For all you folks thinking about a D60.

[Applefanboy]

They're quite well composed, maybe a bit underexposed though.

 

[flyin-lowe]

I am a beginner and I think the shots look good. Reading the descriptions of the settings and the reasons why I would not consider him a beginner. I can understand the language but I don't think a beginner would go out the first day with a new camera and come up with those settings and get good shots.

Nice shoot though, it looks fun.

 

[Enough Already]

These shots aren't too bad. Couple things though.

1. VR is not going to help with shots like these. It may make it worse and you wouldnt need it anyway given its bright and sunny.

2. You probably would have produced the same images on a D40, a D80 and probably a D200 using those same lenses.

3. As mentioned, good images are a combination of things. Good photographer, good lenses. The guy standing next to you with no photography experience would be little to no chance doing something like this. High end Nikkor lenses on that body would probably blow these out of the water for color, sharpness and contrast.

All these could do with some PP adjustments but I know you are only illustrating how a non processed image can look. Nicely done, but dont give the camera all the credit, it needs someone to press the button.

 

[bdavison]

Ok,

1. I am not a beginner...solves that problem

2. The shots are right out of the camera, they havent been post processed for any kind of enhancement or anything. The whole point of the thread was to show what you can get right out of the camera, not what I can get out of my PP software. Which by the way made everyone of these shots "SOLD".


3. f/11 is not referring to the plane. f/11 is referring to the f/stop I chose to shoot at. Airplanes are F-16, F-111, F-117, etc. Apertures are f/2.8, f/3.5, f/11

Dantheman,
I was positive that f/11 would work, because I was using aperture priority mode, and metered the scene. The meter told me it would work. So, YES, I was positive it would work. Also, as I mentioned in my post, the reason I did not use manual mode is because of the moving cloud cover. As the clouds move in and out of the sunlight, the light drastically changes. So if you are in manual mode, it would be VERY VERY difficult to constantly be changing shutter speeds to suit the light levels. Also if you are panning to follow a plane, the light can change during your pan.

By using aperture priority mode, it allowed me to pick my f/11 (thats aperture, not model of plane) and let the camera choose an adaquate shutter speed for the shot.

With the aperture locked at f/11, the shutter speed ranged from 1/450th to 1/2500th of a second depending on how much light there was.

If you want to know what final post processing versions looked like....here is an example.

 

[Dantheman4334]

Ok,

1. I am not a beginner...solves that problem

2. The shots are right out of the camera, they havent been post processed for any kind of enhancement or anything. The whole point of the thread was to show what you can get right out of the camera, not what I can get out of my PP software. Which by the way made everyone of these shots "SOLD".


3. f/11 is not referring to the plane. f/11 is referring to the f/stop I chose to shoot at. Airplanes are F-16, F-111, F-117, etc. Apertures are f/2.8, f/3.5, f/11

Dantheman,
I was positive that f/11 would work, because I was using aperture priority mode, and metered the scene. The meter told me it would work. So, YES, I was positive it would work. Also, as I mentioned in my post, the reason I did not use manual mode is because of the moving cloud cover. As the clouds move in and out of the sunlight, the light drastically changes. So if you are in manual mode, it would be VERY VERY difficult to constantly be changing shutter speeds to suit the light levels. Also if you are panning to follow a plane, the light can change during your pan.

By using aperture priority mode, it allowed me to pick my f/11 (thats aperture, not model of plane) and let the camera choose an adaquate shutter speed for the shot.

With the aperture locked at f/11, the shutter speed ranged from 1/450th to 1/2500th of a second depending on how much light there was.

If you want to know what final post processing versions looked like....here is an example.

Im still not truly convinced, but I'll take your word for it.

 

[ShotGunNik]

I really like that shot ^^^

 

[bdavis]

These shots are a bit underexposed. I would play with levels and brighten them up, but dont get me wrong, they are fantastic shots. Just goes to show that its not the camera, its the photographer.

 

[tsaraleksi]

The thing is that if a camera/lens didn't perform well on a sunny day at f/11, then there would be cause for alarm, but the fact that it did doesn't really set it out from any digital SLR put out in the last 5-10 years. This isn't to day that it's *not* a great camera, by any stretch of the imagination.

As an aside, I think you could have gotten away with dropping your aperture and increasing your shutter speeds-- you've got a smidge of what looks like motion blur in a few of them and at those distances, you would still get everything in focus at f/8. (though I may be wrong.. how far away would you say the planes were? )