Cessna Citation X (N747RX)

Ultra premier click.

Thats a great shot rwb. What are you shooting with? I don't get clarity like this with my D7100...

Another super shot. Yeah, I wouldn't mind knowing what your kit is too. Always interested in what photogs use.

rwb- I use the Nikkor 55-300 kit lens and that is probably one reason for the lack of sharpness. I will go back and try some tweaking as you suggested. Thanks!

Dave - rwb's suggestions are right on but I've found some oddities with Nikon's mid-range zoom lenses. I've used Nikon cameras from back in film days and their DSLRs are superb when combined with 3rd party lenses, ie Sigma or Tamron. That said though Nikon make some unbelievably good lenses. I've got a Nikkor 16-35 (useless for aviation of course unless for interior shots) and a Nikkor 200-500 lens. If you can afford it, and you need such a big zoom, that 200-500 is amazing. It's stabilization is incredible and it's very sharp with precise focusing. I use it on my D7500, used it on the D750 that I had and now use it on my D850. It's big heavy beast though. Good luck and practice, practice, practice.

Thanks Gavin. I am going to swap the lens from my D810 to the D7100 and try some shots. Its a Nikkor 80-400, which is big, but manageable on the crop sensor body. Thanks for posting all your great shots here!

@Dave Sheehy - What mode are you shooting in on the D7100? I always shoot Aviation in "S" shutter priority. Then after setting my shutter speed I am looking for the f stop in the f/13-f/18 range.

Also a flying aircraft requires good practice panning as being out of time with subject will cause softness.

My kit for Aviation.

Nikon D7500
Sigma 120-300 f/2.8 EX along with the matching 1.4 and 2X tele converters

I shoot in RAW as it gives you the flexibility to make color, exposure adjustments without creating JPG artifacts. My workflow is as follows.

adjustments in Camera Raw.
rotation adjustments.
crop image.
resize image.
dust removal.
sharpening.
Save as a JPG.

Sorry to be jumping all over Richard's fine photo... but do any of you who have Nikon equipment use Nikon's own software? My first processing is with Nikon Capture NX-D but mostly only rotating and for sharpening using the NR feature as opposed to Sharpening. The NR 'edge noise reduction' is sublime whereas Sharpening CAN be a bit hard. After that, it's into Photoshop for color, light and any other tweaking.

Robin-I shoot in manual mode 99% of the time. I will give S another try, thank you.

rwb thanks for hosting our photography tips on your shot :)

rwb check out fredmiranda.com they cover all aspects of photography as well as skills challenges. Lots of good content on there.

Gavin all of my workflow is using Photoshop CS. As for sharpening I do multiple applications of unsharp mask with 32%, 1.1 Px and threshold of 10%.

Most of the time it is only 2-3 passes of unsharp mask for my images.

These Citation X are my favorite modern private jet that is not a Gulfstream. Nicely captured here with a stunning livery!

Sweet photo