Fiji Airways New Airbus A330

[Stagecoach]

Today I had the oppurtunity to try something different and outside of my comfort zone which was shooting the arrival in Fiji of the first of Fiji Airways brand new Airbus A330s. Unfortunately info was a bit scarce as to the exact route over Suva the capital so choosing a vantage point was a bit of a chance but I guessed well and found the lowest point of it's route.

Anyway, having done a quick read up on aircraft photography last night I set off this morning and within 30 minutes of the arrival we had rain, sun, blue sky and dark grey clouds !

Equipment, D300 with 18-200mm. Settings chosen were Aperture Priority, f7.1, Auto ISO max 1600 with min speed 1/200, Spot metering, AFc (Auto Focus continous). Very simply I kept the plane around the centre focus point and blasted away hoping for the best.

1/1600th f7.1 ISO200 200mm



1/800th f7.1 ISO200 200mm



Lessons learnt
a) Fortunately these are crops and I had ample space in front of the plane but with a longer lens or the plane closer it would have been advantageous to use a focus point off centre to the right.
b) Take a bit of time planning (and learning) and getting things set ready when there's no second chance.

Grahame

[Donald]

Very simply I kept the plane around the centre focus point and blasted away hoping for the best.

And it worked very, very well. These are wonderfully clear, crisp images.

[Otavio]

Grahame, sometimes simple images can work extremelly well. I think you achieved that. I specially like #1 due to the angle. Uncluttered and beautiful!

Cheers!

[Stagecoach]

Thank you Donald for the encouraging comments.

It's always pleasing when you push something to the limit (this fairly mediocre zoom at max) and get acceptable results.

[Stagecoach]

Otavio, you are right. A few of the shots had very busy sky, clear blue and cloud but I prefered these plainer backgrounds. My favourites also No 1 and I'm going to see if I can improve on the PP.

[AB26]

Hi Grahame,

Great job.
Now what is so difficult about BIF photography?

Thanks for the info it is very helpful. I have a wonderful opportunity to capture these big birds in flight and I do not use it.

[Aforns]

Looks great and it is one good looking airplane !!! I think last time I flew out of there it was on a brand new Pacific Airways, at least that was the crew told us !!

[Stagecoach]

Andre,

I have yet to try the BIF (birds) photography as we have so few here. Having experimented with this mechanical bird I now appreciate even more the skills that some have shown here with getting the IQ with the featherd variety in flight.

As for the 'info' one of the things I ommited was that with the settings I used the plane in all images was underexposed and although recoverable in RAW I'm srill trying to work out why.