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Aviation Photography Blogs
Written by COAP Online members
Harsh midday sun is one of the most common lighting problems in aviation photography.
Airshows, fly-ins and airport visits often happen when the light is high, bright and contrasty. The aircraft may be worth photographing, but the conditions can produce blown highlights, dark undersides and flat-lo...
Aircraft taxi shots are a major part of aviation photography, especially at airshows, airports, arrivals days and ramp events.
They can look simple because the subject is moving slowly, but that is also why small details become more noticeable. The difference between an average taxi shot and a stro...
Autofocus is one of the biggest advantages of modern aviation photography, but it still needs guidance.
At airshows, the subject moves quickly and the background can change every second. A jet may be against clean sky one moment, then trees, smoke, flags or another aircraft the next. If your AF are...
Heat haze is one of the most common reasons aviation photos look soft, especially around our favourite areas of runways, taxiways and long-distance spotting locations.
It can be frustrating because the camera settings may be right. The focus may have been accurate. The lens may be sharp. Yet the fi...
Shooting aircraft through fences is one of the most common everyday problems in aviation photography.
Airfields, viewing areas, airshows and perimeter spots often leave photographers working through mesh, railings or security fencing. It can be frustrating, but a fence does not always mean the shot...
The Calibration panel in Lightroom is easy to overlook. It is found near the bottom of the Develop panel and looks less inviting than the tools most photographers use every day, such as Basic, HSL, Masking and Detail.
For aviation photography, though, Calibration can be useful when a RAW file is te...
By Keiran Wilkinson with contributions from Richard Bryant
One of the highlights of our COAP Online community calendar is the High Roller, our monthly competition where members share their best images around a specific, challenging theme. These usually occur exclusively within our member community,...
Aircraft liveries are a huge part of aviation photography.
A striking airline scheme, a special tail, a display jet, a heritage paint job, a rescue helicopter, even a small flash of colour on an otherwise grey military aircraft (CAG birds, drool…). Colour can give an image a real lift!
The challen...
Aviation images often need separation. The aircraft needs to stand out from the sky, cloud, haze or distant background without looking cut out, over-sharpened or artificial.
That is where a lot of edits can start to go wrong.
It is very tempting to push Contrast, Clarity and Dehaze until the jet f...
The Exposure slider is useful, but it is also one of the easiest ways to make an aviation edit feel out of control. Because it affects the whole image, and can therefore brighten or darken areas that did not need changing in the first place.
Aviation files often contain a difficult mix of tones. A wh...
The histogram is one of the most useful tools in aviation photography, but it is often explained in a way that makes it feel more complicated than it needs to be.
In simple terms, the histogram shows how the tones in your image are spread from dark on the left to bright on the right. For aviation pho...
“Get it right in camera” is well-meaning advice, but it often lands badly in aviation photography. It can make editing feel like cheating, or like a sign the shoot didn’t go well.
The reality is much simpler.
Aviation scenes regularly exceed what a camera can capture perfectly in a single frame. The ...
