John Duder's Interview With Steve Crampton

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I first really noticed Steve Crampton’s aircraft shots when I saw a lovely picture he’d taken of a French Rafale at the Cosford Air Show. Making my second visit to an air show since my thirties, I’d been struggling to take pictures of the same aeroplane, and had actually posted three shots in the Critique Gallery in search of the right way to do aircraft images. It’s an area where I know I’m a beginner, with a lot for my mind and my muscles to learn… An interview followed naturally.

 

Steve, when did you first start photographing aeroplanes? And why?

I’ve always liked aeroplanes: when I was a child, my goal was to become an airline pilot, I guess like lots of lads at the time. It never happened, but I never lost the love of aircraft, so I think that’s where the idea of photographing them started. I’ve always had a camera, from a Kodak Instamatic as a child, a Zenith Lomo at some point, but I guess photographing aeroplanes didn’t start until I got my first SLR, probably around 1987. I was quite lucky – I had a friend who had a cousin who owned a camera shop, so I got some discount on a Canon EOS 650 and a kit lens – and that’s where I started.  

 

I think quite a lot of people did – Canon’s first autofocus SLR.

Going from something like an Instamatic to the EOS 650 was good, because you could have it on full auto, and not have to worry about it, but then it gave you the opportunity to learn everything that you needed to learn. Very good in that sense.

 

What sort of kit did you use for your first aircraft pictures?

As I say, it was the 650 and the kit lens, which was obviously no good for flying aircraft. It was OK when you were going round the static park, but when you’re photographing aircraft, you want them in flight, and I soon realised that the little dots I was seeing on the film weren’t going to cut it, and so I upgraded and got either a Tamron or a Sigma – I can’t remember which – 70-300mm, and that’s when things really started to take off, so to speak. Probably a couple of years – Early Nineties – before I got into it properly. 

 

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Do any examples of those photos survive?

Oh, I’ve got everything – I’ve got all the negatives. I don’t throw anything like that away. So yes, they survive as negatives, but not necessarily as digital images – but I’ve got some somewhere! I’ve certainly got static shots, but flying? Probably not so many. 

 

What sort of kit do you currently use?

Now, I’ve got a 5D Mk. 4, with either 70-200mm with extenders, or the 100-400mm, probably again with an extender. That just hits the sweet spot for me. 

 

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And probably the reason I got in touch with you… What are the key attributes that make the kit suitable? I’d taken some rubbish shots of the Rafale at Cosford with a consumer micro four thirds camera with a 75-300 zoom, and then I saw your picture of it…

The 5D’s a full frame camera, and that in itself starts to improve things – you get less noise when you’re going for higher ISO, which you sometimes have to do. I started with Canon, and I’ve progressed with Canon. I just find that kit, with those lenses and the extenders just suit what I do. I dare say if I went to Nikon or Olympus or Panasonic or whoever, they’d have kit that’s equally good. It’s just that I started with Canon and the EF lenses, and I can’t afford to change it! 

 

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Again, thinking about the detail, the stuff that will matter to people who might be trying aircraft for the first time, what settings, what autofocus mode do you use?

On the Canon, it’s called AI Servo –continuous tracking, so that’s a must, especially when you’re tracking jets moving at ridiculous speeds. I tend to use it on one-shot mode, purely because if you use it on continuous you run thirty shots and they all look very similar. And these days, I’ve progressed to using it in pure Manual: when I first started, not knowing what I was doing, it was in full auto, then I progressed to Shutter speed priority, because when you’re shooting propellers the actual shutter is important to control prop blur. But then, as you progress taking pictures of aircraft, you realise it’s not just the shutter speed – you need to control the depth of field a bit as well. Even with one plane – say a Chinook – you can get the front in focus and not the back. So I tend to use full manual now.

 

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What advice would you give someone starting to shoot aircraft now?

Positioning is one thing, when you get to the air show: where are you going to stand? I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had the Red Arrows crossing behind a sign, or a loudspeaker because I’ve been in the wrong place. If you go to an air show and you get there at the crack of dawn, like most of the diehards do, you’ll see everyone rushing down to the front of the line and sticking their deckchairs down and getting all their kit out. Obviously, the closer you are to the front, the better for things like planes taking off and landing. And if someone’s just starting out, I’d say that’s probably the best place to stand. So if you can see the point where the planes actually take off and land, and if you get there, they tend to be slower, so you’ve got more chance of capturing something that’s going to be sharp. Keep an eye out around you to make sure there are no signs or loudspeakers that are going to get in the way. And get there VERY early, especially if you go to somewhere like Cosford or Fairford where the crowds really build up. Especially at Fairford, if you’re not there by about 9 o’clock in the morning, you’ll get stuck in a traffic jam for hours on end and miss half the flying.

 

Is it worth going for the premium area, the grandstand?

It has its advantages: I’ve been lucky because in a lot of cases I’ve been able to go as Press – the Press get special access anyway. When I haven’t, the grandstands are tiered, and you’re not going to get anyone right in front of you. Elsewhere, if you’ve got someone who’s six foot four in front of you, you’re not going to get any photos! One thing about the grandstands though is that you’re not as free to move about them: when you’re swinging a lens around, you may be a bit more restricted, a bit close to people in front and on either side for a 400mm.

 

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What are the best shows for shooting aeroplanes – and what makes the difference?

It depends on what you like shooting. If it’s fast jets, in this country it’s only Fairford – the International Air Tattoo, and they bring in all the modern jets. If you like historic aircraft, like Spitfires and Hurricanes, you’ve got Duxford or a place called Shuttleworth, which is my absolute favourite location – it’s just the most perfect spot. I’m not quite sure why, but it’s the most friendly atmosphere when you get there. Generally speaking, you can park right next to the airfield most of the time, so you don’t have to walk far from your car to get the shots, which is a benefit if you’re not so mobile. That tends to be just the Shuttleworth Collection aircraft and a few visiting warbirds – Spitfires, Catalina. That’s my favourite venue and it’s in Bedfordshire. And Duxford’s just south of Cambridge.  So sometimes you can do one air show at Duxford and another at Shuttleworth the same weekend, and it’s quite nice.

 

Are there good days and bad days at air shows – and if so, what makes the difference?

Yes! I guess good days are when the flying conditions are perfect. It doesn’t have to be completely blue sky, but you need a nice day, light winds, nice sky behind the aircraft. Bad days… I’ve been to Duxford when it was absolutely tipping it down with rain, grey overcast: and they basically cancelled the flying. The weather is the thing you’re depending on most.

 

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That’s interesting, because I saw the Eurofighter at Duxford on a cloudy day and it did a low-level display… Sort of ‘you’ve seen a Pitts Special do this, now watch a grown-up do the same things’ Then at Cosford on a sunny day it was almost out of sight.

That is the problem. Also at Cosford you’ve got the problem with where the sun is. You’ve got the sun pretty much in front of you, whereas what you want is the sun behind you. Fairford is good for that, and so is Shuttleworth. So Cosford is maybe better on a cloudy day.

 

Please tell me one day that went really well for you.

That’s an interesting one! I guess one of the best days was when I took my son when he was fairly little, and the International Air Tattoo which should have been at Fairford was moved to somewhere in Lincolnshire because the runways were being resurfaced. We had fun – the Stealth Fighter turned up, and we actually saw it… It was on the ground – that was really unusual. I guess another one, we were at RAF Mildenhall and the Stealth Bomber, the B2, came in for the first time ever. I got shots of that into a magazine, and that was my first experience of getting work published. These days, all the planes are the same – you’ve either got Typhoons or you’ve got F16s. Everybody flies them. Back in the day, everybody had different aircraft and it was more diverse. When you’ve seen one, maybe two Typhoons fly… the third, the fourth one is maybe not quite as good.

 

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My best experience was in the Seventies, before the Americans moved into Greenham Common – they held air shows there. Half the air forces in Europe sent flights of Starfighters – and the RAF upstaged them all with one Lightning – faster, lower, and finishing with a vertical climb.

I’ve never seen one flying, it’s an aircraft I’d love to see. Or ride in a two-seater!

 

These days, do you shoot for fun, or do you have a serious commercial interest?

I wouldn’t say I make significant commercial use of my pictures, but I do tend to work for a magazine when I can, purely because as press you get better access. That has declined over the years, but you do tend to get into some of the air shows for free, and have special press pens where you can go, so it’s useful for that. So I’d love to be commercially viable, but…

 

Favourite aeroplane?

It changes: the Vulcan, without a shadow of a doubt, when it was flying. I mean, I still love the Vulcan. The Lancaster: Spitfires always get you when they’re flying. Of all the ones that are flying at the moment, probably the Lancaster.

 

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Are you a member of a camera club, and how does that affect your picture-taking?

Yes. I’m a member of Solihull Photographic Society, but I’d say it doesn’t affect my picture-taking, not of aircraft, anyway. You tend to find that judges, when you put them into competitions, don’t really appreciate aircraft! [Laughs] In my opinion, anyway. I don’t think they understand the intricacies, or everything that people go through when they’re shooting aircraft. They tend to go for Red Arrows shots, with lots of colour and that sort of thing, rather than what I’d call some of the more difficult images. Aircraft against the sky look quite static: I tend not to put the aircraft pictures into club competitions.

 

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What’s your dream aeroplane shoot?

Well, I guess it would be air-to-air, with a Spitfire or a Lancaster, or a Typhoon. Or all of them. That’s one thing I haven’t yet done, air-to-air. That is something I’d really love to have a go at, but costs are really prohibitive. I might have to settle for Tiger Moth to Tiger Moth…

 

Apart from air shows, what do you like to photograph, and why?

I guess my other main passion, at the moment, anyway, is ice hockey. I’m the official photographer for the Solihull Barons ice hockey team, so I go to the home matches and I shoot the action. And again, I think it’s because it’s fast, there’s a lot of action: it’s challenging. And it fits in nicely – the air show season finishes, and the ice hockey season starts. The technical challenges multiply because you’ve got fast-moving action, much closer to the camera and less predictable – and low light. You’re not allowed to use flash. It’s got better this season because they’ve changed the lighting, but when I first started out the lighting levels were pretty appalling for photography. Coupled with that you’re shooting through a black net – a lot of the other rinks have Plexiglas, which has other problems. Autofocus will tend to lock onto the black netting, and the secret is to get as close as you can – but then you have to watch out for the players coming round, sticks flying.

 

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There’s always one question that I haven’t asked. What is it, and what’s the answer?

[Pause] You didn’t ask about shooting aircraft with propellers, and in particular what shutter speed to use. And the answer is that it depends on the size of the propeller and the effect you’re trying to get. If you shoot with a high shutter speed such as 1/1000, it’s going to completely freeze the motion of the propeller and it looks like it’s just been stuck on. With something like a Spitfire, you can get away with 1/400, though I’d tend to go lower where I can – though you’ve got the balance with stability, and can you hold your camera steady enough to get the shot sharp. 1/250 gives a more pleasing prop blur. When you get to the likes of helicopters and their large rotors, or something like the Osprey, then you are going even lower – 1/30 second or something like that. And that’s the only time I’ll use a tripod or monopod when shooting aircraft, because 1/30 second with a 400mm lens is quite tricky.

 

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