Trying to get back into the swing of things here... been over a year since I last edited/uploaded anything. I'd appreciate any feedback on this variety of shots. Also looking for any tips for editing in Adobe CameraRAW, particularly regarding sharpening and noise reduction. Thanks!

First one: Motive is the only thing I'm not sure about with that composition
Horizon: Oversharp and might be a bit blurry at the rear half of the fuselage
FedEx feeder: Low contrast
Alaska 737: Looks to be some motion blur, visible on the windows above the registration, and the rear door. Might be dark and low contrast as well
Ward Air 53: Dark and grainy
Ward Air 58: slight CW rotation

Beech18: looks really nice, I would accept that in a heartbeat.
Dash8: marginal, but passable
C208: marginal, blurryish
B737: blurry, flat
DHC2: marginal, underexposed, blurry, quality
DHC2: passable

Belated thanks Len and Kas for your help... great to be back sharing photos here after a long break.



I'd like some help regarding a few rejections:

Initially rejected for underexposed, reuploaded (with fixes) and rejected for over sharpened and banding. I'm really struggling to see the banding, and I believe I see some jaggies on the stripes at the far left of frame... anywhere else?


Initially rejected for underexposed, reuploaded (with fixes) and rejected for blurry, compression, and underexposed. Thoughts? I'll try a smaller size, but I'm editing from the RAW file every time... compression would seem strange. First time trying cabin shots and it's a bit tricky.


Finally, this was rejected for dark, overexposed, soft, and low contrast. No saving this one probably, but any suggestion for these kind of shots in the future? I don't have a flash besides the crappy onboard.


Thanks!

#1 is passable for me. There is slight banding in the sky (the dark layer at the top of the frame), but I think it is within acceptable limits. I don't see any jaggies that would cause me to reject. You could try an appeal.
#2 seems flat. A slight boost in brightness and contrast should fix that. Slight blurriness is visible (caused by depth of field) on the panel closest to the left side.You could try cropping that part out of the frame. However, there seems to be chromatic aberration (purple fringing) along the window frame especially on the left side. The crop would fix that as well.
#3: The panel is underexposed and the view out of the window is a bit over exposed. And I agree with soft. These are difficult exposures. The only way I have found that provides a balanced exposure is to meter for the outside, preserve that setting in Manual mode (vs. Av or Auto) and then use a flash to illuminate the interior. An TTL setting on the flash should give you a nice exposure inside while the manual aperture setting should give you a good exposure for the outside. The flash should also provide a nice crisp image of the flight deck and panels. Best to use a diffuser on your flash head and angle it up (i.e. bounce it) to avoid any reflection of the flash on the panels.

Jehan

1) I don't see the banding. The titles are a little on the sharp side. I would crop closer on the sides though (next to the titles and next to the prop).
2) Agree with what Jehan wrote. It's a ncie shot, but technically there may be a little too many small issues.
3) A tough shot without an external flash and unfrotunately not that great in terms of quality, sorry The glare on the center console doesn't help either.

Belated thanks for the help Jehan and Kas.

Looking for something special for #100... are either of these workable?

First of all, those photos are LOVELY!
But whether they're for A.net, I'm not sure. The focus seems to be on the outside, with the inside quite blurry (shallow DoF). If I were to consider one of them, I personally prefer the second one (with a tighter crop on the sides). But still no guarantees and honestly I don't like your chances for them

Thanks Kas, I had a feeling the DoF would be a concern.

airkas1 wrote:

First of all, those photos are LOVELY!

airkas1 wrote:

But whether they're for A.net, I'm not sure. The focus seems to be on the outside, with the inside quite blurry (shallow DoF). If I were to consider one of them, I personally prefer the second one (with a tighter crop on the sides). But still no guarantees and honestly I don't like your chances for them

The second is my favorite too. Because the focus is outside I consider this more of a "window view" rather than a "flight deck" category shot - I understand that typically means cropping out the window frame completely (at least in airliners) but I like the context it provides here. The shallow DoF also artistically serves to direct the viewer's eye to the outside.

Something else... we accept "flaws" in images shot in other challenging conditions (night) and I'd certainly say this was challenging - a 40-odd year old Cessna 150 at 1200ft over Alaska's North Pacific in the 20F December cold, making steep turns above a remote lighthouse while quite literally banging our heads off the ceiling - the memory brings a smile to my face and today's lunch to my mouth at the same time.

And as always, there are precedents (admittedly many are more than a few years old):

Give the second photo a go, but with an improved crop. I took the liberty of making a small adjustment which I think makes the crop better:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gst4g2uaydznz ... p.jpg?dl=0

Happy to add this one just now

airkas1 wrote:

Happy to add this one just now

Thanks Kas. Greatly appreciate all your help.

Couple more, from this week... thoughts? Worried about the reflections on the edges of the frame. Tricky to avoid.

It's no fun if you don't push the boundaries, right?



20 image stack of 30 second exposures was taken approximately two hours after the crash of the Q400 in Seattle area tonight, it shows rescue aircraft and helicopters circling the crash site. Rejected for motive (presumably because it's a stack, which is daft) and soft.

Even though rejected, this is a cool picture (even though unfortunately arising out of a bad circumstance)

Kaphias wrote:

It's no fun if you don't push the boundaries, right?

Absolutely!

I'm a little torn, as it's a wonderful photo and definitely newsworthy, but unfortunately we don't allow stacks. Personally I wouldn't mind a good stack, but I'm a minority.

airkas1 wrote:

Kaphias wrote:

It's no fun if you don't push the boundaries, right?

Absolutely!

I'm a little torn, as it's a wonderful photo and definitely newsworthy, but unfortunately we don't allow stacks. Personally I wouldn't mind a good stack, but I'm a minority.

Thanks Kas. I'd love to hear the reasons why the majority think stacks shouldn't be allowed. They're a great tool in aviation photography, especially to show flight paths, traffic patterns, etc. I suppose I could have done a single 10 minute exposure to get essentially the same result and it would have been allowed.

Fully agree, but stacks are considered 'overedited' and not single-shot photos. Maybe I'll bring up the topic again on short term.

Kaphias wrote:

I suppose I could have done a single 10 minute exposure to get essentially the same result and it would have been allowed.

Yes and no, because then the foreground would be horribly overexposed I think.

airkas1 wrote:

Fully agree, but stacks are considered 'overedited' and not single-shot photos. Maybe I'll bring up the topic again on short term.

I can guarantee you less editing goes into creating a simple stack than most of the high-iso night shots that appear here. Would be nice to have a public discussion on stacks as well so that other photographers can share their thoughts.

airkas1 wrote:

Kaphias wrote:

I suppose I could have done a single 10 minute exposure to get essentially the same result and it would have been allowed.

Yes and no, because then the foreground would be horribly overexposed I think.

Good point, it very much would have been. Was fighting a streetlight to my right.

Kaphias wrote:

airkas1 wrote:

Fully agree, but stacks are considered 'overedited' and not single-shot photos. Maybe I'll bring up the topic again on short term.

I can guarantee you less editing goes into creating a simple stack than most of the high-iso night shots that appear here. Would be nice to have a public discussion on stacks as well so that other photographers can share their thoughts.

IMO it's not about overediting but rather about manipulation; you're presenting several photos as if it were only one photo. Same principle goes for certain panoramic photos: taking several photos and blending them together as one photo. So in order to preserve the authenticity, I'd rather not see these kinds of photos being accepted here.

dutchspotter1 wrote:

Kaphias wrote:

airkas1 wrote:

Fully agree, but stacks are considered 'overedited' and not single-shot photos. Maybe I'll bring up the topic again on short term.

I can guarantee you less editing goes into creating a simple stack than most of the high-iso night shots that appear here. Would be nice to have a public discussion on stacks as well so that other photographers can share their thoughts.

IMO it's not about overediting but rather about manipulation; you're presenting several photos as if it were only one photo. Same principle goes for certain panoramic photos: taking several photos and blending them together as one photo. So in order to preserve the authenticity, I'd rather not see these kinds of photos being accepted here.

Thanks for sharing your opinion. My understanding is that your concern is with the method (combining multiple exposures into a single [/I]photograph[/I]) rather than the result (light trails, panoramas, and perhaps HDR while we're at it). I think it's a shame that these results are not seen as authentic, because there's nothing inherently "fake" about them - all the pixels are real.

If any given image is aviation related, of good quality, and has not been altered in such a way that mis-represents reality, why should it not be accepted? This site needs to expand the breadth - not just the depth - of it's database in order to remain relevant and encourage fresh interest in the hobby.

Previously rejected for (among others) soft, now rejected for oversharpened. I think I'd struggle to find a middle ground. Where are the jaggies I should be looking to erase? Or appeal? Thanks.

Some of the white cheat lines along the fuselage, the top edge of the floats, and the struts connecting the floats to the fuselage seem like the most obvious areas that look OS imo.

Looks passable to me.

Thanks Evan, Kas. Was rejected on appeal for OS and low contrast. Did some selective sharpening and raised the contrast a bit. I know the white paint isn't white, but if I bring them up anymore the sky just goes solid white as well and looks awful. It's already brighter than I'd like. Updated edit below:

Looks passable to me.

Still passable for me.

Absolutely passable!

Runway28L wrote:

Looks passable to me.

airkas1 wrote:

Still passable for me.

beaverhunter wrote:

Absolutely passable!

Thanks gentlemen, but it was just rejected again for low contrast and over sharpened. Guess I lost this round of screener roulette. Appeal?

Appeal it and send me a message (preferably a quick E-mail at airkas1[at]airliners.net, I pick up on those faster).

Rejected after three second opinions for banding, underexposed, and vignetting, with the message "needs lifting shadows". Thoughts? Not sure how much more shadows I can drag out of this, but thought it was a pretty unique shot to try and share here.



My caption for reference: Below us are the lights of downtown Juneau, Alaska's capital city, which sits nestled between Gastineau Channel and the 3,576-foot Mt. Juneau. Just above the cowling is the bridge to Douglas Island. In the distance, also above the cowling, are the lights of Juneau International Airport. In the summer, one can hike Mt. Juneau and look down on aircraft approaching the airport. This photo was taken at 4 in the afternoon, almost an hour after sunset.

One of the SO's with those 3 reasons was from me. It's a nice scene for sure, but the sky has some banding to it and the top corners have a bit of vignetting. Would love to give it a try though if you'll let me