1).Sigma 70mm-300mm F4 to F5.6 (this means that it is "F4" at it's minimum distance of 70mm and is "F5.6" when extended to it's maximum of 300mm)
I use this one mainly for shooting aircraft which are at least 110mm to 120mm distant up to the full 300mm although it isn't often that I will use the full 300mm unless it is something a little unusual as the sharpness of the photo is slightly reduced at longer distances. For things less than 110mm I like to use my 35mm-135mm lense.
2).Nikon 35mm-135mm F3.5 to F4.
This is the one that I use more than the others as it has better specs in lense quality than my 70mm-300mm and it is easier to use for closer items because it has a spread of only 100mm rather than the spread of 230mm that the 70mm-300mm zoom has, also most taxiers at Glasgow are between 50mm and 80mm so it is my favourite lense.
3).Nikon 28mm-70mm F3.5 to F4.5
This is my smallest zoom that I use for shooting large aircraft if I am quite close to them,I deliberately bought a short zoom with a small diameter lense and this one is only 42 millimeters across the middle so it comes in very handy for shooting through fence wire which we all know is a pain and this is the easy way to get around it.
You will see lots of short zooms and personally I would definately recommend buying a small diameter one, it's amazing when you have one of these how often you can get a clear shot without fence wire showing when others can only stand and watch as their lense is too wide to avoid getting those nasty dark corners of fence wire in the shot.
4).Nikon 80mm-200mm F4.5 to F5.6
This one is a particular favourite of mine and I only use it for shooting through fences for aircraft that are further out so the 200mm comes in very handy, after using my 28-70mm lense I quickly realised how useful a small diameter lense can be so the next logical step was to get another to give me a much longer focal length than the short 70mm one and after a few weeks I managed to track down one which is only 37 millimeters across it's diameter.
It is this lense that I use to shoot between the 2" square mesh next to the blast fence and the slightly wider green diamond shaped fence wire at Glasgow and with careful placement I can easily avoid any wire showing in my shots, the following shots below were all taken with this very handy lense.
Using My Camera
In general I find it best to use shutter speeds rather than setting the Aperture to say F9.5 and letting the camera choose the shutter speed.When using an Aperture setting the problem can be that you get a sun highlight on what you are shooting and the camera will compensate for this and select a faster shutter speeds which results in a much darker photo than you would want.
If the weather is dull I will usually set to a 1/125th of a second for taxiing aircraft provided that they are not going too fast. Recently at Glasgow there were two Fokker 28's from the Ivory Coast that night stopped and left the following morning when the light was particularly bad (15th March 2002) and with these I had selected a 1/125th on my F80 but noticed that the first one was taxiing quite slowly so I altered to a 1/90th just before it passed me to help give my shots that little bit more brightness so even though the light was poor I managed some reasonable shots of these very rare visitors and both are included in the photopages.
Autofocus or Manual Focus
The Autofocus abilities of my Nikon F80 & F90 cameras are good so I have confidence in selecting Autofocus for general use but if I am going to shoot something special that is moving I roughly set the distance on the lense that I expect it to be and press Autofocus to get it sharp then I knock the Autofocus off and get ready to shoot manually.
I take no chances when shooting special things on the move and always go for Manual focus just in case I have any problems on Aurtofocus which can sometimes be caused by white paint schemes and nose wheel lights, also on Manual focus a camera will generally take twice as many photos as it would on Autofocus so this is the best option to multi-shoot aircraft.
Having a Backup Camera
Having a backup camera is handy in situations where you are unsure of what lense to use on your main one and this allows you to put a different sized lense on the backup so it is then just a matter of putting down one and picking up the other if it is required, it is also useful to have the backup if you are coming close to the end of a roll of film in your main one and some special aircraft appears for you to shoot.
Another reason for having a backup is to take two cameras with you when going on holiday as a precaution against a malfunction or damage,there could be nothing worse than having a faulty camera on the first day of your two week summer break so in due course a second camera is something that can be very useful to have.
page.