grumman-cats photo album

grumman-cats · 02-25-2008, 11:54 PM

Here's a couple of aircraft that I seemed to have a real hard time focusing on. Not sure why. I have to manual focus when using the 2x magnifier but it usually isn't that tough and with the bright colors of the planes I wouldn't have thought it to be a problem but it was. I know that the lighting conditions were not the greatest for gene soucy but earlier in the day it was clear blue skies and I still had problems. Maybe I just need more practice at more airshows.

Heinz · 02-25-2008, 11:59 PM

excellent

evangilder · 02-26-2008, 12:10 AM

Actually Jim, the focus issue may not be you, but the multiplier. Many years ago, when I shot film, shots with the multiplier came out soft every time. The problem with multipliers are a higher f-stop and now you are shooting through yet another piece of glass. Add to that you are shooting moving objects and you have a tough formula.

I ended up ditching the multiplier and going for closer shots. Your shots aren't bad, just a bit soft on focus. The white/red bleed that shows on the top wing of the Oracle Challenger looks like it is most likely your multiplier. If you need longer reach for shows, rent a lens. It's much cheaper than buying, plus you can get a lens to try and to see if you really like it or not before shelling out the big bucks for a killer lens.

Wildcat · 02-26-2008, 02:07 AM

Very nice Jim! Love the P-47 shot.

HoHun · 02-26-2008, 02:45 AM

Hi Grumman-cats,

>I have to manual focus when using the 2x magnifier but it usually isn't that tough and with the bright colors of the planes I wouldn't have thought it to be a problem but it was.

Auto-focus needs a lot of light to work correctly, and the magnifier actually increases your effective f-stop value which does not help.

(I have shot pictures at airshows with manual-focus lenses for years, and it's not easy even with a lot of practice.)

Judging from the only slightly blurred propellers, you can still increase your exposure time without fear of camera shake in order to gain some field-of-depth.

I don't know if you have already cropped your pictures, but if not, it might be worth it to leave out the multiplier and shoot with the basic lens only.

That will improve the pictures for two reasons: You will have the benefit of autofocus which is more reliable than manual focusing, and you will have sharper pixels - due to more accurate focusing - even if the plane doesn't fill the frame completely.

In the end, it's not the number of pixels that counts but the number of sharp pixels :-)

Of course, it depends a bit on your camera system, but you could just give it a try at the next airshow for an hour, then use the multiplier for the rest of the show, and compare results. Then decide what works better :-)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

DBII · 02-26-2008, 09:02 AM

I did not know that lens could rented. thanks

dbII

grumman-cats · 02-27-2008, 10:41 AM

here's a couple of misc. jet photos's I thought you might like to see. Selfridge always puts up there tankers for everyone to see along with there f-16's

evangilder · 02-27-2008, 10:57 AM

Hey Jim, what are you using for your photo editing? One thing you might want to consider is doing a little sharpening after you resize. The tanker shot would probably look real good with some sharpening. If you use photoshop, you might want to use the clone stamp tool to get rid of the dust spots.

grumman-cats · 03-16-2008, 11:47 AM

This is my favorite b-17 shot taken at a local small town airport where you can get pretty close to the runway.

evangilder · 03-16-2008, 01:06 PM

Nice!

grumman-cats · 04-12-2008, 10:48 AM

I was out in the woods with the boys yesterday playing and got a few photo's that came out pretty good I think. I had to really shrink this one to be able to load it so hopefully it doesn't look that bad.

grumman-cats · 04-12-2008, 10:58 AM

The last two pics are of my latest projects. The high wing trainer is for my son, I through that together over the last two weeks and the edge is my new IMAC plane. It's all I can afford at this moment in time, I would like to go bigger but the motors are just a little too expensive. This is just 28%, I wanted the 35%, maybe someday

. With all that said I should be starting to use my airbrush soon so I'm hopeing that goes well. I've got what I want to paint on the hood of my car and my motorcycle helmet so we'll see how things progress.

Heinz · 04-15-2008, 08:46 AM

Very cool Grumman-cats!

grumman-cats · 08-12-2008, 12:29 AM

I thought this was an iteresting shot of a C-47.

evangilder · 08-12-2008, 12:33 AM

Nice! That is one SHINY C-47!