Testing New Camera at Albert Whitted (SPG)

[Murdoughnut]

Camped out for about an hour on the arrival end of runway 7 at Albert Whitted in St. Petersburg. Been playing with more of the settings on my new Pentax k20d. Lens is the DA 50-200mm.

Can barely make out the woman in the front seat



Nice Malibu next to the blast wall


Artsy!


I couldn't see the final approach course due to buildings, so I only had about 2-seconds of prep before this guy landed...


Loaded Stationair getting ready to roll


Love going back and looking at the 14mp JPEGs to see what I might have missed

[Pilot0486]

nice pics! the camera seems to be working out great!

[Murdoughnut]

Originally Posted by Pilot0486

nice pics! the camera seems to be working out great!

Thanks! It really is - and the photos are even better quality than they appear here (they lose a bit when shrunk). Most importantly, I'm having a lot of fun with it.

[Jfk-Pilot]

nice pics!

[cloudman]

Well done! You should look up the Cessna and mail the picture of the kid.

[Murdoughnut]

Originally Posted by cloudman

Well done! You should look up the Cessna and mail the picture of the kid.

Yeah, I actually did - the address it's registered to is the same as a local beach bar - may send them an email.

[dahhcon]

Great pics. Haven't been there in awhile.

[t-cart]

A comment and a question for you. These are great pictures. I really like the Skybolt. My question is about the Cessna. Are the two rings on top of the wings for lifting, possibly to fit floats? I'm not too familiar with floats, or nice Cessnas for that matter.

[Murdoughnut]

Originally Posted by t-cart

A comment and a question for you. These are great pictures. I really like the Skybolt. My question is about the Cessna. Are the two rings on top of the wings for lifting, possibly to fit floats? I'm not too familiar with floats, or nice Cessnas for that matter.

Wow, I didn't even notice those. Never seen them before - now I'm curious myself.

[NickH]

There are actually four of them. I'd guess floats also.

[TFaudree_ERAU]

Nice shots dude.

I peeked at your exif data and I notice you've been using the different auto and program modes for these shots. You may have found that you get a widely varying level of exposure if you shoot a burst of shots of the same (moving) object. The Stationair shot shows a hint of this. The first problem with auto modes is the camera's interpretation of white. You may notice the white is more of a gray. The reason for this is that the light meter is attempting to expose the whitest white in the frame as a color of 16%-18% gray. Additionally, it gets confused by the varying amounts of light reflecting off of different objects as you pan the camera, especially in a matrix metering mode, thus setting the incorrect aperture and/or shutter speeds for the actual subject of the photo.

The only workaround for this is to shoot entirely in manual. While it may seem extremely intimidating at first, once you understand what the camera is trying to do, versus what you need the camera to do, it'll be a breeze. With my first DSLR, I didn't really take the time to learn, but when I plopped down the money for my 50D, I challenged myself to learn and get the most out of it.

There are quite a few "quick and dirty" ways to figure out the proper settings. For outdoor shots, I typically just set my camera to spot metering and focus on to some grass. I set my aperture for the desired depth of field (f8 to f11 for aircraft photos) and then select the shutter speed that will center the light meter. It should be all set for at least a couple of hours unless the amount of light drastically changes (clouds to sun or vice versa).

Fred Miranda (one of the big names in the industry) has a nice article on his website about the topic and techniques HERE.

Another, more "mathematical" trick is described HERE.

Read up on interpreting a histogram as well. Sometimes the brightness of the screen on the back of the camera can give you false impressions of whether or not the image is exposed properly.

With the instant feedback you get from a DSLR, you lose nothing by taking a few minutes to set and check your manual settings. Choose your settings, fire a few test shots, review them on the screen, check the histogram and make minor adjustments if necessary. Your results will be consistent and your ratio of "keepers" will increase drastically.

[Murdoughnut]

Originally Posted by TFaudree_ERAU

Nice shots dude.

I peeked at your exif data and I notice you've been using the different auto and program modes for these shots. You may have found that you get a widely varying level of exposure if you shoot a burst of shots of the same (moving) object. The Stationair shot shows a hint of this. The first problem with auto modes is the camera's interpretation of white. You may notice the white is more of a gray. The reason for this is that the light meter is attempting to expose the whitest white in the frame as a color of 16%-18% gray. Additionally, it gets confused by the varying amounts of light reflecting off of different objects as you pan the camera, especially in a matrix metering mode, thus setting the incorrect aperture and/or shutter speeds for the actual subject of the photo.

The only workaround for this is to shoot entirely in manual. While it may seem extremely intimidating at first, once you understand what the camera is trying to do, versus what you need the camera to do, it'll be a breeze. With my first DSLR, I didn't really take the time to learn, but when I plopped down the money for my 50D, I challenged myself to learn and get the most out of it.

There are quite a few "quick and dirty" ways to figure out the proper settings. For outdoor shots, I typically just set my camera to spot metering and focus on to some grass. I set my aperture for the desired depth of field (f8 to f11 for aircraft photos) and then select the shutter speed that will center the light meter. It should be all set for at least a couple of hours unless the amount of light drastically changes (clouds to sun or vice versa).

Fred Miranda (one of the big names in the industry) has a nice article on his website about the topic and techniques HERE.

Another, more "mathematical" trick is described HERE.

Read up on interpreting a histogram as well. Sometimes the brightness of the screen on the back of the camera can give you false impressions of whether or not the image is exposed properly.

With the instant feedback you get from a DSLR, you lose nothing by taking a few minutes to set and check your manual settings. Choose your settings, fire a few test shots, review them on the screen, check the histogram and make minor adjustments if necessary. Your results will be consistent and your ratio of "keepers" will increase drastically.

Wow, thanks - I really appreciate that. The day I went out and took these pics I was experimenting with the shutter speed. A few days prior I had tried taking some photos at a little league game, where all the motion shots turned out blurry (that was with the camera set to "Green" mode which = everything automatic).

The shot I grabbed of the plane on approach, for instance, was in shutter speed sensitivity mode, which I had set to 1000. I've played a bit with the aperture, as I noticed the shots in auto mode (set to around f5.6 I think) came out kinda dull. When I manually adjusted it to 4.5 it seemed to help.

This is great advice, though - I'll certainly look into it. I'll post a few more pics tonight that I took yesterday as well.

[TFaudree_ERAU]

Originally Posted by Murdoughnut

A few days prior I had tried taking some photos at a little league game, where all the motion shots turned out blurry (that was with the camera set to "Green" mode which = everything automatic).

Check and see if your camera has a continuous autofocus mode. If you have it on single shot focus, by the time you press the shutter release, the previously in-focus object will now have moved out of the depth of field (aperture controlled). If it was motion blur, as opposed to out of focus blur, then a faster shutter speed would take care of it.

Also, check the manual to see if you can set a different button for focus and exposure start/stop. I have a button on the back of my 50D that I can set to start focus and the shutter release button is set to start metering with a 1/2 press and release the shutter with a full press.

[Murdoughnut]

Got my first rejected Airliners.net photo submission Wow they have some high standards! I'm not too upset about it, just had a "uh uh!" response - especially to the "too much empty space" part. Oh well.
http://www.airliners.net/procphotos/...k_n2619z_1.jpg


The image quality of these photo(s) does not meet the very high standards
of Airliners.Net. This does not mean that it is a bad photo, but it does
mean that we think it has certain (possibly minor) flaws.
It may be possible to correct this problem, but this depends on many
factors. If you want to read more about this problem, and about possible
ways to correct it and hopefully attempt a re-upload, please go to
http://www.airliners.net/faq/rejecti...ns.php#quality
These photo(s) do not appear to be level, i.e. the angle of the camera
does not seem to be straight compared to the horizon.
In most cases, this problem is easy to correct. If you want to read more
about this problem, and about possible ways to correct it and hopefully
attempt a re-upload, please go to
http://www.airliners.net/faq/rejecti...sons.php#level

The aircraft in these photo(s) is too far in the distance, resulting in
too much 'empty space' in the image.
This problem may be very easy to correct, depending on certain factors. If
you want to read more about this problem, and about possible ways to
correct it and hopefully attempt a re-upload, please go to
http://www.airliners.net/faq/rejecti...s.php#distance

The transition between solid lines on these photos have a very jagged
appearance. This may be due to general oversharpening of the image, but
there may also be other reasons for this problem.
In some cases the jagged appearance can be corrected. If you want to read
more about this problem, and about possible ways to correct it and
hopefully attempt a re-upload, please go to
http://www.airliners.net/faq/rejecti...over-sharpened

[KSCessnaDriver]

Welcome to the club on getting stuff at airliners.net. I've got a few photos up there, but have had a lot more rejected. Sometimes, I'll upload stuff that I just think has no shot of making it, and they approve it, where as I'll put stuff on that I really like, but gets rejected. Its frustrating, but you'll learn that they want "technically perfect" shots, not cool looking ones.

[KVNC]

Try Jetphotos.net, their standards are not as high. I have a few pictures on there.

[rd757]

Originally Posted by KVNC

Try Jetphotos.net, their standards are not as high. I have a few pictures on there.

And a much better site for many reasons.

RD