Last night I went out to do some photography with some friends. It was a style of long photography that I have been meaning to look into from some time, but have never had the time and tended to forget about. I am talking about taking photos of planes landing using long exposure techniques in the evening. An excellent example of this work may be found on Flickr.

For me, it was not a very successful night taking photos, and it reminded me that some basic preparation goes a long way.

1. Focus

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At night, planes are hard to miss when landing, they have a whopping big headlights on the front that can provide light up a field hundreds metres away. So it was rather annoying that even seeing the plane some 10 mins before it landed that this photo was taken out of focus.

This night I was using 2 lenses, this one was an Canon EF-S 18-135 f4-5.6, and like most “lower end” lenses, it was lacking a focus distance meter. AF does not work at night, there is not enough light for the camera to pick up an edge to focus on. Prior to the plane starting it’s final approach as it was so dark and I was lacking a torch, I could not see to focus manually so took a guess at where infinity was on the MF and shot. I was wrong.

Tip 1: Take a torch, even better a spotlight, that you can use to illuminate what you want to focus on in the photo. Ideally have a friend act as assistant in light coloured clothing, and get them to walk to the area you want to focus on and shine the light on themselves.

Tip 2: Torches are also very handy to find your way on uneven ground at night. I really missed having a torch.

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