Photographing an Airshow
In the past, I've written about action photography in general and even how to capture water balloons as they're being popped. If freezing a moment in time is the ultimate goal of photography, then stopping a high-speed airplane as it zooms past at hundreds of miles an hour is surely one of the most exciting ways to use your digital camera. And this is the season for it: Summer is chock full of airshows at municipal airports and military bases across the country.
This week I've gathered up a summer's worth of photographs I've taken at airshows and put the best of them into a slide show. Head over to "What You Need to Know to Photograph an Airshow" to learn how to capture aerial acrobatics on your own.
Hot Pic of the Week
Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and technique.
Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.
This Week's Hot Pic: "Air and Water," by Lyndon Johnson, Chicago
Lyndon created this photo by combining two very different images. One was a 10-second time exposure panoramic photo of the fountains, and the other was a shot of an airplane taken with a fast shutter speed and 20mm zoom lens.
Lyndon writes: "I first stitched the panorama using Paint Shop Pro, and then I integrated the other shot using layers in blend mode. Actually, I did that twice--it's the same aircraft, added twice in separate layers. I used a total of three layers in Paint Shop Pro to complete the final image."
This Week's Runner-Up: "Looking up at the Wild Blue Yonder" by Marie Carbonaro, Neptune, New Jersey
Marie took this photo with her Panasonic DMC-FZ18 at the Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach, California.
To see last month's Hot Pics, visit our slide show. Visit our Flickr gallery to browse past winners.
Have a digital photo question? Send me your comments, questions, and suggestions about the newsletter itself. And be sure to sign up to have Digital Focus e-mailed to you each week.
Dave Johnson, PC World
