Tag Archives: sharpness

Which Do You Prefer and Do You Care?

As mentioned in other posts, I have been playing around with lower shutter speeds when photographing planes at Boeing Field.  Getting a blurry background to emphasize the speed of the plane is the goal and it also removes some of the annoying distractions that a cluttered airfield can provide.  I use filters to reduce the light in order to get the shutter speed down without having ridiculous apertures.  Naturally, I end up with a bunch of blurred photos which get deleted but the selection process for the keepers is what this post is about.

I have some photography friends that don’t like the effect that the differential speeds of the parts of the airframe have on sharpness.  A sharp nose might mean a pretty blurry tail since the relative motions as I pan are different.  When I am filtering through the shots, I often “focus” on how the nose looks since it is like having the sharp eyes on a wildlife shot.  I care less about the tail unless it looks terrible.  However, getting the middle of the airframe sharp might result in a sharper overall shot even if the nose is a little blurry.

These are the things I was thinking about with these shots of a 777X landing at Boeing Field.  The reason for the post is to see what matters to other people.  These shots are a mix of which part of the airframe is sharp and which bits are more blurred.  I may spend a fair bit of time deciding on which is best, but I wonder whether anyone looking at them is going to like the same things as me or will even care about it.  Maybe the composition of the image is all that they care about, and the pixel peeping is irrelevant.  I would really appreciate feedback if you have an opinion.

Go With The Long Lens

For quite a while I have been shooting almost exclusively with the 100-400mm lens while photographing aircraft.  Recently, I knew I had a couple of smaller aircraft inbound and I picked up the 500mm which hadn’t got a lot of use for a while.  While it is a fixed focal length and therefore inflexible for things getting too close, with something small, it works out fine.  When I checked out the images later, I noticed that I had a far higher keeper rate at low shutter speeds than I have got recently with the 100-400.

I decided to stick with it again on another day of shooting and had similar results.  I decided even to sacrifice the closer shots and work with the long lens to get framing I wanted further away and to then go for close ups of details when things got too large.  I was overall very happy with the results.  I think the weight of the 500mm is such that it is a lot harder to disturb it with small twitches.  The 100-400 is so much lighter, maybe it is more sensitive to my lack of smoothness.  The inertia of the big lens is a benefit.  I think I shall be using it more again going forward.  Besides, it is so sharp when you get it right!

The Conflict of Sharpness and Prop Vortices

Damp days can make for great prop vortices on takeoff.  However, I have been feeling less than satisfied with my results recently.  As I was going through some shots, I made a discovery that should probably have been something I worked out before.  I like to have a good amount of prop blur so drop the shutter speed down when I can.  I go with a high frame rate with the aim of getting a good sharp shot amongst the more blurry examples.

As I go through the shots, the sharp ones have okay prop vortices but not great.  Then I will come across some really nice vortices but the shot is otherwise not sharp.  It seems that, in panning with the plane to get a sharp shot, the trailing vortex gets blurred out.  If I am not panning well, the vortex can be the thing I have tracked better and it shows up well.  I have seen shots from others with the props almost frozen with a high shutter speed and the vortices easily seen.

Consequently, I am going to have to make a decision in future.  How much prop blur do I want versus the ability to see the vortices well.  A little trial and error will be involved.  At least it is fall/winter so the Pacific Northwest will probably provide me plenty of damp days on which to experiment!