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Newbie needs help with Concorde/Fairford

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  • Newbie needs help with Concorde/Fairford

    Hi!

    I'm a newbie here but I thought I'd post a question, as everyone seems very helpful! One of my hobbies is astrophotography and to this end I have an Olympus OM-1 with 50, 100 and 100-200 zoom lenses, I've only started this in last few months and my experience in photography upto then has been mainly with automatic or digital cameras and then using it
    with my F-1540mm scope (Orion starmax 127mm)

    Any way back to my question! Every year I make the pilgrimage to Fairford and this time I wanted to take my OM-1 to try taking some shots, however I find myself in unfamiliar territory, obviously you don't need to spend an hour making sure your tripod or mount is perfectly polar aligned! I appreciate for fast moving shots a fast shutter speed is needed but for taking shots of fast moving aircraft what sort of settings are generally recommended for a manual camera?

    Any tips would be greatly appreciated, in particular I'm hoping that I'll be able to find a general setting for focus, F-stop, shutter speed and only have to adjust one to tweak the exposure for that particular shot.

    BTW once while shooting the moon a 747 passed right in front of it making a gorgeous silhouette. I'm hoping to try something like that with Concorde I live under Heathrow flight path so experience it regularly, has anyone done this? Thought I might title it "caught between the moon and New York City" a bit cheesy i know

    I’ve been taking some practice shots of Concorde flying over my house and to be honest they’ve all came out fairly terrible, perhaps someone could point out the major flaws or at least the worse one! The shot below, was taken using off the shelf Fujifilm superia 400 with a 200mm zoom lens





    Kindest Regards

    George

  • #2
    Seems like you would need at least a 300mm with 2x teleconverter to get anything acceptable from where you are, but if youre able to catch the concorde with telescope, flying across the moon, youve got a 1 in a million shot. As far as i can see the concorde isnt at such high altitude yet when its over your house? Well, try a teleconverter, and camera settings, if you have a modern slr, use the matrix metering, i trust my F100, to 100%. Never misses an exposure =)

    And also, use Reala 100 if youre gonna shoot printfilm, or Velvia/Astia/Provia for slide film. 200 is too grainy =). Kodak e100G and GX also have excellent grain!

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    • #3
      Hi Chris,

      Thanks for your tips, The concorde shot through my telescope would be taken with my Canon Ixus 400, the only time I use my Olympus OM-1 is for wide field shots of constellations (the stars not the aircraft!) and very long exposures but to be honest I may abandon that idea and simply try for any aircraft passing the moon

      I wanted to take my OM-1 to Fairford because I feel I can be more creative with the equipment but am handicapped because it is a 100% manual camera, which is why I asked for tips on exposure. IF anyone else who uses film can suggest any other tips I’d be very grateful.

      As recommended I ordered some Reala 100 for Fairford and have been practicing on Concorde most evenings. One shot I took was a straight on underneath shot with a 200mm lens…it filled the whole frame. I just hope it comes out ok!

      BTW my usual supplier of ink supplies Reala film for £2.30 (36exp) which seemed like a good deal…





      Cheers!

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