I have never really done any serious plane spotting. But since I’ve always been interested in aviation, shooting planes fascinates me.
Some years back when I was still living in Finland, I went to the Helsinki Vantaa airport for plane spotting. What an adventure it was!
Since I only had EOS350D and cheap Canon zoom lens I didn’t have any serious gear. But I was surprised that even with such equipment I was able to get some usable shots. The lens was only 200mm but with crop sensor that was reasonable magnification.
I took a path which lead into the forest that surrounds the airport, and walked about an hour crossing small river and a bigger one, and all the time I could watch passenger jets landing, KLM, Finnair, Air France.. The forest was pretty thick and there was barbed wire and all kinds of things.. I decided to take my route so that I would end up somewhere in the end of the runway where the planes fly over.
I finally was able to find the famous plane spotting location Lemminkäisen kallio, on which I climbed. There were couple of people with DSLRs and binoculars, observing the air traffic.
I had enough courage to try my luck and went through the human-sized hole in the surrounding fence to get a better shot of the Finnair passenger jet on final. It didn’t take long until a suspicious looking vehicle started to approach by the runway, so I soon retreated to the allowed location.. But I was able to catch this shot though (which was purchased by Ilmailumuseo, thanks Cartina Finland!)
I would love to do plane spotting here in Japan. Anyone know some good locations?
