The Tool Desk
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For Blue Angels photos, plan your sight line before the show, balance telephoto reach with room for close passes, and choose shutter speed for the aircraft’s motion. Photographer Kevin Lisota’s Seafair 2015 account offers a practical starting point—not a universal camera recipe—because light, flight paths, equipment and the look you want all affect the result.
Choose a position with clear sight lines
Lisota scouted with Street View before choosing an elevated location on Mercer Island, on the I-90 high-rise bridge deck. The useful lesson is to assess the view in advance: consider elevation, where the aircraft are likely to appear, and whether buildings or other obstacles will cut into the frame. Each airshow has its own viewing locations and flight path, so a spot that worked at Seafair is not automatically right for another event.
Think about light and background
When possible, position yourself so the sun is behind you; that can help light the side of an aircraft facing the camera. Midday sun can be challenging, and Lisota notes that shadow recovery in editing helped reveal detail on aircraft undersides. If the plane occupies only a small part of the frame, a city, mountain or other recognizable background can give the image context instead of leaving it as a distant speck against empty sky.
Choose a lens for both reach and framing
Lisota says airshow images can become more interesting at 300mm and above, though smaller zooms can still work. At Seafair, he used a Nikon D750 with an AF-S Nikkor 500mm f/4 FL ED VR. That lens brought distant aircraft closer, but he found it too tight when planes made close passes. His advice, “Bring your longest lens,” needs that qualification: the longest lens you own may make it harder to keep fast, nearby action in frame.
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Think about the view you can comfortably frame, not just the maximum focal length. A 300mm telephoto zoom can be a useful search category, but verify that any lens fits your camera mount; Lisota’s Nikon setup is an example, not a universal recommendation. If you want more reach for one event, he suggests considering a super-telephoto rental rather than buying an expensive lens outright.
Set shutter speed for the kind of motion you want
Fast jets and propeller aircraft call for different treatment. The shutter speeds below are Lisota’s recommendations from his 2015 feature, not guaranteed settings; adjust for light, equipment and the effect you want.
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| Subject and visual goal | Starting point from Lisota | What to keep in mind |
|---|---|---|
| Fast jets: freeze movement | At least 1/1000 or 1/2000 second | Use a fast shutter to reduce visible motion blur. |
| Propeller aircraft: show propeller motion | Around 1/320 second or slower | A slower shutter can preserve propeller blur; it also makes camera movement more consequential. |
A later example from Tamron Americas illustrates how different a setup can be: one photographer used a 50–300mm lens at 300mm, f/7.1, 1/4000 second and ISO 400. Those are that photographer’s settings, not a prescription for every aircraft or airshow.
Track the aircraft and check exposure
Lisota recommends handholding rather than relying on a tripod, following the aircraft through the frame and using continuous burst shooting. Panning with the plane can help you stay with the action, while bursts give you several frames from a fleeting pass. Try the approach before the most dramatic maneuver, so you can get used to following the aircraft without losing it from the viewfinder.
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Bright sky can confuse exposure as you pan from open sky to clouds or other backgrounds. Lisota advises checking the histogram after a few frames and watching for blown highlights. Make exposure adjustments as needed rather than assuming the same reading will work throughout the show.
Leave room to crop, but protect the image
Lisota advises capturing at the camera’s largest image size and cropping later. That can help when the aircraft is small in the frame, but cropping cannot replace reach or restore detail that was never recorded. If shadows hide detail on the underside, editing may bring some of it back; clipped, overexposed sky is much harder to recover, so keep an eye on highlights while shooting.
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How many frames should you shoot?
Lisota says he made almost 1,000 photographs at Seafair, deleted about half immediately and later kept around 50 he especially liked. That is one photographer’s account of one show, not a general keeper rate or a target you need to match. Shoot enough to cover the action, then select frames based on focus, timing, composition and exposure.
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Check image rights before reuse
The official Blue Angels media page lists season media and directs visitors to its Public Use Notice. Read that notice and check the terms for the specific file before reusing official imagery; its presence on a Navy page does not, by itself, establish that every image is unrestricted. For Lisota’s photographs, confirm reuse rights with the photographer or publisher before publication.
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