Canon EOS-1D Mark IV Sample Pictures

A late afternoon winter sun casts a warm light on my cute little Black-capped Chickadee subject. The White Pine branch was clamped to a hanging feeder.

A dog poses with her girl. Position your subject on the crest of a hill, use a long focal length lens set to a wide aperture and watch the background melt away. I didn't catch that she pulled her hat down (it was a very cold day), but I still like the shot.

When approaching your subject, consider all angles it can be shot at. A step ladder was used for this looking-down perspective.

A Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 Raptor stealth fighter plane races across the sky over the main viewing area at this air show.
 
A plain white sky is not my favorite background, but I like how contrasting/menancing the plane looks in this shot. Waper vapor forming over the wings and trailing the plane along with the orange glow behind the engines give this shot the something extra I was looking for.

Ball and player are captured in the air during this soccer action. The fast frame rate of the Canon EOS-1D Mark IV makes getting such shots relatively easy.

A young lady puts all of her force into a soccer ball. When you are using a DSLR that fires at 10 frames per second, it is easy to capture the perfect moment.

A Golden Retreiver runs at full speed in the shallow snow. If your subject is moving toward or away from you, AI Servo AF mode is usually necessary to keep the subject in focus. And if the subject is moving fast, a short shutter speed is another requirement (to prevent motion blur). The late day sun was very helpful with the latter requirement in this shot.

The soft lighting for this flower petal picture came from a large softbox. Manual focusing was used for this handheld (with IS) shot.

A girl winds up to give a soccer ball a hard kick. This photo was cropped. When using a fixed focal length lens, cropping is frequently needed for sports photos - because the action seldom remains at your optimal framing distance. A higher resolution image will hold up to cropping better than a lower resolution image - there will be more pixels remaining in the final image.

Asking the kids to run always brings out a great natural smile. Shooting at 10 frames per second always gives you great poses to choose from.

The United States Navy's aerobatic flight demonstration team, the Blue Angels, performs the Diamond 360 at the Andrews Airforce Base Joint Services Open House. In this formation, the wing tips are 18" from the canopies.
 
Air show photography tip: Because of the distance air show craft are typically performing at, even the widest apertures on most handholdable telephoto lenses will provide enough DOF to deliver an all-in-focus subject. More important may be to stop down the aperture enough to eliminate any vignetting that will be noticeable on an evenly-colored sky.

Shooting flowers almost feels like cheating. They are so beautiful that if you get the shot basics (lighting, composition, exposure and focus) right, the photo is always great. When shooting smooth colors at narrow apertures, sensor dust becomes very noticeable. Clean your sensor before shooting - and/or clone out the spots during post processing.
 
AI Servo focus mode and IS were used for this handheld shot. Lighting is from one studio strobe in a large softbox.

Gotta love 10 frames per second. If you do your job right, the biggest challenge becomes selecting the shot you like best. ISO 8000 and a wide open aperture yielded a barely-fast-enough shutter speed of 1/500 in this very dark venue.

A Golden Retriever blasts through the deep snow.

This young lady has one speed - as fast as she can go. I won't teach her to tuck until she is older. :)

The US Army Sky Soldiers Cobra Demonstration Team shows incredible synchronization in this picture. The bottom-most pilot will lose points for the slightly-off rear rotor position.
 
Important air show photography tip: Helicopters and prop planes in the air with their blades frozen sharp look unnatural to me - like they are going to fall from the sky. Use a shutter speed longer than 1/500 to give the blades some motion blur. The 1/250 shutter speed I was using with this 400mm lens resulted in a lot of motion-blurred shots, but I would rather have a few really good shots than a lot of OK shots.

When working with a subject, try different angles and focal lengths.
 
A relatively wide focal length and a close subject distance will cause the foreground to be emphasized. In this case, the rear quarter panel of the car appears larger relative to the rest of the vehicle (the front quarter panel for example) - because of the perspective of the close subject distance.

A young lady's foot meets a soccer ball at head level.

A closeup shot of pink flower petals.

While this university venue has very good lighting available, I cannot count on the lighting manager to always use all of that capability. An image stabilized f/2.8 is insurance for less-than-full lighting being provided. In this case, I was able to use ISO 640 and an f/4 aperture for a little more depth of field.

Stunt Pilot Greg Poe performs for the crowd.
 
Air show photography tip: Use the show smoke as part of your picture design. In this case, the smoke trail forms the entire top of the frame and then curves to a point 1/3 of the frame from the left and the bottom. The smoke trail leads the viewer's eye to the strongly contrasting plane.
 
Also note the motion-blurred prop. A 1/500 shutter speed was adequate for this shot.

Two soccer players battle for the ball during this soccer game. Having the ball and the face of the player you are interested in within the frame is generally desired in sports action photos. The opponent entering the frame, the out of focus keeper framed by the foreground subjects and the out of focus goal add to the image.

This ball is about to be launched at the goal. I don't remember if the shot was successful, but I like the wind up captured in this frame.

This B-17 Flying Fortress was part of the ground display at this particular air show.
 
Air show photography tip: Don't forget the ground displays. But with 100,000 people attending this air show, avoiding spectators in the pictures is challenging. As I was framing shots of this plane, a small kid reached up and put his finger into one of the gun barrels. Unfortunately, I was not quick enough with the shutter.
 
Shooting over the bystander's heads with telephoto focal lengths is one technique for shooting the ground displays. Add a little motion blur to the prop and it would look like the plane was in the air.

A just out of reach soccer ball sails past this soccer player. Having a short shutter lag (and/or fast frame rate) is critical for being able to capture shots such as this one.

A soccer player takes a shot on goal. This tightly-framed image captures the facial expressions and physical actions of the player.

The GEICO Skytypers Airshow Team flies 6 of the 11 SNJ-2 planes still in existence at this time.
 
Air show photography tip: Because there is no indication of horizon-level in many air show performance pictures, rotate your camera to best-frame the action.
 
This tip is especially helpful when shooting a group of planes at distances too close for level framing.

A pair of Blue Angels perform the spectacular Knife-Edge Pass in their F/A-18 Hornets.
 
Air show photography tip: The Blue Angel's and Thunderbird's opposing passes are really impressive to watch and very difficult to photograph. With a closing speed in the many hundreds of MPH, the exact moment of crossing is nearly impossible to predict if you are using a reasonably long telephoto lens.
 
A camera with a fast frame rate is a good solution to this problem. The Canon EOS-1D Mark IV shooting at 10 frames per second makes the hit rate about 75% for these shots.
 
Here I am tracking one jet and catching the other jet blurring past.

A member of the U.S. Army Golden Knights Parachute Team descends during a show.
 
Air show photography tip: When the sky is boring, fill the frame with your subject.

The US Army Sky Soldiers Cobra Demonstration Team performs at Andrews AFB.
 
Air show photography tip: I like the S curve into the frame made by the smoke from the right-most Cobra helicopter and how it is balanced by the other three smoke paths. I also like how the Cobras strongly-contrast the white smoke.

A significant amount of water vapor appears over this F-22 Raptor as the pilot lifts the nose upward.
 
Air show photography tip: Watch for water vapor forming when a pilot lifts the nose of a high speed aircraft upward .

Two upside down, two right side up. Impressive precision flying by the US Navy's Blue Angels.
 
Air show photography tip: Because many of these passes are made at low elevation, it is extremely helpful to have a front row (against the fence) shooting position. In this location, you will not have heads in your way as you swing with the action.

The US Navy Blue Angels fly in a tight diamond formation over Andrews AFB.
 
Air show photography tip: Jets fly fast and have no fast-moving visible parts (such as a propeller), so use a fast shutter speed to get sharp shots. Try to shoot at 1/1000 sec or faster and always pan with the aircraft.
 
Or get creative - try a panning motion-blur shot to show speed.
 
Notice the clouds framing the diamond formation.