RIAT Arrivals

Thanks very much Paul (PMN) and others for your constructive and helpful comments and suggestions. Having been shooting Kodachrome slides for 40 years, I have only recently gone digital, so it is a whole new ballgame.
If I had posted my pics on the ‘Tutorial’ pic and asked for comments/suggestions, I would have expected some, but I just posted unaltered pics very quickly on this thread,just to show a few arrivals, without even tweaking and adjusting colours etc. Some of those that posted negative or childish comments are those that like to put post their pics so they can receive praise for them (but that’s all they receive!) and they believe they are Gods gift to aviation photography! What these people don’t realise is that many readers know these people and their credibility and respect goes down with every posting! I would like to see their efforts before the digital revolution!! The exposure you made on the day was in the hands of the processing lab and you had no influence on it once you made that exposure. Photography in those days WAS skill and I am pleased a still have a vast collection of perfect Kodachrome slides that don’t need ‘sharpening’, ‘colour adjusting’, ‘cropping’, ‘photoshopping’ and overall changing the image as taken by me!!

RIAT Arrivals

Well that seems to have wrapped that up then.
The trouble is there are a bunch of “Aircraft Enthusiasts” out there doing stalwort work restoring and operting vintage aircraft.
We are all tared with the same brush form the “Official side” and stuff like this makes us all look like a bunch of, well you think of a description, It dose not help.
Have I said this before somewhere probably.
I had a great day and missed lots of shots I cold have goten but how can you enjoy the full expierience squinting through a viewfinder all day, relax and enjoy for its own sake.

Riat Pic posts

Are we aviation enthusiasts or professional photographers???
Seems some here are defo on the wrong forum, Albert mate those pictures are fine just fine by me.
I have a fab set of the Lancaster doing mag drop checks barely 20 meters directly in fron of me too closefor the Fugi Finepix to get it all in, probablyout of focus badly framed sun directly on the screen couldnt see a thing!!
just guesswork.
reluctant to post because of all the abuse I will get at a lost photographic oportunity.
likewisw thw Wobbly Goblin and Typhoon.
jb154

I’m certainly very happy with mine. 🙂

It’s no lightweight, mind you! 😎

It does indeed seem a fine lens. My 50-500’s no lightweight, although at least it’s perfectly in proportion with it’s owner! :diablo:

Paul

Someone takes the time to post his images on an internet forum and this happens. The thing that amazes me is the number of people who make utterly useless, one word replies without actually saying anything that may be of use to the thread starter. Posting photos on this forum isn’t a point scoring exercise, and it certainly isn’t a competition.

Albert, many thanks for sharing your photos. I’d like to make a quick couple of points that hopefully may be of use, if I may.

A couple of them are indeed soft, and unfortunately this isn’t correctable by sharpening on an image as small as 800 pixels wide, although the results may be better if the original image is processed. In the EXIF data for one of your shots I noticed the aperture is at f5.6 and your shutter speed is 1/2000th, which may go some way to explaining the softness. The wider your aperture, the shallower your depth of field, so basically the amount of your shot that will be in focus is quite shallow and this effect becomes more noticeable at higher focal lengths. Shooting at f5.6 and 400mm means there is only a small space the aircraft can occupy to be in focus, and with fast moving jets it’s very easy to not quite nail that focus, leading to slightly soft images. If you use a higher (smaller) aperture, your depth of field increases and you have more chance of getting the aircraft in focus. Your shutter speed at f8 for that shot would have been around 1/1000th, which should still be absolutely fine for a focal length of 400mm.

Also, on the subject of colour, there is a slightly blueish tint to the shots indicating a cooler colour temperature setting on your camera than the conditions actually needed. To improve this, try keep an eye on your white balance settings and adjust them as the conditions change. When that good old British cloud comes over, select ‘Cloudy’, and if you’re lucky enough to catch a bit of sun, select ‘Sunny’ or ‘Daylight’.

Even if you’re on a setting that isn’t entirely appropriate, there are ways of improving things slightly. On this shot I just used the ‘Colour Balance’ tool in Photoshop, and shifted the first slider (Cyan/Red) a little further to the right, towards red to make it appear as though the colour temperature was set a little higher. This isn’t as good as having the correct white balance when you shoot, and the way I’ve done this is based purely on the fact that personally I would rather see a slightly warmer colour temperature than a slightly cooler one. My intention isn’t to show how the photo ‘should’ look, that’s up to you as the photographer, but merely to show another technique you could use.

The original:

And with a very quick adjustment. This could be improved further with a little more time, but this is just to demonstrate the difference one small editing step can make. Notice it now looks a little ‘warmer’ as opposed to the ‘cool’ look the blue gave it.

Back onto a mild whinge, whatever people’s opinions of RobAnt’s edit, at least he was kind enough to take 10 minutes out of his day to try help, which is far more than some have done so far. Perhaps those who do post utterly useless, one line comments such as “not sure about the colours, but I’d fully recommend a sensor clean” may like to consider the fact that all they’re actually doing is wasting their own time, other people’s time and the Board’s bandwidth. Such comments say nothing whatsoever of any use to anyone, least of all the guy who’s taken the time to share his photos. If you do insist on posting such comments, at least have the decency to explain what the problem may be and how to improve it instead of doing nothing but show us all the true meaning of the word ‘arrogance’. I realise photography is artistic and people can be very passionate when it comes to their art. I know this from spending 12 years of my life working with hundreds of different musicians on concerts ranging from my local pub to stadiums and arenas, and being a musician myself. Photography is no different, but I really wish some people would consider how their words come across and make a little more effort to at least try and be helpful.

Whinge over. Albert, I hope this experience hasn’t put you off posting your shots. I’d like to see more!

Paul

OMG 😮 I only looked on here to see what was going to be at RIAT on Saturday ,and for what it is worth I thought the pics looked good 🙂
But I have to say that some on here need to grow up,to much bickering and back biting,and now Albert is not posting any more,all I can say is our loss 😡

And so say I. Please post more Albert.

Not sure either way, all I can say is that it is the wrong shade of grey.

Could well be down to the light conditions. Pick any colour you like and the percieved colour will vary in different lighting conditions.

Robbo deletes his own posts.

Love the F-5, Albert!

It seems Robbo’s posts have been removed, either by him or the moderator.

I was merely trying to show that the image wasn’t out of focus, in defence of Albert.

If it was out of focus, I would not have been able to retrieve the detail.

My comments not sensible?

You should be able to take criticism as well as praise when posting work on the net. Any comments you don’t like should just go over the top of your head. Don’t get me wrong, that shot of the Turkish machine is super!

Also love the angle on your 2nd thunderbird shot. 😎

Don’t take any comments to heart and please keep your RIAT arrivals shots coming…

Oh dear oh dear – what a thread! Don’t some people take themselves ever so seriously, just a weenie bit?

Albert, just ignore them & they’ll go away & argue with themselves somewhere else!

And as far as the “Turkish Delight” image is concerned, it’s actually quite obvious! The water tower is currently experiencing subsidence & the actual horizon cannot be seen due to the leaves on the trees; both of which could be attributed to the recent inclement weather & rainfall figures imho! 😀

Well it’s not quite level :p

Thanks Damien…and I was beginning to think you were adding constructive advice? The horizon’s level, though.:D If that’s all that’s wrong, then maybe I have redeemed myself. The rest taken on Wednesday are all the same quality.

OMG 😮 I only looked on here to see what was going to be at RIAT on Saturday ,and for what it is worth I thought the pics looked good 🙂
But I have to say that some on here need to grow up,to much bickering and back biting,and now Albert is not posting any more,all I can say is our loss 😡

Well, I only posted a few quick shots to start off a RIAT arrivals thread, but obviously it’s not worth posting any more after the debate it’s started. 😡 Others that post here spend time in Photoshop making their images just perfect,before uploading, which I could have done if I had more time. Enjoy the show at the weekend if you are going.

Rob, your attempts to oversharpen an out of focus image are laughable. Your continued insistance that it looks fine are similarly hilarious. Cut your losses and retire gracefully.

If you stuck to making your own comments, and didn’t continually make disparaging remarks about the opinions of others – then I’m sure we’d both be happier.

Have your own say, but all means – but I’d prefer it if you simply expressed your own and refrained from commenting on my opinions.

We don’t agree fine. Drop it.

Fab shots Albert:cool:

James

Perhaps one of the die cast manufacturing companies could make an ‘out of focus’ F-16 for the more artistically inclined? Or even one that’s been ‘oversharpened’? Perhaps the Thunderbirds may even be persuaded to paint their markings out of focus to save us with little or no photographic talent the indignity of having to admit that the photo is out of focus because we’re clueless?

Anybody want to buy a 350D with a 70 – 300mm lens and a very dirty sensor?

Regards,

kev35

Albert if these are the latest corgi models then I suggest you try and get the paint schemes changed they are certainly the wrong colours as EN830 has already pointed out to you. It maybe wise to get hold of an old paint colour chart, possibly from Airfix if you can find one.

Not sure either way, all I can say is that it is the wrong shade of grey.

Rob, if you think that looks OK then you really do need to pop down to the optician. It’s quite tedious to keep arguing that black is white when the rest of the world doesn’t see it that way.

Then do yourself a favour, and dont.