Through The Lens

Is this something you do as a hobby or is it a commercial operation for you?

Aircraft photography is in the most part only a hobby for me, although just last month I did sell my first ever photo to one of the pilots of an aircraft that I had photographed.

Tell us about your best ever day shooting.

Saturday 23rd November 2019. A group of friends and I got the first flight of the day at 6am from Adelaide to Sydney, spent the full day spotting there before getting on a Qantas Boeing 747-400ER back home around 6pm that night, prior to it doing a sight-seeing flight to Antarctica the following day. This was actually the final ever time that a Qantas 747 flew to Adelaide. It was a truly wonderful day, with some great friends shooting a wide selection of aircraft and airlines. Unfortunately, the weather was overcast all day but there’s just some things you can’t control.

You’ve got to choose your best shot ever. What is it and why?

My photo of a South African Airways Airbus A340-300 climbing out of Perth in March 2020. Taking full advantage of a Qantas Double Status Promotion, I planned a spotting trip to Perth & Sydney. Luckily I managed it just in time as 3 days after I returned home, COVID-19 halted flying all around the country and the world as we knew it changed almost overnight. As I was standing at that well known Perth public viewing platform, as soon as I saw the heavy 4 engine A340 rolling down the runway, I knew this shot was going to be special. To the north of the airfield behind me, bright sunshine was splitting the sky, however looking to the south, the weather couldn’t have been more different. There was a massive storm front passing over the Jandakot area and the sky was, quite frankly, black. The result was, quite frankly, one of the greatest photos I’ve ever taken, and is still the most ‘liked’ on my Instagram account over a year later.

What’s your best tip for anyone starting out in aviation photography?

When starting out, get a cheap entry level DSLR and buy a more expensive lens. There is no point spending all of your money on a top of the range camera if you don’t have any left over to purchase a decent lens. I’d also recommend practicing as often as possible. Practice won’t quite make you perfect, but it will certainly improve you. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, the best aviation photographers make them too, just try your best to learn from them. I highly recommend asking for advice from other photographers.

Tell us about your gear.

Back in 2012, I purchased my first ever DSLR, which was a Nikon D5100. In late 2014, I sold all my Nikkon gear and moved to Canon. Since then, I have purchased a Canon 80D body, along with the Canon 600D I purchased when I switched to Canon. My lens collection is regularly expanding. At the time of writing, it consists of a 100-400mm MKII, 70-200mm 2.8 IS MKi. 18-200mm and 10-22mm. My dream set up consists of the 100-400mm which I already own, complimented by a Canon 6DII, 5DIV, 16-35mm, 24-70mm 2.8 and a 70-200mm 2.8III. Sadly, I think I’ll need an OzLotto win to be able to afford that setup.

We’ve all got our own style; tell us about yours.

I like to try and get as many different angles of the aircraft as possible, as well as trying out several different spotting locations. Here in Adelaide, we’re lucky to have several different spotting areas and I am a huge fan of shooting in the golden hour.

Any quirks to how or what you shoot

My main focus when shooting is to capture as many different individual registrations as I can. I mainly shoot commercial aircraft and prefer taking photos of widebody jets.

We’ve all done it – missed the prefect shot. Tell us about the time you missed what could have been the best shot ever. What happened?

On my March 2020 I spoke about earlier on I flew from Melbourne – Perth on a Qantas Boeing 787-9 which wears a special Indigenous color scheme. I then spent the following two days spotting in Perth. I should’ve been able to spot the Dreamliner I flew on arriving back from London on the second day, however unfortunately it went tech in London and remained there for around 5 days. To add insult to injury, it would’ve been supposed to leave Perth for Melbourne at the same time as the South African A340.

What’s a day at an air show look like for you?

To date, I’ve only ever attended the one airshow, which was at RAAF Edinburgh in late 2019. As a result, I can learn from the mistakes I made that day and properly plan ahead. I now know to arrive very early, ideally prior to 7am, and I now intend to spend two days at each airshow, spending one inside where I can look at and photograph the aircraft on display and the other outside the airfield where I can photography aircraft that are doing flying displays.

Photo editing – love it or loath it?

Personally, I find editing a pain, however that is probably more down to my lack of knowledge with editing. I personally prefer to use Adobe Lightroom and will occasionally make minor adjustments in Adobe Photoshop, which usually consists of cloning out dust spots. The images which I share online are generally very similar to the original, I normally just straighten, crop, occasionally play around with blacks/whites and add sharpness.