Night photography at Shuttleworth - hints and tips?

[rmcclure]

Hi All,

I've got a ticket to Shuttleworth's night photography event tomorrow night and wondered if any of you out there had done anything like this before and have any advice as to the event itself or just general help around photographing aircraft at night. There will be two sessions where aircraft will be outside and firing up and I think there will be a degree of floodlighting, although I'm not too sure and I can't get much detail from the venue ahead of time.

Photography is far from new for me but this type of work is. Tripod is a given, slow shutter speeds for spinning props and the like is understood but if any of you have experience of this type of shoot I'd really appreciate a few pointers.

Cheers all,

Roger

[AndyC]

Hi Roger

I would PM Radleigh on here as he is a regular at the RAF Northolt night photography sessions and has posted some superb stuff. He'll probably be able to point you toward everything you need to know

[spruecutter96]

Hi, Roger.

As you mention yourself, the main thing would be to use a decent tripod. Once you get there, over-ride the cameras auto settings (they probably won't give you ideal results in this situation) and take a few initial shots to get the results you're after. I take it from your post that you have a fair bit of photographic experience, so I apologize if this seems like bloomin' obvious advice.

Cheers.

Chris.

[rmcclure]

Thanks guys,

I think the way forward is to experiment on the night and see what works best. As long as I get the shutter speed right then a combination of shooting in RAW and processing with CS6 should mean that I'll get some decent results. I'll post anything that isn't too horrible!

Cheers all,

Roger

[Radleigh]

I believe the nightshoot has happened? But i'll add my 2p if that's OK..

I always shoot in Av now days and over-ride the exposure with the Ev dial... light depending I can go up to +1 Ev at times., I gave up with shooting in manual as you get the same result, doing exactly the same thing, moving the exposure dial a few clicks and keeping the aperture the same..

Anyway, make sure the tripod is sturdy, hang a bag off a hook if you can/have too. Avoid using a lens hood because if it's windy it'll catch the wind and can make a difference in sharpness, if the lens has IS, turn it off.. if your camera has Live View, use it, it's so much better!

I always try and aim for f/10 (no smaller), but again varies with light.. my tripod is nice and heavy so I can get away with 30+ second exposures too, but for full discs on a prop at night you can even shoot at 1/5th, but light depending you may need high ISO and a really small aperture..

Hope that helps? Here is some of my work too...

Stunning turbo Tracker by Radleigh Bushell, on Flickr

XV295 C-130, RAF Northolt Nightshoot by Radleigh Bushell, on Flickr

Apache by Radleigh Bushell, on Flickr

G-BAGT Helio H-295 Courier by Radleigh Bushell, on Flickr

[mbthejester]

Hi,

I am new to the forum, and found this post while looking around, I see it is quite old, but another tip for night shots, if there is a fair bit of light pollution try putting the white balance on Tungsten, helps to reduce it a lot.

 

cheers

Mark