Air Acrobats
Negative Gs, as they’re known - that would be a very off putting sensation, especially the first time you experience it. It takes a person with no sense of fear, an incredibly strong stomach, and unbelievable concentration to fly a plane in loops and upside down. Very impressive to watch, and just a little tricky to capture in a photograph!
Standing in 31 degree celcius (which is almost 88 degrees Fahrenheit) heat, in full sun, holding a black camera was enough of a ‘challenge’. Then, with my 90-300mm lens on the end of my camera I was trying to take a sharp photo of a plane flipping and dipping like it was a piece of paper bending in the wind.
Needless to say I took quite a few photos in order to get a selection of sharp images. I decided to put my camera in Av mode - at f5.6, to give me the fastest possible shutter speed. Typically, it meant the shutter speed was about 1/1000, but as the planes were moving at speed, and I had to move with them to get the photo, it meant getting a sharp image was still difficult.
Trying to find those little dots in the sky was often difficult, and getting them at the exact moment I wanted was sometimes just luck. Thankfully, there was commentary going on over a big PA system, telling the audience what the pilot was about to do, so it usually gave me a 10 second headstart.
The colours of the planes were great for photography - they stood out against the cloudless blue sky. Altogether it was great fun, and definitely a photographic challenge!