A&P Lots 'o Airshow pics v. 1st timer

Alright, this was my first legitimate outing since i droped my canon point and shoot 6 years ago. I jumped into the DSLR world and got an XTi.

Just used the kit lens and a 50mm/f1.8II. Post process was also a first for me, just basic level adjustment and crop, nothing beyond that.

There are a lot of pictures here, and none are perticularly good imo, but i need some C&C to get better. All in all for a first time out, really 1st time getting to use the camera i was fairly pleased.

Thanks for your time

enjoy

This plane needs no introduction




America, fuck yeah






































Aishow goatse










Apache Cockpit




























One of my personal favs





























another one of my personal favorites




hope you enjoyed

 

Post 1/4 of those and I would say you either got lucky or had great composition. Some were snapshotty but thats expected at an airshow where you are there to enjoy the cockpits and such. Overall I like most of them especially with having your reach be around 50mm. Add in some bokeh to a few and I would love em

 

what is "bokeh"?

some i got lucky being able to crop them decently

the only thing i feel i got really lucky on was the lens flare on the tail art...i tried to get it again but couldn't. I think it adds a nice little something to the pic

 

uno mas

 

Edit: Bokeh is the look of the out of focus area. It can be smooth looking, etc. Thanks for correcting me

 

I shot practically all day in aperature priority. It was actually my first time ever shooting with the 50mm lense too.

Kinda freaked me out when i saw it was at like 1/2000 i was like...uhhh, wut.

I tried getting depth of field believ it or not, is auto focus better for that? i couldn't seem to stretch the camera to get it to focus on the close/far object of my choice

 

some great shots in there, even more impressive is the fact that you don't have a telephoto lens.

 

That does bring up an interesting question... how do you shoot an airshow well?

 

for instance. I would have really liked the hangers in the back of the head-on apache phot to be blurred a little bit as well as the couple forground left, but i just wasn't having much luck.

 

thank god for post processing?

:canon:

 

This was the first time i actually put effort into post processing. All i did was adjust the levels a bit. I'd like to know what this "color curve" nonsense is and really make some interesting shots.

I don't even know how to effectivly use layers

 

careful when fuckin around with the curves... it's a fine line between good, and ruined... i stick to levels, and manually adjusting saturation/hue, as well as brightness/contrast as necessary.

i've got an XT... i was looking more for pointers

 

Ah yes, 2 and 3 are great examples of bokeh But overall, shooting an airshow has got to be tough without the reach of atleast 100mm. You did a great job with what you had at the show and came out with a lot of interesting photos!

 

i've got about 500 shots of the Canadian Snowbirds from the mini-show they put on over Duluth MN back in may... i'm pretty sure a few of them are useable... i'll put 'em up and see what you guys think

 

I like this one the best I think

 

saturation/hue and brightness/contrast are seperate from the "levels" slider?

 

Due your crazy th A-10 warthog is so awsome it has to have a introduction so people no whats kicking there ass.

 

So anyone have any constructive criticism then?

 

man, I've been out of the loop for a while fucking BOKEH? Used to just say that the photo had a very shallow depth of field. Every tom dick and harry with a camera and a flickr account posts nothing but pictures with an extremely shallow depth of field and calls that "art". Don't get me wrong, a very shallow depth of field has its advantages, but for christs sakes everyone needs to close their apertures a little bit and try using the infinity settings.

 

Not bad at all for a beginner. For the most part, you did very well with your composition. Most of the photos obstained from having the subject smack dab in the middle of the frame. Exposure and color were decent, and the subject matter interesting. I especially like what you did with the B52, shooting right down the middle to accentuate the length and size of the BUFF (Big Ugly Fat Fucker)

The only one I didn't care for was this one - simply because the subjects WERE smack dab in the middle. In action shots like this leave two thirds of the space open in front of the subject to give it room to "action" where "action" is whatever the subject is doing, whether it be running, hopping, skipping, rolling, flying, etc etc"

 

I don't have a lot of CC from experience, since I just shot my first air show about a month ago at NAS Oceana in Virginia Beach.

Overall the comp looks pretty good to me, the only thing I see that can be corrected fairly easily would be the sky......either blown or just to short of an exposure. And in most of those, the whites are blown out. Possibly the addition of a ND filter might have helped you out.

The day I went it was overcast with low clouds..........all damn day. While I didn't have to worry about blown skies......I had to do a lot of PP to fix most of my shots. Here is a link .....

http://forums.offtopic.com/showthread.php?t=3942193

 

ND filter? what is that?

thanks you guys for the comments

 

Yes... little further down on the adjustments menu. Photoshop recommends adjusting brightness/contrast after you've done levels, and any color adjustments, so you don't lose any detail those adjustments might bring out.

Neutral Density filter