Camera Issue..

Did you have the camera set to full auto on the dial on top?

Which autofocus setting in the camera were you using?

That is exactly why I tossed my FUJI 'FINEPIX' in a box in the front closet. The stupid thing never could make up it's mind no matter what the focus settings for anything moving faster than an ant- a full on P.O.S. finepix my buttokski wonderful when you come home from an event and discover that out of 130 shots you've taken about 25% are pitch black and most of the rest look like you were having serious DT's and must have been shaking like a dog trying to pass a strand of barbed wire.
You could make real film do things and 'push your camera around' digital has no soul.

Good info from Tim. For whatever reason it wasn't focused on the plane anymore.

I've got a Rebel T3 that's about seven months old and Steve Nelson also just bought one. I think the main difference between our T3's and your T3i is ours are 12.2 MP and yours is 18.1.

Disclaimer - I'm an expert by no means and defer to anybody smarter than me!

As Tim mentioned your best bet is going to be getting away from the automatic settings. The manual settings aren't scary once you start messing with them.

As Tim said, flip the dial on top over to Tv, which is shutter priority. Press the Q button and it will allow you to change the different settings on the menu. First on the left is shutter speed, top right is ISO. It defaults to automatic ISO which is what I've been using, but will try the 100 recommendation that Tim gave next time I'm out.

Use the arrows to move down to the bottom left where it will say ONE SHOT. Hit the set button and it will bring up the autofocus menu. You have ONE SHOT, AI FOCUS, and AI SERVO. One shot is for stationary objects, AI focus is for stationary objects but it will then keep focusing if the object moves, AI servo is for objects in constant motion. The right answer here would be to use AI servo because the plane is in constant motion. I wasn't that happy with some of the results of AI servo at my last show though, I seemed to do better when I left it in one shot and focused myself. You can keep it in one shot, you just have to remember to autofocus it each time before you take a picture if you're shooting a moving airplane, and be quick in taking the picture after you focus. I'm still in trial and error stage there.

This Corsair was taken with the focus in AI servo, ISO set to auto (it was taken at 100) and is as frustratingly blurry as the ones you posted. I had my shutter speed set too low at 1/100, but it was set the same for this one and the next one you'll see.

Looking back at my photos most of them are at ISO 100 with leaving ISO on auto.




Seconds later, same camera settings, was this.



Using the AI servo setting I had alot of variation in focus quality at the Indy show so when I go to Thunder I'm going to go back to One Shot for Saturday. If I get back to the hotel and upload my photos and I'm not happy then I'll go back to AI servo for Sunday and try again.

Using shutter priority will also get your props moving again. I too tried to use the automatic sport setting at first and it stopped the props. Looking back, it set the shutter speed at 1/1,600 for all of those, a far cry from the 1/250 that Tim recommended. Getting correct prop blur can be pretty tricky because it depends on prop RPM, how many blades, etc. If you've got an airport close it wouldn't hurt to spend some time there and just play with settings for a while. When the camera is in playback mode you can zoom in and move around the picture using the plus and minus on the top right corner of the camera along with the arrow keys, so you can check your work as you go along and experiment.

Let us know how it goes and if you have any more questions.

I'd be interested in hearing Steve's input, he posted some good stuff from his Rebel a couple weeks ago.

Thank you all for your replies and advice, I really appreciate it.
@tim, thank you for the advice & insight. I will be checking out the settings tonight, I will deff try the Tv mode and go from there. But will try it out before the weekend.
Greg, I agree there were some fuzzy pics and then a few others that turned out just fine. Just like what you had posted and thanks for the advice with modes.
@steve, yes I also had some dark pics from Saturdays show also. But the weather was great for sure.

Tim thanks again for your help. I just got home after being on the road this week and I just set up the camera using ur advice. Tomarrow later afternoon I'm off to the airport to test it out. Between the advice of u and greg I feel alot more comfortable and understand it alot better. thanks again