Anybody who has the opportunity to shoot from a light plane in cold weather would be advised to use manual and not autofocus.
Had my flight in the Turbo Beaver. Was alarmed by the number of out of focus shots as compared to a recent summer flight. Wasn't photographic. When reviewing a video my wife shot you could see the plane was skipping like a stone rather than flying.
My suspicion is the colder air, being denser, bounced us around enough that the autofocus couldn't lock on. With the warmer air of the summer it was a smoother flight.
Dave
Posted by Kent Staubus on March 1, 2007 at 1:52 PM
Another problem might have been that if the ground was a featurless blanket of snow or flat lake there was nothing for the AF to lock on to. I would think an AF-S or Canon USM type lens could handle any fast AF needs.
That was my first thought, the snow on the lakes and ground. However there would have been good contrast with the trucks on the ice roads and in the rather scrawny sticks we call trees up here. Some were in focus and some out.
The were only two differences between the summer shooting and the winter. The firmware upgrade for the camera and the much colder weather. It may be the firmware upgrade, but I have found the camera to focus better under 'normal' low contrast conditions since the upgrade.
All my other small plane flights have been in summer without difficulty. Have to save my pennies to try another winter flight! :)
I'm jealous. I think a turbo Beaver is the sexiest airplane out there, with the possible exception of a twin Otter on floats. Thanks for the tips, I'll keep them in mind if I ever get the chance to do some winter aerials.
You've got me baffled Dave. I haven't run into anything like your problems w/ AF in the D2X, but then again I haven't done any aerials in such cold weather. I need to confirm that you were shooting with the window open. I have had problems with the AF sensor picking up any flaw or reflection in a plane window and focusing on that, to the detriment of the intended image. If there was a faint skim of frost on the window it would only make matters worse.
Window was open the entire flight. It shouldn't have fired as I do have it set to focus priority. It may be some other thing, but I'm at a loss to figure it out. After looking at the video I can only assume that by the time it locked and fired the plane had either slipped or bounced in the colder denser air and the plane had shifted enough to render it out of focus by the time it fired.
Discussion
5 repliesHad my flight in the Turbo Beaver. Was alarmed by the number of out of focus shots as compared to a recent summer flight. Wasn't photographic. When reviewing a video my wife shot you could see the plane was skipping like a stone rather than flying.
My suspicion is the colder air, being denser, bounced us around enough that the autofocus couldn't lock on. With the warmer air of the summer it was a smoother flight.
Dave
Kent in SD
That was my first thought, the snow on the lakes and ground. However there would have been good contrast with the trucks on the ice roads and in the rather scrawny sticks we call trees up here. Some were in focus and some out.
The were only two differences between the summer shooting and the winter. The firmware upgrade for the camera and the much colder weather. It may be the firmware upgrade, but I have found the camera to focus better under 'normal' low contrast conditions since the upgrade.
All my other small plane flights have been in summer without difficulty. Have to save my pennies to try another winter flight! :)
Dave
Did you get any pics of the airplane?
Window was open the entire flight. It shouldn't have fired as I do have it set to focus priority. It may be some other thing, but I'm at a loss to figure it out. After looking at the video I can only assume that by the time it locked and fired the plane had either slipped or bounced in the colder denser air and the plane had shifted enough to render it out of focus by the time it fired.
Dave