RAF Waddington International Airshow

[forthbridge]

Superb stuff!

[Tweek]

Thanks for the kind words! Once the rain had cleared up, it proved to be a great day. The sun shone for the Vulcan, so what more can you ask for?

[Kevin Farnell]

I'm using a Canon EOS 400D paired with a 400mm F/5.6L lens, although the Vulcan shots were taken with the significantly cheaper 75-300mm USM III.

Thanks for the info, Tweek.

The photos are pin sharp and perfectly exposed. The Vulcan shots look equally good.
I've been experimenting with my photography lately. I generally use a 70-200mm F2.8, with a 2X converter. I had always used spot metering, but for my latest shots, I tried Centre weighted metering with +0.3EV. This seems to have worked well (see my pics from the British Aerobatic Championships http://www.cbfsim.org/cbfsim/cbfsBB/vie ... =1&t=14130, and I can't wait to try it out at a major show.
The problem with prop aircraft is avoiding camera shake, but using a low enough shutter speed so as not to freeze the prop (even with an anti-shake lens).

Cheers again.

Kevin

[forthbridge]

:roll:

I'm trying to do some housekeeping on the PC but instead I'm getting square eyed at all these superb shots and links......

:flying:

[Tweek]

The problem with prop aircraft is avoiding camera shake, but using a low enough shutter speed so as not to freeze the prop (even with an anti-shake lens).

Tell me about it. The 400 is an absolute nightmare when it comes to props, due to its long fixed focal length and lack of IS. I'm not exaggerating when I say 90% of my shots come out blurred at 1/320th.

The shots in your link look fine for quality, exposure and sharpness, although they do seem to be suffering from some pretty severe jaggies. What method/program do you use to resize them?

[Kevin Farnell]

Tell me about it. The 400 is an absolute nightmare when it comes to props, due to its long fixed focal length and lack of IS. I'm not exaggerating when I say 90% of my shots come out blurred at 1/320th.

The shots in your link look fine for quality, exposure and sharpness, although they do seem to be suffering from some pretty severe jaggies. What method/program do you use to resize them?

I too use 1/320th for my prop shots and have a similar failure rate.
I'm a little puzzled over the problem of jaggies, as I see none at all (screen resolution 1280 x 1024). I've also viewed them from work and again see no jaggies.
I mostly use Nikon Editor for processing and resizing (also, Photoshop Elements 6 and Rawshooter) . I limit the size to 800 x 600 for CBFS, though this wouldn't be my choice otherwise.
Try here...

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/k.farnell/BAC.htm

for the original posts ('though I don't see why they would look any different).

Your shots of the helicopters are in sharp focus, whilst showing the motion of the rotors - excellent!

Regards

Kevin

[TobyV]

It was a bit wet today, not so much sun as the people got and the Vulcan's electrics went tech so all we got was a brief taxi with the nosewheel off the ground, still:

[Tweek]

I'm a little puzzled over the problem of jaggies, as I see none at all (screen resolution 1280 x 1024). I've also viewed them from work and again see no jaggies.
I mostly use Nikon Editor for processing and resizing (also, Photoshop Elements 6 and Rawshooter) . I limit the size to 800 x 600 for CBFS, though this wouldn't be my choice otherwise.
Try here...

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/k.farnell/BAC.htm

for the original posts ('though I don't see why they would look any different).

Very strange, as they seem the same on both links. One thing I've noticed though, is that the photos are coming up as 799 pixels wide. I presume these are meant to be 800 pixels, and I've no idea what's causing them to shrink by one. This is more than likely the cause of the jaggies I'm seeing, but I'm clueless as to why they'd appear that way on my screen and not yours!

I can see them very clearly along the stripes of the Pitts in this shot:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/k.farnell/BAC/BAC-04.jpg

[forthbridge]

These are extreme Jaggie cases - in that the colours (very dark and light) are extremely contrasting. You will not get Jaggies if you view an image at the best resolution for your individual monitor. Once you resize, you will get Jaggies - it just depends what the image is and what monitor you are using as to how bad they look. Jaggies will appear worse the more the image is reduced in size, as more pixels are taken out.

The red arrow shot for instance, were the A/C closer to the cam, there may be a little more 'jaggies' on the wite/red border, but the red bleeds into pinkish pixels (very slightly) and the eye auto-adjusts so to speak and the lines 'look' smoother. With the Pitts shot for example, the black/white is too contrasty for that to happen.

Resizing removes pixels, and this is another factor. If the images were printed the jaggies would not be there, as the ink 'fills' the gaps - it is purely a monitor issue.

Best bet is to experiment with a combo of cropping and resizing, a mix of the two can help, but at the end of the day, resizing to 800 wide from an 8-odd MP shot is taking away a large percentage of the pixel data!

[Tweek]

Jaggies will appear worse the more the image is reduced in size, as more pixels are taken out.

True, but I really do think it's down to whatever has resized it, for some bizarre reason, to 799 pixels. Sometimes when web pages do that, it completely ruins and distorts the image. I can't see any evidence of jaggies in mine or Toby's shots (very nice, by the way!), but they're displaying at the correct size. I don't believe it's through Kevin's fault that they're appearing that way, but I'm not sure exactly what has done it.