A digital photo shooting session of airplanes in an air show

A few weeks ago I went with my friends to see anevening I saw the results of my tired grip - the later
air show. The schedule was packed with acrobaticsdigital photos were not as sharp and steady as the
and many types of planes. The highlight of the showearlier ones.
was the blue angles with their jets doing dangerousWhen I saw the results of my work my reaction was
routines. I took my camera hoping to capture someto go and get those fancy lenses with an image
good digital memories of that show.stabilizer built-in them. There are two types of image
I took my digital SLR camera to the air show. I put it instabilizer one that moves the sensor and one that
my special camera bag alongside an extra batteryactually uses gyroscopes in the lens to move a floating
and lenses. I used an eight mega pixels DSLR with aoptical element that compensates for shakings. The
100-300mm zoon lenses.latter is more expensive and provides better results. I
I decided to shoot as many photos as I could knowingsaw some people walking around with the Canon
from my experience that in such cases the rule of bigimage stabilizing zoom lens I am not sure how
numbers works very well - shoot as many photos aseffective it was for them but it sure did look
you can and you might be able to find a few photosimpressive.
which are really unique. So when the airplanes startedThere are also drawbacks to using image stabilizers
to fly around I pointed my camera at them and fromand actually some of these drawbacks are very
that point on I watched most of the air show throughrelevant to my air show photo shooting. Moving the
my camera's viewfinder.camera erratically to track an acrobatic airplane can
I set my camera to automatic continuous focus. I hadconfuse the image stabilizer that can detect that
my finger holding the shutter button half way downmovement as being unwanted shakings and try to
most of the time while I am moving the camera tocompensate for it. If I had an image stabilizer I would
track those fast flying airplanes. I could hear thehave had to use different practices when shooting my
camera's motors working hard moving the opticalphotos like trying to pan the camera on one axis and
components in the lens back and forth to keep theat a more or less constant speed.
focus right. I also set the camera to burst mode soOverall I was able to choose some great photos of
whenever I decided the composition was worthairplanes flying around doing acrobatics very close to
shooting a photo it actually shot a fast sequence ofeach other, airplanes with some birds flying in what
four photos. The idea behind that was first to getseems to be in the photo as very close proximity and
more photos to choose from - with fast flying planesother digital photos of airplanes in different situations.
these four photos were really different from eachThese will serve as good memories of that air show
other - and second to maybe be able to captureand as a lesson for getting better equipped in my next
some motion in a sequence of photos.air show digital photo shooting.
As time passed my hands got tired from holding theMore information on digital photo printing and
camera and my stable grip was not as stablephotography is available on - a site about digital photo
anymore. Unfortunately I did not bring a tripod - andprint service Ziv Haparnas is an expert technology
probably I would have not used it even if I had it sincewriter. Mr. Haparnas writes about practical technology
it is hard to track airplanes flying above using oneand science issues. This article can be reprinted as
especially when you are with thousands of peoplelong as the resource box including the backlink is
walking around you. When I looked at the photos thatincluded.