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These images are from my first time taking my R8 to an airshow, after looking forward to it for months after purchasing it. I've never had a lens even remotely as long as the 100-400mm I have now, previously having, at maximum, 140mm on my old crop-sensor DSLR. Tracking fast-moving planes at the full 400mm is going to take some more practice, though I got increasingly comfortable with it as the show went on.
I also briefly tried the 40fps continuous high speed drive mode, and literally filled my card (though I left the house in a hurry, and not only forgot my sunscreen, but forgot to reformat my card before I started shooting, so only had about half its capacity available for the show) so I had to take a time out from shooting for a few minutes to delete a bunch of older images. I also found the resulting trove of images just annoyingly massive to sift through for the best shots - 40fps is faster than the 24fps of a motion picture, so it feels like sifting through a slow-motion video frame-by-frame. That highest-speed drive mode will be left for the situations where I most need it in the future.
The autofocus on the R8 though is legit unreal - any subpar images were definitely a result of technique or poor timing or whatever, not the camera.
Most of these images are cropped at least a little bit, with the most extreme crop on the F-16/P-51 heritage flight. Even cropping as severely as I did, though, I think left me with a pretty decent image.
For those interested, the planes featured are the US Navy Blue Angels in their F/A-18 Super Hornets, the Canadian Forces CF-18 Hornet demo team, the US Air Force F-16 Viper demo team paired in a heritage flight with a P-51 Mustang, Gold Price in his Yak-51, and a T-33 Shooting Star.
I also briefly tried the 40fps continuous high speed drive mode, and literally filled my card (though I left the house in a hurry, and not only forgot my sunscreen, but forgot to reformat my card before I started shooting, so only had about half its capacity available for the show) so I had to take a time out from shooting for a few minutes to delete a bunch of older images. I also found the resulting trove of images just annoyingly massive to sift through for the best shots - 40fps is faster than the 24fps of a motion picture, so it feels like sifting through a slow-motion video frame-by-frame. That highest-speed drive mode will be left for the situations where I most need it in the future.
The autofocus on the R8 though is legit unreal - any subpar images were definitely a result of technique or poor timing or whatever, not the camera.
Most of these images are cropped at least a little bit, with the most extreme crop on the F-16/P-51 heritage flight. Even cropping as severely as I did, though, I think left me with a pretty decent image.
For those interested, the planes featured are the US Navy Blue Angels in their F/A-18 Super Hornets, the Canadian Forces CF-18 Hornet demo team, the US Air Force F-16 Viper demo team paired in a heritage flight with a P-51 Mustang, Gold Price in his Yak-51, and a T-33 Shooting Star.
