Page 22 - Cape-Camera-October-2023

Cape Camera October 2023

Shooting at 324mm at 1000th sec.
Photographing air shows

A great outing for clubs and families

Air shows are not only fun to attend, but also offer excellent

photographic opportunities, reports DAVE GORDON. He provides

some useful tips on how to capture the best shots at air shows.

Air shows provide a great day out for families and pho- put on by our Gauteng cousins, let alone international
tographers. There are many opportunities to practice events, the others cannot compete with the West Coast
panning in different circumstances. You don’t have to spirit. Lots of pop-up stalls where you could buy any-
be an aircraft buff, or even a photographer, to find an thing from oysters, slap chips, bubble gum and Eskimo
air show an interesting and thrilling experience. There Pie, to a new house on the beach. An entertaining and
is plenty of space for all to see, including tripodic pho- very informative commentary played over an excellent
tographers. public address system. The kids had plenty of safe space
With this in mind, my wife Barbara, our Cape Town fam- to play in and soon made friends. A real happy buzz.
ily, and I, arrived at Saldanha airport for the West Coast We enjoyed demonstrations of helicopter rescues, guys
2023 Airshow ... to find that low clouds had resulted in free-falling from aircraft, gyrocopters, thrilling stunts by
the cancellation of some displays. a Silver Falon, and more.
The weather improved and the show went on. While our The show was, however, stolen by a fighter jet taking
local air show may not be in the same league as those off (very noisy), several fly passes (very, very, noisy) and

Captured at 1000th sec (cropped). My shutterspeed was a bit too fast: 400mm at 250th sec.

22 Cape Town Photographic Society