Nikon AF system

[Guy Mancuso]

Well as much as a manual guy i am , I do have to say the AF system is amazing. I shot at least 30 images of three planes in landing mode and used continuous follow focus and the sucker just does not miss. I wish i was this good. 180 here

 

[Guy Mancuso]

3 frames latter still tracking like dog after a rabbit.

BTW that is how you land in a cross wind , wind down into the wind. In this case left wheel first hits the deck

 

[gogopix]

Yup, slip rather than crab.

But in the old days with a J-3 or a Luscomb, landing sideways and taking the crab off at the last minute sure was exciting!

 

[Bob]

We do the wing low cross-control technique now.
Keeps one wheel pointed down the runway.
-bob

 

[gromitspapa]

Did you catch this attempted Lufthansa crosswind landing?

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/wo...ny.plane.close.call.liveleak?iref=videosearch

 

[Bob]

Yes, I saw that,
THAT is NOT the wing low cross-control technique.
That is the old stabilized approach an de-crab at the last instant and loose control technique.
-bob

 

[ChrisDauer]

I hadn't seen it. Thanks! That was awesome. Reminds me of the good old days of Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong. There are tons of great shots taken from that airport as well.

 

[gogopix]

I'm sure during his approach he saw the cross-control would put his rt wing too low and attempted crab.
Should have changed runways or found another field!

Looks like he recovered without much damage.
Planes are tough

Victor

 

[kit laughlin]

Guy: nice work.

I agree, that continuous focus (if you use a relatively small group of sensors, and keep an eye on what they are locked on to!) can do better than I can, MF-wise, for sure.

Horses for courses

 

[gogopix]

http://cgi.ebay.com/Leica-Leitz-Tel...ryZ73445QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

focus, smokus

THIS is what you need for that Nikon!!

 

[kit laughlin]

Nice, especially the stock!

 

[dhsimmonds]

Nice photo's Guy, but pity about the "frozen" propellor or perhaps the engine really had stopped!!?

Getting the shutter speed just right for prop. aircraft is always difficult in aviation photography which is why I prefer to photograph jets!

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Exactly Dave. I was playing it save for this one and normally I only shoot jets. This general aviation stuff is completely different stuff all around. The cockpits are just pure hell to shoot in. I actually had to sit on two tripod legs for one of them because there was no room by even a inch in either direction. Than i got stuck in the damn thing and could not get out. It was pretty funny and i lost 25 lbs just imagine if i was my fat self. LOL

 

[Bob]

skylane full rpm is 2400rpm which is one rotation each 1/40 second.
So if you want about one third of a turn of prop blur, try 1/125 during
the takeoff roll and maybe 1/30 to 1/60 on the landing flare.
-bob

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Bob , when I was out there one guy did do the crab style. Have to say that looked really weird to do. Bunch of aircraft techs out there with me and they were laughing pretty hard on that one. It does look like a crab landing

 

[gogopix]

skylane full rpm is 2400rpm which is one rotation each 1/40 second.
So if you want about one third of a turn of prop blur, try 1/125 during
the takeoff roll and maybe 1/30 to 1/60 on the landing flare.
-bob

But you will blur the plane, which is still going 100' per second

Shoot quartering from front (or back); tell the pilot to full throttle right bfore touchdown and go around. You'll get some blur at 1/1000 but the plane image will be in focus since only edges will move outward. and much less than 100'/sec (cosine and all that)

 

[Bob]

49 knots finals speed with full flaps comes out to about 82 feet per second, at a 60degree quartering angle that reduces it to 41 feet per second and that is not too difficult to pan to follow and get a nice sharp shot since I would expect that you would find a shooting position at least 100 feet away (the wingspan is about 36 feet if I remember correctly and typical runways at larger airports are 100-150 feet wide).
With panning, you don't need to coordinate with the pilot.
-bob

 

[gogopix]

yes, panning can help. Takes some skill. I forgot with the Nikon, the focusing is handled, so you just need to pan and frame.

For those of us still with MF, it's a bit trickier (though my hands HAVE had 65 years experience in working!

 

[harmsr]

Here are few plane shots that I took panning and at 1/320 for the prop, 1/800 or 1/1000 for the fast moving jets.

 

[harmsr]

Those were with my old D200 on continuous focus mode, panning, and a lens with no VR.

The Nikon focus system works really well. However on a 300mm lens (450 on the cropped D200 sensor), I did have to basically prefocus manually in order to avoid the lens hunting while trying to find the planes farther out and then tracking them as they approached.