Digiscoping and airshow photography
 

Has anyone tried this? I am tempted to do this rather than laying out for a digital slr to enable me to get closer to the aeroplanes. Also how does the telescope like optical zooming?
Or should i still upgrade to a digital slr? I currantly am using a Minolta Z2.

I was thinking of getting a Nikon d50 and a 80=300mm lens, would that be fine? Do jessops sell the atachements to mount a camera to a Telescope?

Ollie

If as they appear to be, aeroplanes are your main interest then I would forget digiscoping.

An SLR will certainly help to improve your photography. Moving planes with a scope will be very tricky.

Before anyone could make any comment on lenses you will have to give an idea of .......
Camera .... £
Lens .... £
Or total .... £

Will you be taking pictures at the same distances as those in your gallery or are you looking at aeroplanes in flight at longer distances?

Don

I am looking at Aeroplanes at greater distances. I cant get close enough with my currant camera. I have another camera i will use for ground photos.

Ollie, you will definately need an SLR with a long lens.

How much you want to spend will be the key question?

Don

Currantly im looking at £800. Im thinking a D50, comes with a 18-55 lens and then buying a 80-300mm lens for it.

Ollie,

I attended almost 20 airshows in 2005 and I never saw anyone digiscoping. Airshows tend to display small and/or fast aeroplanes so 300mm will be a minimum. Most of my photos taken at Old Warden in October were through a 200-400f4 with a 1.4TC giving 280-560mm f5.6 which is overkill but I did not find 280mm as a minimum a problem. A low cost and popular lens seen at airshows is the Sigma 50-500 or 170-500 costing approx £5-600 and if you want to be thrifty, try obtaining a used copy as you have until May before the season starts again.

Nikon have just launched the D200. I would imagine the used market would have some good examples of D50 and D70(s). I would avoid e-bay as I have only have bad experience but try Jessops/Jacobs/Mifsuds or Grays of Westminster who grade their used items and all allow haggling!

Why not place a wanted here, you might be surprised what comes of it.

I was going to go through jessops as i can get cash back for my Z2. I was looking at getting the sigma 70-300mm lens. Its only £114.99 from jessops. And aparently that works out more than the optical zoom on my z2.

Ollie,

I believe 400mm is average max zoom required for airshows considering 1.5X crop of a DSLR. Approx 2/5 use Sigma 50-500 or 170-500, try to avoid 'cheap' lenses as their optical quality is exactly that, instead buy thrifty on the used market be patient and haggle!

If you sold your Z2 privately it would go for much more, remember Jessops want to sell it on at a profit.

I may list it here actualy. I cant find any reasonable priced lenses over 300mm. I realy dont whant to pay more than £200 realy for a lens.
Also mainly attending old warden i find i dont need a huge lens. I do go to Duxford and other displays but there i tend to take more static, taxing and landing photos.

I agree 100% with Stephen, on looking at my last years images from airshows, I found most of them where in the 250-400mm range, but then most are cropped to approx 2/3rd original size

The attached photo was taken with the Bigma (Sigma 50-500mm) which in my opinion is an excellent lens, especially for shooting aircraft.

Sally B was taken at Waddington with a focal length of 313mm using the Bigma, then cropped to 2/3rd original size.

Harry