Camera settings during spotting.

[Charter]

Hi to all. All the spotters know that to make a nice photo of an airplane many factors are important: season, weather, sunlight, humidity, temperature, distance from the airplane...but also the camera is important. The two most important families are Nikon and Canon and the most used lens is 70-300 especially because very often the distance from the runway or the approach path (for landings) is huge. A new camera Is able to make better photos respect an old or much used camera, with already 150.000 photos done (for example). Many threads and posts have been made about "airplane spotting" but all these articles are focused on photoshopping the photo, on JPEG and RAW difference but nobody explains about CAMERA SETTINGS! And this is the question: which kind of settings do you use on your camera? I have a Nikon D3000 and is still a wonderful camera and for spotting i prefer her to Nikon P1000.
How do you set your cameras to obtain nice, good and beautiful pics?
Many spotters prefer the Autofocus with AF-A (camera decides if the object is moving or not), other decide to select AF-C (right choice for me because the airplanes are moving!), many other use personal settings (P, S, A, M)...
We all know that RAW is better than JPEG especially because of the less noise and less "lost pixels" after photoshopping, but working with RAW is expensive and many spotters still use JPEG. We also know that perfectly focusing all the airplane lenght Is the most important thing for a nice photo, but It Is also the most difficult thing to obtain, and this "fundamental detail" does not depends on light, season etc etc but depends on camera settings.
Here i would like to share how you use your camera while spotting at airplanes, how do you set your camera, especially how to be able to perfectly focuse all the airplane lenght while the movement for landing and/or taking off, the most difficult thing to realize.
Before to die, tomorrow or between 50 years, i would like to realize beautiful photos of the airplanes, and for "beautiful" i mean "really wonderful pics" of these amazing birds.
Thanks for sharing and thanks for the help.

 

[LeoMuse747]

Here are my picks:

for photos in the day, with a good light, I use "A" mode on my Nikon D7200, with aperture set to f8 or f9.
In this mode, the camera will decide the shutterspeed, and the aperture (f number) will be the one you set.
ISO100 - the lowest option possible.

for pictures in low light conditions, it depends a lot but usually I switch to "M" mode and set the shutterspeed and aperture, or simply stay in A mode while increasing the ISO, but not too much.

For night shots, "M" mode always, and the shutterspeed will depend on the amount of light (or the lack of it). In most cases, night shots are long exposures, so I use a tripod. On long exposures, ISO100. If the subject is moving, I have to do a "night panning" shot, so I increase the ISO up to 1250 or 1600. But keep in mind that these values change from camera to camera.

I always shoot in RAW, never JPEG.

 

[Charter]

Here are my picks:

for photos in the day, with a good light, I use "A" mode on my Nikon D7200, with aperture set to f8 or f9.
In this mode, the camera will decide the shutterspeed, and the aperture (f number) will be the one you set.
ISO100 - the lowest option possible.

for pictures in low light conditions, it depends a lot but usually I switch to "M" mode and set the shutterspeed and aperture, or simply stay in A mode while increasing the ISO, but not too much.

For night shots, "M" mode always, and the shutterspeed will depend on the amount of light (or the lack of it). In most cases, night shots are long exposures, so I use a tripod. On long exposures, ISO100. If the subject is moving, I have to do a "night panning" shot, so I increase the ISO up to 1250 or 1600. But keep in mind that these values change from camera to camera.

I always shoot in RAW, never JPEG.

Thanks, interesting explanation.
So you never use the Autofocus?
And what program do you have to work RAW pics?

 

[LeoMuse747]

Thanks, interesting explanation.
So you never use the Autofocus?
And what program do you have to work RAW pics?

I always use Autofocus. No need for manual focus at all.

to open my RAW files, I currently use Photoshop CC 2020 with Camera RAW plugin.

 

[PeachStateAviation]

I have a 90D and I only shoot manual (M). I’ll tinker around with specific setting each day, but usually it’s f8/9 at ISO200 and shutter speed of 1/1000 on standard conditions. From there I’ll tweak the settings if I need more or less exposure. I only shoot Raw and I’ll export to light room classic to edit before uploading to wherever whether it be jet photos, planespotters, or an instagram post.