Any tips and tricks you use/do on your camera to take quality photos?  If so, share 'em!  We'd all love to hear what may help us take better photos. 

Jul 20, 2009 -- 6:25PM, TimnEvan family #61 wrote:

Well first off, I'm certainly no expert but one thing that's helped my son and I is really knowing the manual and the various settings on our cameras.  We have an FZ-18 and an FZ-28 and tweaking the autofocus and OIS sped up the focus time which helps with the shots we take

These guys don't exactly stand still for us!    The slow write speed for each shot really allows one or two shots per pass of one of these guys.

The other thing that helps a lot is just playing around and trying different things.  The fact that we can click freely and not burn up film allows for lots of trial and error!

A lot of the shots we go for are of propeller airplanes and getting good prop blur with a slow shutter speed and not blurring the whole shot is difficult

So shooting in shutter priority at 1/160 and F8 gave us this.  If the camera would go to F16, then we could get more blur and not get over exposed.

I'd have to say the IA and peset scene modes on Panasonic cameras are awesome and almost always delivers great shots.  However, don't be afraid to play around in the other modes.

 

By the way, these shots were by my son Evan, who's almost 11

 

Tim

 11?  WTG Evan.. great pix!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Guys,

Those are incredible shots of of amazing planes. It's wonderful how you've learned to mesh both hobbies together. Tell your son he's set a very high bar for some adults around here, including myself!

Jul 20, 2009 -- 6:25PM, TimnEvan family #61 wrote:

Well first off, I'm certainly no expert but one thing that's helped my son and I is really knowing the manual and the various settings on our cameras.  We have an FZ-18 and an FZ-28 and tweaking the autofocus and OIS sped up the focus time which helps with the shots we take

These guys don't exactly stand still for us!    The slow write speed for each shot really allows one or two shots per pass of one of these guys.

The other thing that helps a lot is just playing around and trying different things.  The fact that we can click freely and not burn up film allows for lots of trial and error!

A lot of the shots we go for are of propeller airplanes and getting good prop blur with a slow shutter speed and not blurring the whole shot is difficult

 

So shooting in shutter priority at 1/160 and F8 gave us this.  If the camera would go to F16, then we could get more blur and not get over exposed.

I'd have to say the IA and peset scene modes on Panasonic cameras are awesome and almost always delivers great shots.  However, don't be afraid to play around in the other modes.

 

By the way, these shots were by my son Evan, who's almost 11

 

Tim

Wow fantastic!  I personally have been nervous to use all the manual settings due to being afraid I'll mess shots up as well as the overall settings on the camera but I love these!  I hear the ISO feature can really change the way an image looks.  Love these tips and these amazing photos.  Tell your son he's talented :)

Jul 21, 2009 -- 1:20AM, TimnEvan family #61 wrote:

Just learned of another trick we'll try ASAP.  With a fast moving plane, the camera takes a few seconds to hunt for the focus.  Those lagging seconds can mean a lost shot.  So by setting the manual focus at infinity, where the plane surely is (unles it's about to run us over!) we'll never have to wait for the AF to lock on.

Also, by adding a neutral density or a polarizing filter, it'll be like going from F8 to F10-12.  So we can get more prop blur!

I showed Evan as I was tucking him into bed.  He can't wait to try it.  Woo hoo!

 

Tim

Thanks for the tip Tim!! I'm going to try it this weekend. And again, thanks for sharing the great pix!!