Penn Valley Airshow, Selnsgrove PA

Hey Guys and Girls,
I wanted to post a few shots from my second attempt at an airshow. I am kind of straddling the fence between hobbyist photographer and doing it as something more serious. I am hoping to take a few steps forward towards getting more professional results, and am relatively happy with a few of these. Please let me know what you think. I did these edits over the weekend to post to my facebook page to share with friends, and did some of them relatively quickly. One thing I did notice is that I let the sky get a little washed out in some of them. I want to go back and bump up the saturation in the blues to help that. I also know I could have had my shutter speed a lick or two slower in a few of them to let the prop blur a little more, but other than that I am relatively pleased with them. Anyway, be honest, and let me have it!

EDIT: **Ok, I realized I shouldn't have uploaded all of the photos, so I linked them from my photobucked album. It got the first two out of order in reference to the comments that have already been made. I numbered 3-9 to help make sense of it all.

Todd

3.

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

Nobody wants to offer an opinion? Don't be shy! If you like them, let me know. If you think they are terrible, let me know! You won't hurt my feelings!

Be patient; a lot of different time zones, work schedules and whatnot around here. It can be a while before folks get around to an individual post

For me, most of these are just snapshots of an event. I'm going through that right now with a show I shot two weeks ago.

1-2: The angle is nice, but the lighting leaves the 'interesting' parts of the plane too shadowed and dark.

3: Feels like the plane's about to crash into the left frame...would be better if the plane were flying "into" the image instead of out of it.

4. Don't like the vignette; doesn't really add anything. Shot looks pretty underexposed.

5. Again...vignette = no to me; tilt doesn't do much for the image, either...I'd straighten your runway; b/w is ok, not completely sold though. Might like to see color version.

6. Another underexposed shot; I'm finding I don't much care for the solo shots on these sorts of planes. Been culling out a ton of the ones I recently took, too.

7. Nice colors, focus, etc; just not all that exciting, as a viewer. A very NICE snapshot

8. Even though they gave you bellies, this is probably my favorite out of the lot.

9. I like this one, too. Leaves sort of an open-ended story question. "What happened next?"

I'm currently going through and evaluating/culling/pro​cessing 1500 shots I took at a show two weeks ago; and I'm finding that the light/angles/etc for the performances really makes a difference in the final outcomes. Even when you get a difficult exposure right, like your first two images it can wind up that the lighting just doesn't work well. I'm already down from 1500 shots to 900 something, and haven't finished going through them all for the first pass yet.

Sometimes, it's better to watch the show than shoot it, IMO. [NOT directed at your shots here; just a generalism from my own experiences, so far]

Sorry, didn't mean to be impatient. I'm just anxious to hear what people think about them so I can learn from them. As I mentioned, I am trying to make steps towards making photography at least a side job for myself, so I am anxious to improve. Thanks for your input, I appreciate it. Let me ask you to clarify a few points if you don't mind.

1-2 how would you suggest adjusting for this when the sun is either directly overhead, or out in front of the flight line?

3 Plane flying out of the frame.. I know that is generally the rule of thumb, but in the case of a plane with a smoke system, how would you handle it? Chop the smoke off? Make a really wide photo and leave more space in front?

4 I had mixed feelings about the Vignette too.. just wanted to try something a little artistic to make things more interesting. To me it made things seem kind of "dream like". I was shooting these pics for the pilot to put on his website. Underexposed on this shot is my pp mistake I believe. I will have to go back and look at the original and do some tweaking.

5 Wasn't intentionally tilted. Camera is level, but the runway is going slightly away from me. I've never tried leveling things before, so it will be a good learning experience to try. I wanted to make this one look old. Hence the B&W, vignette, and grain. I could probably do a better job if I spent more time on it. I also cloned a house out of this one since it was a distraction and was modern looking.

6 Why don't you like solo shots of these types of planes? How would you suggest avoiding it? Just not take photos of that plane? This was the pilot I was there to take pics for.

7 What would you do to make it more interesting? I guess what it comes down to is that yes, I was there to capture the airshow event, not purely as a photographer trying to only capture the artistic side of things.

8 I like this shot too. The Iron Eagles (formerly the Christen Eagles when the team was four planes, and used to be my favorite act of anything out there) are just flat out gorgeous planes and with the colors, make for great shots. While I would have rathered to see the tops of the planes, I liked the bellies since they showed the team name on them.

9 I agree.. I saw the show, and I can't remember exactly where this lead. It's not the typical follow the leader or mirroring each other that two man teams usually do.

Great series for this show. I really like the b/w photo, but hey thats just me haha!

JJNPRODUCTIONS wrote in post #12781840
Great series for this show. I really like the b/w photo, but hey thats just me haha!

Thanks.. I appreciate it. The B&W is one of my favs too.. I will post the original tonight (tomorrow morning) when I get home to show it in color, and with the house in it that I edited out.

1-2: Not much you can do, really. It's decision time at that point; put down the camera and enjoy the show; take the shots as you did and be happy with them; expose for the shadowed parts of the plane/pilot at the expense of blowing the lit portions of the plane.

3. Personally...I'd crop the smoke. It sort of depends on what you're trying to focus on, though; the plane? Or the path it just took. I would be tempted to crop in quite a bit tighter with that shot and get the focus on the pilot, himself, since you have a pretty good look at him through the cockpit...

4. It's all part of developing your own style; especially if you're trying to sell your work. If the pilot likes the effect and buys the shots, or is inclined to buy other shots due to said work, it doesn't matter too much what *I* think of the effect

5. What do you have in the way of software? Leveling is REALLY easy in Lightroom...I'm not certain in other apps. Also, nice job on cloning, then...never would have known you had done any if you hadn't said anything; and still not sure I can pick out where it was done for sure.

6. Honestly? I couldn't tell you; just found that they don't do much for me. It's like, "oh look; another plane"...there isn't much unique to them, for me. Not necessarily something for YOU to avoid; just my own thoughts on the subject. If you're there for a specific pilot, catching the action at a critical point in their display or getting a nice, tight shot of them in the plane would be nice. Just getting another shot of the plane, doing something like flying straight or coming out of a shallow turn just feels sort of generic, I guess. I can post a couple of examples of this later, if you like; but I don't have my shots here right now.

7. Another one that is more of a personal dislike than anything "wrong", per se. The exposure is pretty good and the colors are great, but it's missing action. If it were taxiing down the runway or even warming up, so that the prop was spinning, it would have a little more life to it.

Snydremark wrote in post #12781916
5. What do you have in the way of software? Leveling is REALLY easy in Lightroom...I'm not certain in other apps. Also, nice job on cloning, then...never would have known you had done any if you hadn't said anything; and still not sure I can pick out where it was done for sure.

I am using Lightroom right now. I just downloaded it the other day and am still learning it. I am using the free trial, but pretty sure I will be shelling out my $230 or so in 24 more days when the trial expires. I'm liking it. I lucked out on the cloning. I tried about 5 different ways, and this one actually turned out to be rather simple once I figured out what to do. I will post the original tonight so you can see it in color and with the house in it. The house is on the left hand side of the pic where the corn meets the tree line.

Ok, cool. For leveling, just open the Crop interface and click the little, ruler-looking icon next to Angle. Then go drag a straight line along the edge of the runway; once you do that, LR will rotate/crop the image to make THAT your horizontal line.

Snydremark wrote in post #12782141
Ok, cool. For leveling, just open the Crop interface and click the little, ruler-looking icon next to Angle. Then go drag a straight line along the edge of the runway; once you do that, LR will rotate/crop the image to make THAT your horizontal line.

Cool.. thanks.. I think I saw that the other day when I was cropping. I am sure I would have figured it out, but you just made it simple for me.. thanks. I will try it as soon as I get home and see what that does for the pic. I did all of my cloning on the cropped pic, so I am hoping things don't get thrown out of whack when I rotate the pic. Don't want to tempt fate and see if I can get the cloning right a second time!

golfingguy27 wrote in post #12782220
Cool.. thanks.. I think I saw that the other day when I was cropping. I am sure I would have figured it out, but you just made it simple for me.. thanks. I will try it as soon as I get home and see what that does for the pic. I did all of my cloning on the cropped pic, so I am hoping things don't get thrown out of whack when I rotate the pic. Don't want to tempt fate and see if I can get the cloning right a second time!

Nice thing with LR is that you can make Virtual Copies...so make one before you muck with the crop/straighten tool. That way your current state on the original gets saved

Ok.. experimented a little with the B&W P-51 pic.. here is the original, untouched photo and what I have now. BTW, I did end up starting over and doing the cloning of the house again.

Realy like nr. 6 that's realy a great picture.

Yeah, I like the rework there.

<puzzled look>...did you do anything new to the inflights of this plane? The shadowed areas don't look as dark or blocked up as I recall them looking when you originally posted them...or was I just having a bad eyes day yesterday?