Wings Over Atlanta Video | davem photography

As promised, here's the slideshow along with some video I shot before the Blue Angels took to the sky. Video is a little shaky and I did do some image stabilization in post production, so it's a little better.

I also did some color grading to the video to enhance the quality. In photography it's called color correction, in video, it's color grading.

I'll get into more of the camera settings after the jump for those interested.


I had some questions about camera settings. I started off shooting ISO 100, shutter speed at 1/400. Since I was shooting in Shutter Priority, I  could easily increase shutter speed to freeze the action. Following these planes at high speed is difficult, especially handheld using a 70-200 mm lens. When the Blue Angels demonstrated their speed, it was especially difficult to follow them and grab a nice shot. Fortunately they do a photographer friendly show and slow down enough to grab some nice shots.

I increased the ISO to 400 so that I could also increase the shutter speed. Hoping for increased sharpness. I was able to grab 2 similar shots for comparison. Below are the shots. Can you tell which was shot at a higher shutter speed?

Here's a zoomed in version showing more detail.

Left - ISO 400, 1/2000, ƒ/5.6                                                Right - ISO 100, 1/640. ƒ/3.2

I'm surprised at the results. The slower shutter speed is actually sharper than the higher shutter speed. Shooting at ISO 400 introduced some noise, that could be removed with some noise reduction and would not even be noticeable when printed or even enlarged. So faster shutter speed and greater depth of field do not necessarily generate sharper images. In this instance it may have been that the plane was flying slower in the right photo and I may have been better in following the plane (can't remember after a full day of shooting).

By the way, I typically shoot with "Spot" metering, this time I switched to "Center Weighted"(partial) metering. I also took advantage of the advance auto focusing system on the 7D while shooting "AI Servo". Overall, great results. Hope that answers your technical questions. Feel free to ask any questions I did not address.

If you're looking for a portrait photographer in the Atlanta area, visit my portfolio.