Air show pics

[BMWJNKY]

Well I just spent the last hour and a half sorting out and resizing some of the better pics from today. There were a couple more that I liked but I'm done with CS2 for today.

[BMWJNKY]

[BMWJNKY]

[JSPhoto]

You need to clean the IR Filter ..... you have a speck on the lower right or on the top shot Right top 1/4 the way down, halfway between the guys head and the top. DUST! It's visible in almost all the shots. In the bottom one it's just below the left wing tip of the A10. You may want to clone that out though....it's distracting.
Not bad shots though. Positioning could be better to avoid all the heads in most shots. Thats one reason I don't shoot airshows from public areas....I cheat and go on media day too.

JS

[BMWJNKY]

You need to clean the IR Filter ..... you have a speck on the lower right or on the top shot Right top 1/4 the way down, halfway between the guys head and the top. DUST! It's visible in almost all the shots. In the bottom one it's just below the left wing tip of the A10. You may want to clone that out though....it's distracting.
Not bad shots though. Positioning could be better to avoid all the heads in most shots. Thats one reason I don't shoot airshows from public areas....I cheat and go on media day too.

JS

I really suck at photo shop and all my efforts to remove the dust just made it stand out more so I just left it Got any recomends for a brush for cleaning the sensor? I've only had my DSLR for a couple weeks and this is the first dust that has gotten in it. The crowd was arround 80,000 people so getting clear shot down low was not going to happen.

[JSPhoto]

Do not use a BRUSH on the IR Filter, i will scratch and damage it. 99%.9% of the time all you have to do is blow it out with a handheld bulb blower... $5 at your local camera store. Do not buy CANNED AIR! Or brushes.
When blowing the IR Filter (it's not actually the sensor the dust is on, it's on the IR filter) do not put the tip of the bulb further in the camera than the lens mount. If for some reason the mirrior closes the bulb will hit the mirrior and damage it.

JS

[I_Fly]

Hi Alex,

Nice shots! These first three are really good. I actually like having some of the crowd in the pyro shot. It adds a certain flavor to the shot. The colors of that one are especially nice on the monitor I'm using.

I also like the heritage flight shot but would personally like to see the prop on the Mustang blurred a little more. That's my personal preference. Yours being blurred even a little is much better than stopping the prop completely!

[I_Fly]

Alex,

Nice shots of the blues. I like the second one the best. Your timing was great!

The first shot is my second favorite. Just a nice clean capture.

Good timing on the opposing solos pass too!

[I_Fly]

I really like the second shot here. The little boy on the shoulders of his dad(?) make the shot for me.

JS is right you need to clean the sensor. I've used a blower on my 1D several times and it works pretty good. Sometimes you need to blow it several times to get most of the dust off. You might also learn to use the clone tool. It's great to get rid of small dust spots.

[BMWJNKY]

Thanks for the complements. Yes, the kid was on his dads shoulders, and the other guy holding the little girl was my friend Nick with his daughter.

I know what you meen about having the prop blured but since I don't have an IS lens I was afraid that if I slowed the shutter speed down the planes themselves would get blured if I wasn't steady with my shot. I'm going by the camera store today to see what they have to offer for bulb type blowers. I have a good book on how to use the basics of CS2 so I'm going to read up on how to clone out that dust.

[LeeIs]

Good shots Alex.

I've read through the responses and how come no one is asking you about the ball of fire? That's the shot that caught my attention. Is this a normal thing at air shows? Never been to one.

I hope it wasn't a crash.

[jar_e]

I agree with Liban, it looks awfully large for just being pyro, considering it's on grass and all.

Great shots though, I enjoyed them!

[JSPhoto]

It is pyro technics and this group does it at most of it's shows. They will be in my area next summer or fall at Mt Comfort Airport. I commentd about it, in a away, all the heads are distracting and unfortunately ruin the shot for me. I guess I'd at least crop the heads out, but that crops into the flames, a no win situation.

JS

[I_Fly]

Hey JS,

I guess I should have commented more on why the photos work for me. I had the opportunity last year to get some of my photos on advertisements for a local airshow. What the airshow organizers were looking for were "crowd shots" showing action like the shot of the fireball or the kid on the shoulder watching the blues taxi by. I didn't have any quite like that and started taking those types of shots last year just in case the opportunity arose again.

That being said, they aren't the types of photos I would print to go on my walls but they can be useful.

As for the size of the fireball, I'll back JS up. It's entirely normal, I've seen shows with much larger displays several times. The bigger the better!

[BMWJNKY]

Hey JS,

I guess I should have commented more on why the photos work for me. I had the opportunity last year to get some of my photos on advertisements for a local airshow. What the airshow organizers were looking for were "crowd shots" showing action like the shot of the fireball or the kid on the shoulder watching the blues taxi by. I didn't have any quite like that and started taking those types of shots last year just in case the opportunity arose again.

That being said, they aren't the types of photos I would print to go on my walls but they can be useful.

As for the size of the fireball, I'll back JS up. It's entirely normal, I've seen shows with much larger displays several times. The bigger the better!

The kid on the shoulders was intentional because it reminds me of when I used to go to the air shows when I was a kid and would sit on my grandpas shoulders.

The fire ball was part of the show. They had a bigger one that was probably almost an 1/8 mile long but my lens wasn't wide enough to fit it all in so I didn't bother processing it. I would of liked to get clear shots but I don't have a press pass and with a crowd of about 100,000 people on Sunday anything down low was going to have people in it.

[I_Fly]

Hey Alex,

What airshow was that? I meant to ask earlier but forgot. Short term memory starting to get very short in my old age!

I'll be shooting my first show with a media pass this weekend. Hopefully I'll get some shots I don't normally get.

[BMWJNKY]

This was the first Capital City AirShow in Sacramento/Rancho Cordova

[BMWJNKY]

More pics from Sundays air show.

[Sebastian]

Crop! Most of these have WAY too much empty space around them. Don't be afraid to crop it out to make the viewer focus on the subject. Also, could you make them 600 pix on the longest end or less? Some of us love out 12 inch notebooks and viewing on the smaller screens can get annoying if the image is large.

This is for all you (us) airplane freaks:

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/mul...id=7-6450-6561

[I_Fly]

Seb's right, cropping would help this last batch quite a bit. I just noticed with these that it looks like they were backlit, making it hard for the camera to get a good meter reading. The color looks good to me on the laptop I'm using tonight.

Good job! Can't wait to see more of your work in the future.

Seb, I've seen that issue, it's pretty cool. I know from experience that it sucks trying to change film in an airplane. I have a hard time imagining trying to do so in a military jet with all the paraphenalia they wear and strapped in TIGHT.

Hopefully I'll have some good images to share next week after this weekends show I'm attending.

[adamsti]

The shots look good, but I agree you probably need to crop some. 400mm is really the bare minimum for single plane shots. The EXIF says ISO 200, in bright sun set it on ISO 100 and leave it there. The prop shots were shot at 1/640, way to fast, slow the shutter down to no faster than 1/250 for good prop blur.

[Loupey]

Hey, Eric ;)

Great shots! I, for one, love the wider contrail shots. I especially like the P-51 coming towards the camera. I think the trails make the shot more interesting than just tight on the plane.

Good job.

I mean Alex.

[adamsti]

Hey, Eric ;)

Great shots! I, for one, love the wider contrail shots. I especially like the P-51 coming towards the camera. I think the trails make the shot more interesting than just tight on the plane.

Good job.

I mean Alex.

Contrails, P-51?

That is a smoke system, and that is Julie Clark in her T-34 Mentor.

[schrackman]

All of these are awesome! Just one question...what is the explosion from? Hope not a plane. I didn't read all the posts so sorry if this question is redundant. But the explosion pic is my favorite!!

[adamsti]

Most of the explosions at airshows are the work of this outfit, http://www.richsincrediblepyro.com/