planeandpilotmag.com 51dilemma of aviation photography ( for planes with pro-
pellers, at least).
What’s the solution? Well, image stabilization, whether
it’s in-camera or in-lens, is a start, but it only gets you a
small degree of improvement. What you need to do is get
good with making the camera as steady as possible. Keep
the camera close to your body with your elbows pressed
steadily into your core while gripping the camera lightly
but firmly—yes, it seems contradictory but isn’t—and
then, when you activate the shutter, do so very lightly.
Practice with it and see how the results come out.
You can also use a tripod or, better yet, a monopod, or
brace against a solid object. All of these make it harder
to find the plane in the viewfinder and follow the action,
though. Plus, it makes it practically impossible to pan
while shooting.
If you’re using a mobile phone, there are a few gim-
micks you can try. You can trick the camera into using a
slower shutter speed by overlaying the lens with a neutral
density filter. Today on some phones or with specialized
apps, you can turn your phone into a manual exposure
model, though this varies greatly from camera to camera
and app to app, and the results are often less than ideal.
Regardless, try them out. It might be fun.
- YOU CUT SOMETHING OFF.
Airplanes are funny things, shaped so that they’re exactly
the wrong form factor to fit on a vertical magazine cover,
for instance. Over the years, certain conventions have
arisen about what you can and can’t cut off in the frame.
It is, for example, okay to cut the outside part of the
wings off in a shot, but don’t ever cut off the spinner or
the landing gear. Why? I don’t know. I can only say that
it’s because the photo looks terrible if you do. For some
reason, we as pilots need to see the gear. Why, I have no
idea, but we do. Also, bear in mind that it’s not enough
to make sure the gear or the spinner is in the frame...you
need to give it a little margin. Why? Again, who knows.
But it’s a known effect that crowding the margins makes
the viewer feel a sense of unease. So don’t do it! It’s not
only airplane photography that’s subject to these kinds of
cropping aesthetics. If you’re taking a photo of a person
and crop it so only the feet are missing, it’s just as weird. - YOUR SCENE IS TOO BUSY.
Most of us get the chance to photograph cool planes when
we see them at an airshow. It’s as true for me as it is for
you. But it’s complicated because there are often crowds
of people surrounding the planes you most want to shoot,
Airplanes look silly when important parts are chopped off. This Sukhoi aerobatic beauty has a prop and a tail, we assume. That said,
photographs can be complicated. In this case, the photographer might argue that this odd cropping job emphasizes the role of the pilot
on the plane. Maybe.