct speed. In the case of plane I would choose the cockpit.
And You get rid of problems caused by the auto detect of subjects of the AF.
As air shows are not that often I would suggest to practice with other moving subjects to get the feeling for the speed.

P-visie said:
You can directly link to a post by clicking the icon with the three dots connected by the lines (it is next to the “New” indicator in the right hand top corner). That has a direct link to the post.
Click to expand...
Thank You for that advice. I used a mobile for the last answer which caused the problem. With my desktop it works as usual:

Military Aircraft: airshows, operational, whatever, lets see what you have!

Biplane is a Stearman E75N1 currently in use by Paramount Overseas Productions. Here's some backstory on this plane. The other plane has a WW II RAF type A roundel (pre 1942). Flipped through a list of planes flown by the RAF but didn't come across it. It appears to be a Yak-52TW training...
www.canonrumors.com www.canonrumors.com
 
Upvote 0
#10
daniela said:
I need some assistance for airshow photography with the R5 and R7, please!
I have been to two Airshows this year. I took a lot of pictures. But I´m not impressed by my pictures, although I got them in very interesting positions.
Click to expand...
Which lens do you have? Do you need to crop, and if so, how heavy?

daniela said:
  • At passing planes, most of them are underexposed. If I do manually correct it by +1 or +2 the darker shots are better, but the normal exposed are to bright. Should I change metering mode? center-weighted average or partial metering?
Click to expand...
I'd recommend manual mode, exposing the sky (blue channel on the histogram) to the right with a small safety margin.

daniela said:
  • A lot of photos are unsharp, because the AF struggles with the speed or focusses not on the plane. Should I go up with the reaction setting? Which setting do you use? I use AIServo, Case 3, reaction +1, Acc/Dec 0
Click to expand...
AF should not be a problem, unless you are using a really weird lens. Expanded center point AF area should generally work fine. Use joystick to put it into the place in the frame where you want to see the sharp cockpit, then pan accordingly.

If you use slow shutter speed, train your panning technique in advance on relatively large flying birds. Crows shoud do fine, ducks even better.

daniela said:
  • On the r7 I will activate pre-burst shooting to get lauched flares etc.
Click to expand...
No experience with R7.

daniela said:
  • I use RAW, better switch to C-Raw?
Click to expand...
Consider C-RAW if you risk running out of camera buffer when you use bursts. But personally, I just always use C-RAW.

daniela said:
  • Which shutter mode to use? I switched to electronical, but recognized the mechanical shutter is better for image quality
Click to expand...
EFCS is better against roling shutter, if you are not panning.

Fully electronic is better for AF tracking, if your AF struggles to keep the focus point in focus (which is, frankly, unlikely in this case).

Fully manual in your case has absolutely no benefits.
 
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#11
Thank you for your replies!
Airshow is over, was last Friday and Saturday.
I took about 10.000 pictures each day. Using the fastest mode. R5, R7, 600mm EF 2, EF 100-400mm 2, RF 100-500mm 2.
Using each lens on each camera. An faster 600mm zoom lens is definitvely missing from Canon.
On Jets mostly shutter speed was 1/2500s and f6.3... on jets. On rotor planes 1/320 anf f8-10, helicopters 1/100 and slower anf f<8. Being astonished how slow you have to shoot to get rotors unsharp
My personal findings as an airshow-rookie:
  • Image quality: The R5 is performing very well, at most of the images you can see details of grey planes. Wheather was rainy on Friday, sunny with clouds on Saturday. The R7 disappointed me. Very noisy at Iso800, no details. I had to switch back to RAW to see any details on the plane. I´m going to delete almost all (50% of all shots) R7 images. They look muddy, with no details.
  • AF: Using the center & surrounding spots was just sometimes possible, as we were near the center point of the displays. When the planes passed nearly over our heads, using a wider field was more sufficient. Case 3 was not working, Case 1 was fine. The AF on the R7 was performing as good as the R5. When the planes were behind forest and buildings I had to slow down AF switching. But then it was performing well.
  • Exposure: Evaluative mode looks best, spot was tricky, when the subject did not hit exactly the metering area. I tried it just some shots.
  • R7: preburst mode was really useful, when the planes release flares or vapor was approaching on the wings. (BTW: An arrogant guy with two R5 Mark 2 showed each of the other spotters that he got each vapor and flare situation by using its pre burst mode. so the R5 Mark 2 will be doing very well in this situation)
  • Shutter: electronic shutter bended antennas (or whatever it was) on the ends of the wings, also the rotors. I lookes awful. So on my bodies normal mechanical shutter was best.
I will visit one or two Airshows next year, I started to like airshows. Just taking the R5 and my ordered R5 Mark 2 with me. 600mm is welcome. And the 100-500mm.

What I saw from other spotters:
Mosty of them using Nikon Z bodies (I think Z 8 or 9). Lenses 180-600mm and 800mm 6.3. (body + these two lenses lesser than 10k Euro!). Some used 600mm and an extender that was built in. Wow.
Also many used Sony bodies with 200-600mm. They were also satisfied. Rarely saw 600mm prime lesnes from Sony
Canon users missed a 600mm zoom (all of them said so). We compared the 600mm shots from EF 2 version with RF version. Amazingly my pitures with the older lens look more detailed and sharp as the RF version. We compared these in Lightroom in the hotel, talking a lot about photography and equipment .
 
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#12
daniela said:
[...]
  • Image quality: The R5 is performing very well, at most of the images you can see details of grey planes. Wheather was rainy on Friday, sunny with clouds on Saturday. The R7 disappointed me. Very noisy at Iso800, no details. I had to switch back to RAW to see any details on the plane. I´m going to delete almost all (50% of all shots) R7 images. They look muddy, with no details. [...]
Click to expand...
Pretty much all the pictures I took with an R7 went through DxO PureRAW for denoising, I found the noise to be too distracting otherwise. For the R7, CRAW i what I would recommend, virtually no quality loss while doubling the buffer size.

Both DxO and Topaz have trial version, try running a few RAW pictures through both to see if they can get back the detail you want. Denoising works wonders for what I shoot, macro, I have no direct experience with airshows though.
 
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#13
koenkooi said:
Pretty much all the pictures I took with an R7 went through DxO PureRAW for denoising, I found the noise to be too distracting otherwise. For the R7, CRAW i what I would recommend, virtually no quality loss while doubling the buffer size.

Both DxO and Topaz have trial version, try running a few RAW pictures through both to see if they can get back the detail you want. Denoising works wonders for what I shoot, macro, I have no direct experience with airshows though.
Click to expand...
Thanky you, I´ll give them a try.
Hmm. At my R7 I can see difference in CRaw and Raw. Not on the few clear imagen, but when there is much noise, or the whole picture is grey-in-grey when it was raining and much vapor appeared. Raw was much clearer.
I´ve now changed image format on R7 to CRaw for all recorded settings. Thank you
 
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