Airliners.net

Below are a few pics I took the other day from the Udvar-Hazy parking lot at IAD. I'd greatly appreciate any feedback on them on where I can improve (e.g. - sharpness, shadows, etc.). Thanks for the help!






CV990A

The Qatar and Virgin will stand the best chance but not in that crop ratio you have. They are also going to have to be a bit tighter, especially on the Silver. Air Canada looks to have some tougher lighting or really harsh contrast.

Agree with Len90 re. crop ratios and needing tighter crops.
Silver is a bit soft as is the Virgin (looks blurry as well)
Air Canada RJ is underexposed and soft and noisy in the shadow sections of the aircraft
Qatar: Best of the set. If you submit at a suitable image size and crop ration, should be OK.

Jehan

Thanks for the feedback. My concerns were I'd over processed the Virgin pic, and the Air Canada shot is the one I'd done the least work to. Thanks again for the insights.

CV990A

Any thoughts on the pic below? My concern is it may be too dark. Thanks!

That's correct, much too dark. Your earlier attempts were much better in that regard.

Kaphias wrote:

That's correct, much too dark. Your earlier attempts were much better in that regard.

For A.net, as a general rule, you want the sun behind you, lighting the side of the aircraft that is facing you. There are exceptions, like silhouettes and such, but for a typical side-on of an aircraft like your shot, backlighting won't be acceptable here.

vikkyvik wrote:

Kaphias wrote:

That's correct, much too dark. Your earlier attempts were much better in that regard.

Yep - thanks. The sun wasn't in the best position yet for that one; I only took the shot because it was a logojet.

Here's another one I took later that day with a better sun angle; is it still too dark? I'm also concerned because the plane isn't level - he's in the middle of the River Visual Approach at DCA - it that something I should look at fixing before attempting to upload?

Thanks again for the feedback!

Level is fine, that's less critical for a pure sky shot like this. However, it is indeed very dark. A quick example of your photo below (even in my quick edit the aircraft itself is still quite dark):

airkas1 wrote:

Level is fine, that's less critical for a pure sky shot like this. However, it is indeed very dark. A quick example of your photo below (even in my quick edit the aircraft itself is still quite dark)

Understand - thanks for the insights.

What do people think about these pics- the first pair is a shot 'as-is', and then one where I brightened it a bit after the fact.
Original -

Edited -


I'd also appreciate pre-submittal feedback on these 2 as well:





As always - thanks for the feedback; I do find the comments very helpful.

The Air Canada Express RJ mages are underexposed due to backlighting. They also look quite blurry and noisy in the shadows.
The AA RJ : Same as above.
United 738: Not backlit, but underexposed and also blurry.

Jehan

OK- thanks. Here is a different shot of the 738; looking at the histogram, it doesn't look underexposed, and I don't see any blur or noise.



Thanks again - I am learning (or trying to) from all this...

Sorry, it does look blurry to me, or atleast very very soft. The light isn't great (quite toplit as we say), but could probably be fixed to passable levels. You also have a dust spot on the left side of the frame.

Fair enough - guess I'll just have to go back out and keep practicing. Thanks again.

Here's a different pic (without that stupid dust spot) that I've been fairly aggressively editing for the sake of practice. The histogram looks like it is a little over-exposed, and the area around the registration / tail is probably kinda soft. Is this assessment right? What about noise? The original full-size RAW image had some on the belly between the engines and main landing gear, but I'm having trouble seeing it on the re-sized / processed .jpeg.



Thanks again for the time and feedback.

How about these photos.




Appreciate your feedback

Please create your own thread and don't hijack someone else's feedback thread. I'd be happy to give you advice once done.

I am sorry. I did not know every user has to create new thread for his/her 1or 2 photo's feedback.

Alright I will create new thread.

From today's special charter IAD-CTU for Bao Bao the panda:



Too cluttered? I'm worried about the 757's horizontal stabilizer.

The photo is too small to judge the quality, but from this size, I can already tell you that motive will be a rejection reason. The tail of the 757 and nose of the A300(?) are obstructing the actual subject.

Really trying to take the dark / soft feedback to heart here; one were I've played around quite a bit with the editing. Am I getting closer, or is it over-processed? Thanks again.

You are definitely getting closer. It does suffer from a lot of editing halos though, mainly noticeable around the wing and fuselage. If you equealize the photo in Photoshop, you will see it. Once you get rid of those halos (edit the photo in such a way that they don't appear), I'd say that A380 photo is close to passable (it also has some jaggies in the tail flag).

Haven't been able to get out spotting a lot due to work commitments lately, but managed some time last weekend. Was wondering about the fuselage / winglet on this guy. Thanks as always for the feedback.



CV990A

Sorry, didn't have time to respond earlier.
The above image is too small in size to judge the quality. But from the thumbnail I can already see that it atleast needs a tighter crop and the bottomside of the entire aircraft seems a bit underexposed. This could be solved by lifting the shadows just a little.

OK - thanks. I've changed photo editing software, and am now playing around with adobe lightroom. Here's my latest efforts. Thanks again as always.

All are tiny so tough to really judge...
Eagle: Distant
Delta CRJ might have some heat haze... leading edge of wing looks wavy.
Virgin: High in frame and low contrast
WN: contrast looks a bit low and might be low in frame a bit

In addition to Len's comments, they all look quite blurry to me.

Jehan