Are you still on your D7200? If so you really don’t have much to play with. my suggestion would just be to open your lens as wide as it goes and then use the slowest shutter speed that you’re comfortable hitting 1-2 shots per plane with. Then, just let the auto ISO balance things out (maybe dial in -1 stop of exposure compensation or something). It might be tempting to keep the ISO low and just fix it in post, but I find that this done to the extreme results in complete loss of detail which is hard to recover from. Better to just have a little more noise in the actual image and let LR denoise sort it out.
Yes, I am. I’m pretty comfortable using a high ISO with it for everything except plane spotting. Tbh I’m already thinking of getting a Z6 or Z6 II in a couple years.
I took most of the night panning shots on a tripod at F5 (the largest my lens lets me go at the focal length I used) ISO 3200-4000 and around 1/60.
So I guess I could raise the ISO to the point where my photos are too bright and then reduce the exposure in post? I’ve started to do that for astrophotography
I wouldn’t do that. For aircraft you generally want to keep slightly underexposed to avoid blowing highlights (since most planes are white/light colored). This is especially true at night because your camera will try to properly expose the surroundings and you will end up with a ridiculously bright plane plus more noise because the higher ISO. Generally, recovering shadows increases noise, but recovering highlights does not reduce noise (not to mention the 7200’s DR means that it might not even be able to recover anyways).
