Re: Airshow Warbirds and Stunt Flyers

Mike:
Here are some where I used exposures of 1/320 to 1/800 to blur the prop. Note my comment about getting a sharp bird with a blurred prop below.

It'd be challenging to mask the prop and use Photoshop's motion blur command to blur it - you'd need a composition that isolates the prop - but it's possible. I prefer to get the real thing.

Having clouds for background sets the scene as real sky and not a model in a backdrop with a frozen prop. And I really prefer the sharpness - though some paint schemes like the Me-109's gray camouflage make it look like a model in any frozen prop shot.

And sometimes you have stunt flyers turning off their engines on purpose to show the gliding and dead-stick landing capabilities of their airplanes, like Dr. D here in his 1946 Taylorcraft. Note the absence of exhaust:
http://tinyurl.com/o2oxs

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Some real warbirds in flight - including a Hawker Sea Fury with five-bladed prop and Australian Air Force markings:
http://tinyurl.com/lzvsk

It's tough to get a moving prop and have the rest of the bird sharp, but it is possible:
http://tinyurl.com/q9ear P-51D.

Good panning technique and a relatively slow shutter speed in the 1/500-1/800 range usually do it.
Note the black-and-white D-Day stripes. They made for easy recognition on a day with lots of aircraft in the sky.

And a final SNJ-5, Wardog, flown by movie flying ace Doug Tollver:
http://tinyurl.com/onu45



At 05:49 AM 5/31/2006, you wrote:

These are great shots and marvelous exposures ... but...I really hate
to see propellors frozen on a plane in flight.

 I'm no expert, tho I have shot air shows in the past and found that
a slower shutter speed,something like a 250th will often give you a
nice transparent blur, which does not make it look like the engine
seized up. On crossing shots it;s tough. but some of your images are
3/4 head-on views and a slower shutter speed could help-- Or (tho i
am not sure how, exactly) you could blur the props a bit in photoshop.

Mike


Mark Bohrer
Precision Copywriting
www.precision-copywriting.com
(408) 866-9405

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