Where do iconic military aircraft go when they’re no longer needed for frontline operations? Well, aside from selling them to a banana republic in equatorial Africa, those that aren’t broken down for spares or scrap end up in military museums.
This is where you come in, along with a camera and an interesting challenge. As is the case in most museums, there isn’t a lot of light, there are harsh spotlights everywhere and the exhibits can be crowded together, making it difficult to get a clean shot.
So let’s start with the first choice you have to make: whether to use a circular polarizer filter. The advantage is that, at the right angle, these can be rotated so that reflections on glass windows are cut out, enabling the interior to be recorded.
They can also reduce reflections on the paintwork, though this is much more marginal. The downside is that you’re giving up one to two stops of light in return, which means that the ISO rating will need to be pushed higher.
The good news is that images that include the entire aircraft will need a wide-angle lens, which gives you plenty of depth of field – and correspondingly means that you can use a wider aperture.
The exception to this is where you want to zoom in to capture individual details. So, a wide-angle with a reasonable telephoto reach is the lens to bring to the party if you don’t want to cart around a bag of primes. A 24-85mm zoom was used in this visit to the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Yeovil, England.
Step-by-step: Work with the light
1) Use a polarizer
Because of all the reflections and glare, I decided I would go with a polarizer and take the hit on available light. This one from Cokin simply slips into the holder and can be rotated to minimize the reflections.
2) Get sensitive
It’s a museum, you’re not in a rush, so you can take the time to evaluate each scene and set the ISO accordingly to what you need. Don’t use Auto ISO, set a baseline (it was around 800 for this visit) and then tweak for each shot as necessary.
3) Focusing time
I used a fairly large focus box, but not a huge one. Nothing is moving here, so you don’t need that oversized box for tracking. As you won’t get complete depth of field, it’s best to focus on the nose of the aircraft that you're photographing.
4) Working settings
I shoot in aperture priority mode. For most photos, that meant keeping the ISO at 800, getting down to 1/25 sec and shooting at f/3.8.
Get close up
Finding shapes
If you use the telephoto end of the lens, you can isolate individual elements with interesting shapes – like this intake for a jet engine. When extending the focal length there is less depth of field, so be precise with focusing on the important elements. This is at 85mm, f/4.5 and 1/25 sec, so image stabilization helps a lot.
No macro needed
You don’t really need a macro lens, because most of the elements you are looking to isolate aren’t that small in reality. Here, two exhaust pipes look like the eyes of a Fifties robot. The focus was on the very end of the exhausts, rather than the engine, at a 65mm focal length. Shot at 1/15 sec at f/4.5.
Get creative with multi-image exposures
1) Go into the menu
Press the Menu button and navigate to the Photo Shooting section, or whatever is similar on your camera. Scroll down to Multiple exposure and go into the options.
2) Set up parameters
Turn the Multiple exposure mode on, then decide whether you want just one image or a series and set accordingly. Set the number of shots to three (which offers a good balance between creativity and visibility) and set the Overlay mode to Light.
3) Make a shortcut
Instead of having to dive into the menu system each time you want to create a multiple exposure, assign it to a spare button on the camera – like one of those on the front that you have no idea what they do anyway. Then you can quickly switch it on and select the number of images to use.
Before you go...
To shoot in a military museum you'll need a wide angle lens, a circular polariser and a monopod could come in handy too.
