Riding in the back of a bucking and weaving aeroplane, one tends to learn fast! Turbulence and the g-force created by very un-SAA like banking maneuvers make life difficult for a first time air to air aviation photographer.

Should the opportunity of shooting one aircraft from another ever present itself, try these tips.

1. Turbulence is not your friend. Every time you lift the camera to take a shot and the aircraft hits a bump and recovers the g-force almost doubles the camera’s weight! 100-400mm zooms are heavy enough as is and I have wonderful shots of the ground. A lighter setup is a must and I’m told that Canon’s 24-105 L/IS lens is a good choice.

2. Shutter speed is critical. Props on prop driven aircraft need to show blur to indicate movement and dynamism. Prop movement shows from shutter speeds below about 1/350th of a second, the slower the shutter speed the more the movement. Helicopters and radial engined aircraft need even lower shutter speeds to show movement. Tripods do not work well in an open aircraft at any time not to mention during turbulence and all shots need to be handheld. Image stabilizer and practice are critical. During my turn in the back the De Havilland Vampire was my subject. The Vamp has no props and faster shutter speeds can be selected to help limit motion blur.

3. Beware of your background. This helps show the aircraft against a nice backdrop. I paid no attention to this and I was lucky with my final shots.

4. Set the focus point for the area in the frame you would like to place the subject. There is lots of contrast on the ground below and your camera will hunt for focus.

5. Unless the subject gets really close you will have difficulty with focusing. Good luck with keeping your focus points on the subject! Any function on your camera that changes the focus to track a moving subject will work. Like AI servo on Canon SLR´s.

6. Take photos of landmarks from the air. You are there and if you happen to be over well known landmarks or nice scenery take some shots while the aircraft are positioning for the next run.You have an unobstructed view, use it.

7. Metering can be tricky and it seems that in the case of Canon cameras at least, Evaluative or Partial metering will do the job. Spot metering may be more accurate but remember our good friend turbulence and keeping the subject in the metering area. I can unashamedly say that the shutter priority (Tv) saved me on this flight, there was simply no time to fiddle with exposure settings.

 So without further delay, here they are!