photography question for Gavin

[Trev]

Gavin
What type of metering do you use for your Aircraft photos?
Do you have to use exposure compensation?

Trev

[benwynn]

Thought I'd answer this as well.

For Normal, daytime Aircraft shots, I use Evaluative Metering Mode.

No exposure compensation.

[Gavin Conroy]

Hi Trev,
I think it does depend on the camera body you have and also what kind of photos you are after.
With the the 50D I mainly use centre weighted and partial metering.

I learnt a few years ago that the metering can play a vital part.
I found with Air 2 Air that sometimes the photos would look dark depending on the metering mode selected and the key to more vibrant photos was metering.
It is the same for ground based stuff.

Centre weighted means just that, it will metre in the centre and spread over the entire picture and that can make a difference.

As I say it can depend and evalutive does work pretty well but at times it can let you down.
Have mainly found that with air 2 air, not sure why sometimes.

Hope that helps, people have different ideas sometimes and I remember flying along at 140 knots with an aeroplane alongside, the light was not great and things looked dark which was frustrating and I played with lots of settings to get it right and metering was the key.

I also use exposure compensation as required.

Depending on the light I will use this to get a full prop arc so I will adjust the exposure in order to lower the F stop number if I have a very slow shutter speed.
Dont do it often but it can work if the conditions allow and care is needed.

[Trev]

Thanks guys,
I've found that if I'm on the ground photographing aircraft in the air I use centre weighted metering with about +1.3 exposure compensation. Otherwise the brightness of the sky behind the darker aircraft would result in a very dark aircraft. This does tend to result in a slightly overexposed sky.
I usually photograph helecopters at about 1/250th of a second (using speed priority)so that I get some rotor blur. I'm usually using my 300mm lens, so 1/250th is also about as slow as I can go hand held.
My trusty Nikon D40X is pretty basic but it does the job for the moment, untill I can afford a newer body with a few more options.

In the end I guess alot of it is trial and error and working from previous experience.

The thing I like about photography is that while some peoples photos might look similar to other peoples, the photo that you take is the only one exactly like that. Its an original.

Trev