Lessons Learned
AirVenture Air Show
Oshkosh, WI
August 9, 2003
The recent AirVenture air show
and convention at Osh Kosh, WI provided 5 days of demanding photographic shooting conditions. These included:
Fast moving airplanes some at close distances
Bright sunlight outdoors to near dark conditions inside and at night
Lack of time to do an ideal set up for shots and
Unpredictable rain.
Equipment
AirVenture was a good news bad news story. The good news was the rich selection of gear and many fantastic shots. The bad news – carrying 4 camera bodies, between the two of us, was difficult. In the larger context it was an opportunity to compare Fuji and Nikon lenses directly against the Canon 10D with Canon lenses.
Camera Set Up
The following was used:
Continuous shooting
Auto WB
AutoFocus – AI Focus with Canon, with some manual focus on Canon
Exposure was varied to match the lighting and image on the LCD display
Shooting modes: Mostly P with some Aperture preferred to get depth of focus
Shooting
Approximately 7,000 pictures were taken and on one day over 2,600, a record. Each evening the images were downloaded, reviewed and adjustments made in the plan for the next day.
Observations
Snap
In shooting in South America and Africa some images had a certain quality which I have come to label as “snap.” When one sees such an image it just leaps out of the screen. This was first noticed when shooting with the Nikkor 500mm lens which turned out more than any other. In spite of the fact that images on the Toshiba 6100 notebook would be at ½ the horizontal resolution one could easily recognize the images with this quality. Then in ThumbsPlus, using the maximum resolution mode, i.e., a screen pixel is a sensor pixel, the image quality was obvious.
It might be said that these images are what professionals call “technically perfect” with all the key parameters right on: exposure, white balance, focus and composition. Only time will tell if my criteria of snap will meet the excellence criteria of a professional.
Good Images Per Total Images
This is our usual metric for pictures taken and we view that our command of the camera and lens is good when this ratio is 80% and above.
We have gotten comments that this ratio would mean more if the criteria for Good Images was much higher such as the ones printed. Yet, it is my intent for this ratio to illustrate technical accomplishment of an acceptable image rather than how it gets used.
Lessons Learned
Key Camera and Lens Comparison
In taking air show shots here are my rankings in a 10 point scale.
Fuji S2 500mm Nikkor 8
Fuji S2 80 – 400mm Nikkor 6
Canon 10D 100 – 400mm Canon 4
Canon 10D 400mm Canon 2Assessment
The 500mm Nikkor images consistently had the snap quality. Some are fantastic.
The lens is a total pain to carry and shoot with, yet, the quality is consistent.
The experience at AirVenture confirms what was experienced before but cemented in side by side shots. What is amazing about this lens is that autofocus was not an issue in spite of not being a VR (vibration reduction) lens.
The shots taken were about 50 – 50 on the Wimberley. With fixed to slow moving planes the Wimberley mount worked well. The major drawback is that I could not stand due to crowd view blockage – we were on the first row the day I shot with the 500mm lens. Thus, the camera and lens would rock about one or more of the tripod legs as I sought the right vantage and composition. The rest of the time I would hand hold the lens and camera. In this mode a “focus track” technique would be used with the object. That is, find the aircraft in the viewfinder, focus and follow it. This technique was found very effective when shooting birds in flight. The problems of shooting here is virtually identical.
The 80 – 400mm Nikkor zoom turned out excellent results. It was good but did not have the consistent excellent image quality of the 500mm.
Given the varied shooting conditions due to the focal length range the VR capabilities appeared to make a difference.
Because this was a much easier lens to carry and its versatility it was used as much as 10X the 500mm lens. This lens was used every day while the 500mm lens was used only one day of the five.
The Canon 10D and 100 – 400mm lens (IS) combination was nearly identical in features as the Fuji Nikkor set above, yet, the performance much less so.
A major limitation was that one would think that the image was in focus when shooting but it was not so. There is no focus tracking capability in the same way as the Nikkor. This may in fact be happening but the image quality was just not there. One does not have the positive lock on capability. It might appear that the image was in focus but due to vibration, image quality or focus the end result was much less than the Nikkor lens.
Good Images/Total Images – 60%
The Canon 10D and 400mm (non-IS) was a major disappointment.
Luminous Landscape has praised this lens as much superior to the Canon 100 – 400mm Zoom. There are indications that this is the case. A few of the shots were at or near the snap quality. Thus, under less demanding conditions, such as nature or landscape photography, the 400mm lens could do very well. However, due to either motion or focus, high quality pictures happened infrequently. This may be part due to technique also. We only spent 2 days with the lens and did not try and optimize its performance. For example, there may be techniques to get it to focus more frequently. Given the focus difficulties we did not spend time seeking to develop techniques for “focus track” described above.
Good Images/Total Images – 30%
On the first day we attached a 2X teleconverter to make this a 800mm lens. Given the low light we ended up doing manual focus. This did not work. There was also not time or hands to track an object, focus and shoot.
Firing Speed
The Canon 10D is much better in this regard than the Fuji S2. However, these cameras are still not fast enough for these conditions. There were multiple stunts where aircraft would fly within 10’ of the ground a clip a suspended banner. We just could not get a picture with this happening. Part of this is technique and luck, yet, any hint of shuttle lag made it much more difficult.
The buffer on the Canon 10D was much appreciated. There were many times that pictures were taken continuously until the buffer filled.
White Balance
If there is a condition that would not create White Balance problems this should be it. The Canon worked well here, compared to its poor performance with varied color temperature illumination.
Exposure
Both the Fuji S2 and the Canon 10D shot hot – over exposed. However, as we have seen before, the Canon 10D had the greatest variation in off exposures – some to as high as 2 stops.
Battery Life
Canon rules here. We carried 10+ batteries and each camera used 2. Never once did the camera run down the battery. We just swapped out each evening.
Storage Media
In spite of carrying 5GB of storage media on our heavy shooting day, Saturday, we ran out. The new 4GB Microdrives would have been very useful.
Ease of Len Switches being Flipped
We noted how easy it was for the switches on the Canon lenses to get flipped. On more than one occasion the camera came out of the bag with AF shifted to MF.
Canon 100mm Macro
Used briefly. Excellent. Should have used more to get a better sense for the image quality.
Observations
Maximum Pixels on the Object
Rule – Make Every Pixel Count
One of the strong points of digital imaging is the ease with which images can be rotated and cropped, with the latter being the most important. Often a poorly positioned image can be made to look very different with a crop. Yet, this can create a false assurance. The major loss is resolution. If there is the slightest lowering of image quality from the snap criteria above the image can significantly degrade based on the pixel density of the crop.
There are only two means to address this:
1) More sensor resolution (assuming it is adequately captured by the lens),
This is why the 12mp sensors are so important – they match what should be the native resolution of the best lenses. Nikon unfortunately is going in the wrong direction with the DX lenses. They are making lenses with poorer performance to match the size of the sensor. Given what we have learned at 6mp and the experience of those with the Canon 1Ds Nikon’s argument is vacuous.
2) Improve the composition to have the primary object occupy more of the frame or all of it.
Here is where our rule above enters. However, as we saw at AirVenture this is hard to do with moving aircraft – just like birds in flight. One is forced to take what one gets.
Zoom lenses play a large role in this latter approach. Note that another trade comes into play. If the zoom lens lacks in quality the gain in object coverage may be offset by the inherent lower quality of the lens. In the case of the 500mm lens above one can only frame based on the projection of the image area onto the object.
This is all a part of a continual compromise between:
Lens performance;
Shooting conditions including object movement;
Ability to cover the object when shooting with maximum resolution.
Look Forward
The length of time we typically own a camera is less than 12 months. If there is a better solution, such as a Fuji S3 and highly unlikely full frame Nikon, we would leap at the opportunity. The decision to go with Canon was an important one in that the 10D is a transient camera – here today and gone tomorrow. The significant part of this decision was the investment in lenses. As harsh as this report is we believe there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the lenses but the autofocus system Canon uses in the camera. As this report outlines, a more fair test of this premise would be with the 400mm lens in less demanding conditions. Thus, as many of our experiences as reported in these lessons learned, is just that – learning. A photographer with more experience with Canon could well do better.
Canon has come under harsh criticism in the on-line forums for the 10D’s focus. We cannot say if the AirVenture experience supports this. We do know that the 10D focus performance is much less that one would expect from the camera and lenses of this caliber.
If there is a near term bottom line it is:
Pick the lens which best matches the shooting conditions.
Rather obvious but not always easy to do.
Updated on {8/13/03
