Boeing 737 jet landing at Edmonton airport.

It's not very often that I get a chance for a shot like this.  While hiking with a friend at Telford Lake in Leduc two days ago, The din of an approaching aircraft got my attention in a way few other things could.  As I looked up I saw an enormous plane passing overhead, literally, and not all that far away either.  It turns out our hike was in direct line with the landing runway at the nearby airport.  It was a good thing I had my camera ready.

I was equipped to photograph birds.  I was using my 80-400 mm zoom lens, a favourite of mine, and had my camera set to photograph in a snowy, backlit environment (on manual mode, about plus two stops above metered neutral).  As the plane approached I brought the lens to bear but discovered it was too close to photograph.  Zooming out to its minimum focal length, I managed to get a few shots off before it roared past us.

I find it pays off to be prepared when photographing wildlife.  You never know what will suddenly avail itself to the camera.  I set the camera up as I see fit.  For birds, it means a long lens, a wide-open aperture, a fast shutter speed, and an ISO to make it all work.  I typically use manual exposure mode when in the field as it allows me to maintain the correct exposure of the subject regardless of the background.  If a bird flies from a bright background to a darker one, the exposure needn't change if the light falling on the bird is the same (incident light).  Auto modes require you to alter exposure compensation values which means taking your eye off the subject and altering camera settings.

The minimum aperture of the lens changes depending upon what focal length is selected.  At 400 mm it is f/5.6 while at 80 mm it is f/3.5.  In order to keep the exposure consistent when zooming in and out, I set the aperture at 80 mm to f/5.6.  That way, when I alter focal length, the exposure doesn't change.  This is true in manual mode; if I had employed an auto mode, exposure compensation would have corrected for the change on its own.

Anyways, the excursion was a success; I came away getting a photograph of the largest bird I have ever shot.

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