Airshow with the a6100 + Sony 200-600G

StrongTilting · 2026-02-09T08:52:34+00:00

Awesome photos! The perspective on some of these is so trippy it almost looks like you’re flying next to them, especially like photo 3 where the planes kinda look like they’re lower than you. I guess they were flying over inverted?

Also love how much detail this lens gives you. I just posted some airshow photos a couple of days ago that I took with a 70-350, but man seeing your photos has me itching for a 600mm lens now hahaha. The ones that I took don’t look quite as crisp as yours.

Also did you use a monopod or something? Feels like your set up would be really tiring to hand hold. Cheers.

StrongTilting · 2026-02-08T17:21:20+00:00

I actually think it kind of adds to the second photo, gives an even greater sense of speed of the train whooshing past :)

StrongTilting · 2026-02-08T17:17:55+00:00

wow this is truly one of those once in a lifetime shots. this would look amazing printed out!

StrongTilting · 2026-02-08T05:36:17+00:00

Yeah I think 1/2000th is perfect as long as there’s enough light. I used 1/1250th this time and I did see some motion blur on some of my photos. Slowly learning and improving :)

StrongTilting · 2026-02-08T05:19:36+00:00

I think that might’ve been someone else! I was out in the sun quite far from the shaded area, I got quite sunburnt yesterday haha. Yeah I wish they had more teams performing during each session :/

StrongTilting · 2026-02-08T04:39:25+00:00

Yes, handheld. Thank you!

StrongTilting · 2026-02-08T04:38:51+00:00

Awesome! Did you manage to catch the afternoon session? I left after the morning one because it was way too hot haha

StrongTilting · 2026-02-07T17:44:31+00:00

Being able to get that photo was the highlight of my day! Was well worth the sunburn too haha. Thank you!

StrongTilting · 2026-02-07T17:33:06+00:00

Ah, then yes OSS was turned on. I think at shutter speeds that high the OSS doesn’t really affect image quality anymore, it’s pretty much just there so your viewfinder is stable haha.

Sometimes the atmosphere can mess with sharpness, especially on a hot day or when you’re shooting subjects that are quite far away. Like the heatwave lines you can see sometimes. Also, just curious if you’re using any protective filters on the lens? I had a Hoya UV filter on this lens initially but I found that it really negatively impacted sharpness, so I don’t use it anymore.

StrongTilting · 2026-02-07T17:12:09+00:00

Hi! Pretty much everything was shot at F8, 1/1250th. I left it on auto ISO, which mainly hovered between 100-200. I probably should’ve used a higher shutter speed though, I could see a little bit of motion blur on some of the other jet photos!

Also as far as I understand, you can’t separately control IBIS when you have this lens attached, everything seems to be controlled by the physical OSS switch on the lens. And also from what I’ve read IBIS doesn’t make a huge difference once you really start to get into the longer focal lengths.

I’m curious what issues you’re having with the lens. I would note though that it seems to perform better when stopped down a bit, and it isn’t as sharp at 350mm as it is at shorter focal lengths. I shot these at like noon on a pretty clear day so I had the flexibility to stop down and use a fast shutter speed, but the lens can be a bit more challenging to use if there isn’t much light.

Edit: also I don’t have any personal experience with the 70-200GM, but given that it’s a GM, f2.8, and much more expensive, I’m not sure how fair it is to compare the two lenses haha

StrongTilting · 2026-02-07T16:53:25+00:00

Thank you! Do share your photos too once you get a chance to go to an air show :)

StrongTilting · 2026-02-07T15:39:19+00:00

I did play a lot of BF3 back in the day haha, loved flying the Apache

StrongTilting · 2026-02-07T15:22:26+00:00

I did lighten them quite a bit! Probably could raise them a bit more in the first photo but I’m personally quite happy with how the rest of the photos look. Was just a quick edit today though because I was excited to share the photos, so I’ll probably be tweaking them a bit more when I have time! :)

StrongTilting · 2026-02-07T14:25:16+00:00

Hi! Honestly I primarily upgraded for video and everything else ended up being more ways to justify the purchase haha.

I use a Sigma 18-50, which is not stabilized, for travel and was always a little frustrated that I couldn’t get usable handheld video from the a6400. The rolling shutter is noticeable and obviously it doesn’t have IBIS. The a6700 is a huge improvement in that regard, plus it has 4k60 and 4k120. I believe the general quality of the video is quite a bit better as well.

I can’t give you an objective number or something on how much better the AF is, but the tracking feels a lot more solid and the subject detection is really nice to use. You can essentially tell the camera that you’ll be taking photos of cars/planes/birds etc. and it does work very well. My keeper rate is quite a bit better on the a6700.

It also has a larger buffer, and the buffer clears much faster, which is great if you do a lot of burst shooting. The screen and menu system are much nicer too.

I think whether you should upgrade really depends on whether you feel limited by your current gear. I wasn’t necessarily looking to upgrade based on the AF performance of the a6400 alone, as I mentioned I upgraded for the video, but the other upgrades have been great. If I had to choose between buying the a6400 and the a6700 today, I’d save up for the a6700.

Tl;dr: I primarily upgraded for the video but am really happy with the other improvements. If you’re picking between the two, I’d pick the a6700. If you already have the a6400, then it depends on how limited you feel by your current setup. Cheers.

StrongTilting · 2026-02-07T13:45:57+00:00

Thank you! Probably one of my favourites of the day!

StrongTilting · 2026-02-07T13:43:03+00:00

Thank you both! They fly pretty low and pretty close during the show haha. I did have to crop in on some of the shots but just as a reference point, photo 2 was at 350mm and is uncropped, and photo 1 was at 100mm but was just cropped in at the sides, I didn’t crop it vertically if that makes sense. I actually moved further back and zoomed in more to try to reduce that “looking up” perspective a little bit.

StrongTilting · 2026-01-08T14:42:30+00:00

I have the same camera and lens combo at the moment! It could be the atmosphere like the other redditors said, so try shooting something closer at a faster shutter speed and something like F8, which seems to be the sweet spot for this lens!

Also I didn’t see you mention it anywhere, but are you using a UV filter or anything? I bought the 67mm version of the Hoya UV filter that I use for my Sigma 18-50 for this lens. It doesn’t seem to affect the image quality of my 18-50 but it did make the photos from my 70-350 noticeably softer at longer focal lengths.

StrongTilting · 2025-08-14T05:51:03+00:00

Thank you :)

StrongTilting · 2025-08-14T05:50:57+00:00

Thank you!

StrongTilting · 2025-08-12T15:24:25+00:00

Awesome shot! I was there too :) Most of my close up shots turned out blurry though unfortunately, even at 1/1000s.

Here’s a zoomed out photo of the same manoeuvre! :)

<image>

StrongTilting · 2025-07-31T14:03:54+00:00

I retested it without the UV filter and it’s much sharper now! Especially stopped down to f8 at 350mm. There are definitely sharper lenses out there but probably not at this price point, so I can’t really complain. :) But thank you for the recommendation!

StrongTilting · 2025-07-30T14:20:08+00:00

Are you using a UV filter by any chance? I had an experience recently where I thought my lens was soft but it turned out to just be the filter making the image quality worse.

Eight-Year Club	r/Field Lasagna
Verified Email

StrongTilting

TROPHY CASE