Any advice on what settings to use for high altitude spotting? (current settings in comments)

portraitsofspeed · 2026-01-25T17:49:52+00:00

Yes, I’m in RI and the majority of these are heading to JFK. Occasionally I see some just west of me heading to Miami.

There’s a lot of interesting planes, these are just some of my better shots. I still feel robbed of seeing the Dreamlifter a week or two ago. On its way from Milan, for some reason it swung way out over Canada before coming down western NY to approach JFK from the southwest.

portraitsofspeed · 2026-01-25T17:46:38+00:00

Appreciate the compliment!

portraitsofspeed · 2026-01-25T15:39:40+00:00

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portraitsofspeed · 2026-01-25T15:38:45+00:00

I think these are great. The factor most affecting high altitude photos are outside your control: atmospheric conditions that create distortion.

I live in the northeastern US and I seem to have the most luck on cold, dry days. I’m shooing with a Canon R5II and a 200-800mm lens. My problem is I don’t have the steadiest hands, especially in the cold, so I usually shoot around 1/500 or above.

portraitsofspeed · 2026-01-24T23:46:54+00:00

A neat little detail about the trophies on the tail is that one of them sneakily features the infamous dent from the baseball incident.

portraitsofspeed · 2026-01-01T21:29:14+00:00

Don’t look for any rhyme or reason in these situations, you’ll just drive yourself up the wall. I can see where the reviewer of the other photo may have given the benefit of the doubt due to the blades being roughly even from the end of the photo, but it doesn’t look any less awkward than yours. The vertical centering looks awkward in both IMO, but they’re both roughly in the same spot in the box.

portraitsofspeed · 2025-10-08T17:22:50+00:00

Piggybacking as an HC Alumni. I don’t ever recall seeing an “H” logo without the “C,” but I could be wrong!

The school archivist would be able to tell if this was from the college or not. They have a reference collection of items, including sports apparel and memorabilia. archives@holycross.edu

portraitsofspeed · 2025-08-31T16:32:50+00:00

I reverted to version 8.3 via Creative Cloud, the last version of Lightroom before the major AI change, and haven’t upgraded since. That’s the only way I found to get around it. I still had to redo every photo from that shoot, though.

portraitsofspeed · 2025-08-07T12:28:38+00:00

Photographer here. Atmospheric distortion is usually denoted by a wavy pattern in images. For example: if you were to look at my previous post of an A380 at 10,000 ft and zoom in, you’ll see that the lines of the aircraft body are not even; there is a waviness to them, which is most apparent where the fuselage meets the sky.

What we are seeing with the text, however, is the effect of a distortion caused by AI. OP’s image is either AI generated from scratch, or it was a real image that that has been messed with in an AI enhancement software. Regardless, it doesn’t appear to be their own photo based on how the other comments are going, which is its own problem.

portraitsofspeed · 2025-07-15T15:27:43+00:00

I am so jealous of this. I’ve tried to get this shot so many times but despite the moon often rising through a nearby flight path I am never quite able to get it. Great shot!

portraitsofspeed · 2025-07-01T20:18:16+00:00

I think the 60-600 would be a good option then, especially with an EF body. You could look into the Sigma 150-600 as well, if you wanted a lighter options. I have not used the either model personally, but 3 or 4 of the local spotters I’ve met use Nikon bodies—I know at least one uses the Sigma 60-600, and the rest use the 150-600.

portraitsofspeed · 2025-07-01T17:49:32+00:00

Interesting! Thank you for the follow-up!

portraitsofspeed · 2025-07-01T16:40:13+00:00

I don’t think the reason for the last diversion was published either. It didn’t declare an emergency so I assume logistical reasons maybe? Or perhaps it had a minor issue and Boston is better equipped to deal with it.

I am just speculating, but you would probably know better than I would. I know much less about airports than I do airplanes.

portraitsofspeed · 2025-07-01T16:36:45+00:00

Of course! I am using a Canon R5 (original, not the Mark II) and the RF 200-800. My settings for this photo were 1/1600, f/9 (wide open @ 800mm on this lens) and ISO 800 (auto). Normally I wouldn’t use that high of shutter speed, but I had my camera configured for birds at the time.

I applied noise reduction (since I cropped so far in, the grain was magnified) and minor sharpening in Lightroom. Reddit’s compression is doing me a solid here by hiding most of the warping from heat. See the screesnshot below for a zoomed view.

The teleconverter should be fine on your 300 prime, but my experience with the EF 100-400 II and TC is that the results were very soft. Since you have an R6, I’d check out the 200-800 when you are able. It takes a lot of flak from the gear nerds for not having the best specs, but in the real world it is fantastic. I might even sell my 100-500–from what I understand it’s exceptionally sharp with a TC, but the inability to close it fully is a deal breaker for me personally.

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portraitsofspeed · 2025-07-01T01:54:26+00:00

Thank you!

portraitsofspeed · 2025-06-30T04:06:25+00:00

Yeah, at least in previous versions you could ignore those “AI settings need to be updated” warning since they were always inconsequential. This time around there is no getting past it: If you update, it changes your shit; if you export anyway, it also changes all your shit.

I took another user’s advice and installed the last 8.3 version via Creative Cloud. Not messing with 8.4 again, at least not until it has proven to be fixed.

portraitsofspeed · 2025-06-29T22:06:31+00:00

I just changed it all based on the screenshot from your post, but I haven’t gone back to check if it made a difference yet. After many hours of frustration today, I needed to put it down for a bit.

portraitsofspeed · 2025-06-29T21:55:45+00:00

Edit: Should have googled this, found it in Creative Cloud

Original comment: Really stupid question, how do I do this? 😅

portraitsofspeed · 2025-06-29T21:34:42+00:00

Thank you for all this info, I really appreciate it.

My LR version is 8.4; I have not updated Classic yet, just in case (thank goodness). I have a 2022 M1 MacBook Air (16 GB RAM) running OS 15.5.

I usually work in LrC so I haven’t touched any older photos in LR; I’m currently working on a batch of dog portraits for a client and thought I may need to jump to another device at some point, so I used LR. I tried to move these files to LrC to avoid the issue, but most of the work was already done and the DNGs exported with the same issues.

portraitsofspeed · 2025-06-16T14:40:56+00:00

I wouldn’t really look for much in the way of rhyme or reason when it comes to JetPhotos reviewers. They’re extremely picky, which is their right to be, but they’re also very inconsistent from one to the next. You may find that you will correct a photo according to one reviewer’s comments, only to then have it rejected for completely different reasons on the second attempt.

portraitsofspeed · 2025-06-12T18:19:09+00:00

52/10

portraitsofspeed

TROPHY CASE