Last weekend I got up stupidly early to travel half way across the country to attend an airshow. But what an airshow! The Royal International Air Tattoo 2018!
A word of warning - this is going to be a looooong post. Grab yourself a cup of tea and settle down...
I haven't been to an airshow, or at least shot aircraft flying since the Goodwood Revival in 2015, where they had a number of warbirds from the Second World War flying. My equipment back then was my trusty GH3 with the first-generation Lumix 100-300mm lens, and my GM5 with Lumix 14-140mm as backup. These performed well as a pair, allowing me to grab take off, landing, and formation shots with the surprisingly-capable GM5, and the longer, single aircraft detail shots with the GH3.
At the time, AF-S was used on both cameras, as I didn't trust the reliability of the continuous auto-focus offered by either - bare in mind that at this point, Panasonic had yet to introduce their Depth from Defocus technology to assist with continuous AF from a contrast-detect-based focusing system.
Then shutter-priority was set, with a shutter-speed of 1/320 to get some blurred propellers and blurred-background on panning shots.
Fast forward three years to 2018, and I have the top-of-the-range Lumix G9, whose auto-focus and tracking abilities are somewhat improved over the existing technology, and I rented the premium Panasonic Leica 100-400mm lens. I also took my GH4 with me as backup, whose sensor had never had a chance to catch an airshow before.
What I aim to do with this post is explain the settings I used as I progressed through the day, the challenges I faced, and how both the G9 and PL100-400mm acted. I managed to capture some amazing shots on the day, but there were a number of concerns I had as well.
Auto-focus performance and tracking
The first thing I did with the G9 was set it to AF-C, then delve into the menu to set up the tracking type (note: the text below comes directly from the camera monitor):
The first aeroplanes I was able to try theses settings on were the Patrulla Aguila, the Spanish Air Force's display team made up of seven CASA C-101 Aviojet trainers. Getting both individual jets and groups in shot was relatively simple, the big EVF on the G9 resolving some amazing detail from the jets even against a bright sky.
Focus seemed to lock, and tracked rather successfully. But reviewing the images showed that the initial focus wasn't bang on - and so the tracked images also had a similar out of focus quality to them.
I moved to Set 2 (with the associated tweaks to all settings) for the next demonstration - a French Air Force Rafale. This was a lot harder to keep in the frame at long zoom ranges, the single jet being thrown around the sky to show off its maneuverability. Again, tracking seemed to exhibit the same slightly out-of-focus character, and I'm not 100% happy with any of the solo-Rafale shots I got.
Panning and stabilisation.
I began to suspect that it may not be the auto-focus or tracking that was the issue, that maybe there was something off with the stabilisation. The G9 has one of the best in-body stabilisation systems on the market, and with the addition of the right lenses, can utilise both the in-lens and in-body stabilisation to achieve a seemingly impossible 6.5 stops of stabilisation.
In advance of the show, I'd set the camera's stabilisation to the panning mode, whereby the stabiliser only works on up-down movements, and give you free rein on lateral movements. This means that, in principle, the camera isn't second-guessing you as you move across with the subject.
However, what I saw at RIAT was a camera intent on getting a stable image, even with the panning mode engaged. This meant that whenever I tried to pan, the image would judder and appear sluggish to catch up with the subject that I was attempting to keep in-frame.
Conscious that this was not only my first airshow in three years, so my panning technique may be somewhat sloppy, but also that I was shooting with a 200-800mm equivalent lens, I was quite reluctant to disengage the stabilisation. But that is exactly what I did, and I was instantly rewarded with images that were crisper than the ones that preceded them.
Turns out that my panning technique hadn't diminished as much over the years as I'd thought.
AFS/AFF versus AFC
I stuck with the continuous-AF and tracking mode through the next two displays - a Finnish NH90 helicopter and the Italian Air Force's Frecce Tricolori display team. But prior to the "Solo Turk" F-16 taking off, I switched the focus-mode dial to AFS/AFF. Remembering a chat I'd had with a friend who bought his brand-new Lumix GX9 to the show, I once again went into the menus and set the camera up for Auto Focus Flexible.
The difference between AFS and AFF is thus:
You've got to bear in mind with airshows; aeroplanes are not slow things, and in the time it takes you to grab focus and fully-depress the shutter, they have covered a considerable distance.
I kept refocusing after two or three burst shots to ensure that a new focus was acquired, and again this made a big difference - I was seeing more and more shots in-focus.
Memory cards, and the need for fast writes
The G9 supports UHS-II capable SD cards (two at a time in fact), and so I knew before I went to RIAT that I'd need some fast cards with me to keep up with both the capabilities of the camera and the action I was shooting - the burst speeds on the G9 are quite remarkable! Despite setting Burst Mode I to M (which gives 7fps in all AF modes), I took more than 130 shots of the first display (I deleted some, so unsure of the true figure). I'd bought two Sony 32GB UHS-II cards with me, and within a only a few displays, I'd burnt through one of them.
Read and write speeds are very impressive with the Sony cards. Reviewed images appear instantly when pressing the button, and the buffer clears almost as fast as it fills. I highly recommend these cards for anyone that needs the performance.
I'd put a Lexar 128GB UHS-II card in my backup GH4, so I put that into the G9 once the first Sony 32GB was at capacity. It is well known that this particular Lexar card states UHS-II, but never achieves those speeds. I did worry that this would be a bottleneck at the airshow, that I'd be wringing my hands while the buffer slowly emptied to allow me to take more shots.
However, this was not the case at all. What I found in practice was that I'd take shots of passing aircraft, and then they'd be ample write-time before the plane came back around for the next round of shots, and so my fears were unfounded - the Lexar was fast enough.
Fast jets, helicopters, apertures and shutter speeds.
Before I get onto my conclusions around the lens and camera, I thought I'd briefly talk about the various non-camera specific settings I used.
An airshow such as the Air Tattoo has a huge variety of aircraft on display, and not all aircraft are shot with the same settings. You can, of course, but you'll either find it more challenging that it needs to be for some subjects, or the result will not be as desired. Slower aircraft require different settings to faster ones, and below is how I set both cameras up:
The Panasonic Leica 100-400mm lens
I hired this lens (two actually) from Hireacamera specifically for RIAT - I didn't feel my old Lumix 100-300mm would fare too well, knowing that it would slow-down any continuous-burst-shooting I would be doing.
The lens is very well-built, as you'd expect from a premium lens. Quality plastics, a metal mount. Both the zoom ring and focus ring turn just right, the latter almost feeling like true a manual focus rather than focus by wire. One thing to note is that the zoom ring on both copies felt quite gritty, but I expect this is due to prior hire use rather than how the lens comes out of the box.
There is a third ring between the two which can be used to lock the focus range at a specific point. You have to make sure this has fully engaged in "Unlocked", otherwise you end up with much more resistance in the zoom ring than you want.
Switches! This lens has three of them! All operate with a very satisfying click - you definitely know when you've moved one. The PL100-400mm has a switch to switch on/off the OIS (which actually disables all IS, both lens and body), and a switch to go straight into manual-focus.
The third is possibly the most helpful for airshows - focus-limiter. This allows you to limit the focus range to 5m-infinity, meaning that the lens doesn't have to rack the focus from near-to-far quite as much.
The lens also includes a built in lens-hood that covers about half an inch of the front element, but is also supplied with a nice and deep plastic hood to screw onto the end.
A tripod-mount and collar is also built-in - the actual mount can be removed (which I did, as it got in the way of a stable grip for panning and zooming), and the collar can be rotated ninety degrees and locked.
In use, the PL100-400mm focused very snappily, with very little hunting. Whether this was due to the focus-limiter or the G9 it was attached to, I cannot say. The OIS in the lens worked well to give a stable image for static subjects, though absolutely scuppered any attempts at a smooth pan - as I alluded to earlier in the post.
Image quality was very good, certainly better than my ancient 100-300mm. However, there were a number of shots where I thought the camera hadn't focused properly on the subject. Reviewing these images back home instead showed the true culprit - heat haze. Shooting anything at a distance runs the risk of having increased atmospheric interference, and the weekend at RAF Fairford was particularly warm. Couple in the large lumps of concrete and tarmac that make up a runway, and it really isn't any surprise.
Overall, I was very impressed with the lens. Would I buy it to replace my 100-300? Possibly, but only if I was sure I'd get the use out of it - a couple of airshows a year tops doesn't really factor into a positive cost/reward calculation!
Conclusion
RIAT was a trial-by-fire for both the Lumix G9 and myself. The only moving subjects I'd given the camera previously had been my almost-two-year-old son, and a few gulls on the cliffs of Saltdean. This truly was a test of the camera and my skills.
The G9 performed very well, as long as I set it up properly. I was a bit disappointed that continuous auto-focus and tracking didn't work as well as I'd hoped - there's possibly room for experimentation of the different settings. It is a very complex camera, with a myriad of settings hidden beneath a very easy to access menu system. I just need to work out how to get the best out of the huge array of automatic features...
My main concern, and one I'll raise elsewhere, was how the Dual IS2 reacted to my attempts to move the lens. This killed any attempt I had at smooth panning, and it speaks volumes that my images went from soft and almost-there, to pin-sharp and bang in the frame.
And finally, thank you if you've read this far! I know I warned you earlier in the post that this would be a long one, but I never expected it to go on this long... Reward yourself with another cuppa!
A word of warning - this is going to be a looooong post. Grab yourself a cup of tea and settle down...
I haven't been to an airshow, or at least shot aircraft flying since the Goodwood Revival in 2015, where they had a number of warbirds from the Second World War flying. My equipment back then was my trusty GH3 with the first-generation Lumix 100-300mm lens, and my GM5 with Lumix 14-140mm as backup. These performed well as a pair, allowing me to grab take off, landing, and formation shots with the surprisingly-capable GM5, and the longer, single aircraft detail shots with the GH3.
At the time, AF-S was used on both cameras, as I didn't trust the reliability of the continuous auto-focus offered by either - bare in mind that at this point, Panasonic had yet to introduce their Depth from Defocus technology to assist with continuous AF from a contrast-detect-based focusing system.
Then shutter-priority was set, with a shutter-speed of 1/320 to get some blurred propellers and blurred-background on panning shots.
Fast forward three years to 2018, and I have the top-of-the-range Lumix G9, whose auto-focus and tracking abilities are somewhat improved over the existing technology, and I rented the premium Panasonic Leica 100-400mm lens. I also took my GH4 with me as backup, whose sensor had never had a chance to catch an airshow before.
What I aim to do with this post is explain the settings I used as I progressed through the day, the challenges I faced, and how both the G9 and PL100-400mm acted. I managed to capture some amazing shots on the day, but there were a number of concerns I had as well.
Auto-focus performance and tracking
The first thing I did with the G9 was set it to AF-C, then delve into the menu to set up the tracking type (note: the text below comes directly from the camera monitor):
- Set 1 - versatile and basic setting
- Set 2 - for subjects that go in one direction and move at the constant speed
- Set 3 - continue to track the subjects, ignoring possible obstacles
- Set 4 - for subjects that change speed and move unpredictably
The first aeroplanes I was able to try theses settings on were the Patrulla Aguila, the Spanish Air Force's display team made up of seven CASA C-101 Aviojet trainers. Getting both individual jets and groups in shot was relatively simple, the big EVF on the G9 resolving some amazing detail from the jets even against a bright sky.
Focus seemed to lock, and tracked rather successfully. But reviewing the images showed that the initial focus wasn't bang on - and so the tracked images also had a similar out of focus quality to them.
I moved to Set 2 (with the associated tweaks to all settings) for the next demonstration - a French Air Force Rafale. This was a lot harder to keep in the frame at long zoom ranges, the single jet being thrown around the sky to show off its maneuverability. Again, tracking seemed to exhibit the same slightly out-of-focus character, and I'm not 100% happy with any of the solo-Rafale shots I got.
Panning and stabilisation.
I began to suspect that it may not be the auto-focus or tracking that was the issue, that maybe there was something off with the stabilisation. The G9 has one of the best in-body stabilisation systems on the market, and with the addition of the right lenses, can utilise both the in-lens and in-body stabilisation to achieve a seemingly impossible 6.5 stops of stabilisation.
In advance of the show, I'd set the camera's stabilisation to the panning mode, whereby the stabiliser only works on up-down movements, and give you free rein on lateral movements. This means that, in principle, the camera isn't second-guessing you as you move across with the subject.
However, what I saw at RIAT was a camera intent on getting a stable image, even with the panning mode engaged. This meant that whenever I tried to pan, the image would judder and appear sluggish to catch up with the subject that I was attempting to keep in-frame.
Conscious that this was not only my first airshow in three years, so my panning technique may be somewhat sloppy, but also that I was shooting with a 200-800mm equivalent lens, I was quite reluctant to disengage the stabilisation. But that is exactly what I did, and I was instantly rewarded with images that were crisper than the ones that preceded them.
Turns out that my panning technique hadn't diminished as much over the years as I'd thought.
AFS/AFF versus AFC
I stuck with the continuous-AF and tracking mode through the next two displays - a Finnish NH90 helicopter and the Italian Air Force's Frecce Tricolori display team. But prior to the "Solo Turk" F-16 taking off, I switched the focus-mode dial to AFS/AFF. Remembering a chat I'd had with a friend who bought his brand-new Lumix GX9 to the show, I once again went into the menus and set the camera up for Auto Focus Flexible.
The difference between AFS and AFF is thus:
- AFS - Focus is set automatically when the shutter button is pressed halfway. Focus will be fixed while it is pressed halfway
- AFF - Focusing is performed automatically when the shutter button is pressed halfway. If the subject moves while the shutter button is pressed halfway, the focus is corrected to match the movement automatically.
You've got to bear in mind with airshows; aeroplanes are not slow things, and in the time it takes you to grab focus and fully-depress the shutter, they have covered a considerable distance.
I kept refocusing after two or three burst shots to ensure that a new focus was acquired, and again this made a big difference - I was seeing more and more shots in-focus.
Memory cards, and the need for fast writes
The G9 supports UHS-II capable SD cards (two at a time in fact), and so I knew before I went to RIAT that I'd need some fast cards with me to keep up with both the capabilities of the camera and the action I was shooting - the burst speeds on the G9 are quite remarkable! Despite setting Burst Mode I to M (which gives 7fps in all AF modes), I took more than 130 shots of the first display (I deleted some, so unsure of the true figure). I'd bought two Sony 32GB UHS-II cards with me, and within a only a few displays, I'd burnt through one of them.
Read and write speeds are very impressive with the Sony cards. Reviewed images appear instantly when pressing the button, and the buffer clears almost as fast as it fills. I highly recommend these cards for anyone that needs the performance.
I'd put a Lexar 128GB UHS-II card in my backup GH4, so I put that into the G9 once the first Sony 32GB was at capacity. It is well known that this particular Lexar card states UHS-II, but never achieves those speeds. I did worry that this would be a bottleneck at the airshow, that I'd be wringing my hands while the buffer slowly emptied to allow me to take more shots.
However, this was not the case at all. What I found in practice was that I'd take shots of passing aircraft, and then they'd be ample write-time before the plane came back around for the next round of shots, and so my fears were unfounded - the Lexar was fast enough.
Fast jets, helicopters, apertures and shutter speeds.
Before I get onto my conclusions around the lens and camera, I thought I'd briefly talk about the various non-camera specific settings I used.
An airshow such as the Air Tattoo has a huge variety of aircraft on display, and not all aircraft are shot with the same settings. You can, of course, but you'll either find it more challenging that it needs to be for some subjects, or the result will not be as desired. Slower aircraft require different settings to faster ones, and below is how I set both cameras up:
- Fast jets - aperture-priority, f/7.1, ISO400
This meant that I got a variable but routinely fast shutter-speed, useful for capturing fast-moving aeroplanes with few moving parts. In addition, the aperture selected meant I was never shooting wide-open at the long-end - some lenses need to be stopped down for the best sharpness. - Propeller planes - shutter-priority, 1/250 to 1/320, ISO100 to 200
This allowed blurred propellers, speed altered depending on subject. The ISO also changed depending on how high I was seeing the aperture get, though an ND filtered helped. - Helicopters - shutter-priority, 1/250, ISO100 to 200
Again, this allowed for blurred rotors, but no higher than 1/250. ISO changed depending on aperture.
The Panasonic Leica 100-400mm lens
I hired this lens (two actually) from Hireacamera specifically for RIAT - I didn't feel my old Lumix 100-300mm would fare too well, knowing that it would slow-down any continuous-burst-shooting I would be doing.
The lens is very well-built, as you'd expect from a premium lens. Quality plastics, a metal mount. Both the zoom ring and focus ring turn just right, the latter almost feeling like true a manual focus rather than focus by wire. One thing to note is that the zoom ring on both copies felt quite gritty, but I expect this is due to prior hire use rather than how the lens comes out of the box.
There is a third ring between the two which can be used to lock the focus range at a specific point. You have to make sure this has fully engaged in "Unlocked", otherwise you end up with much more resistance in the zoom ring than you want.
Switches! This lens has three of them! All operate with a very satisfying click - you definitely know when you've moved one. The PL100-400mm has a switch to switch on/off the OIS (which actually disables all IS, both lens and body), and a switch to go straight into manual-focus.
The third is possibly the most helpful for airshows - focus-limiter. This allows you to limit the focus range to 5m-infinity, meaning that the lens doesn't have to rack the focus from near-to-far quite as much.
The lens also includes a built in lens-hood that covers about half an inch of the front element, but is also supplied with a nice and deep plastic hood to screw onto the end.
A tripod-mount and collar is also built-in - the actual mount can be removed (which I did, as it got in the way of a stable grip for panning and zooming), and the collar can be rotated ninety degrees and locked.
In use, the PL100-400mm focused very snappily, with very little hunting. Whether this was due to the focus-limiter or the G9 it was attached to, I cannot say. The OIS in the lens worked well to give a stable image for static subjects, though absolutely scuppered any attempts at a smooth pan - as I alluded to earlier in the post.
Image quality was very good, certainly better than my ancient 100-300mm. However, there were a number of shots where I thought the camera hadn't focused properly on the subject. Reviewing these images back home instead showed the true culprit - heat haze. Shooting anything at a distance runs the risk of having increased atmospheric interference, and the weekend at RAF Fairford was particularly warm. Couple in the large lumps of concrete and tarmac that make up a runway, and it really isn't any surprise.
Overall, I was very impressed with the lens. Would I buy it to replace my 100-300? Possibly, but only if I was sure I'd get the use out of it - a couple of airshows a year tops doesn't really factor into a positive cost/reward calculation!
Conclusion
RIAT was a trial-by-fire for both the Lumix G9 and myself. The only moving subjects I'd given the camera previously had been my almost-two-year-old son, and a few gulls on the cliffs of Saltdean. This truly was a test of the camera and my skills.
The G9 performed very well, as long as I set it up properly. I was a bit disappointed that continuous auto-focus and tracking didn't work as well as I'd hoped - there's possibly room for experimentation of the different settings. It is a very complex camera, with a myriad of settings hidden beneath a very easy to access menu system. I just need to work out how to get the best out of the huge array of automatic features...
My main concern, and one I'll raise elsewhere, was how the Dual IS2 reacted to my attempts to move the lens. This killed any attempt I had at smooth panning, and it speaks volumes that my images went from soft and almost-there, to pin-sharp and bang in the frame.
And finally, thank you if you've read this far! I know I warned you earlier in the post that this would be a long one, but I never expected it to go on this long... Reward yourself with another cuppa!
Thanks Paul,
ReplyDeletevery useful observations. I've been practicing with the G9 / 100-400 combo for a while now, mostly on birds. I'll try turning off OIS on the lens for BIF as I'm really unhappy with those. (I did not know this would turn off all IS)
No worries, and thanks for reading! I'm always happy if I can provide some useful information for others to utilise.
DeleteYes, the Dual IS scuppered some earlier shots for me. It really was a huge learning opportunity on the day.