Non-Archery pictures

[sky_high30]

Hey everyone.

One of my other hobbies is photography, And seen as the weather was nice today I went out to the airfield and got some pictures in. Interested in people's oppinions - i'm never happy with my own photography so comment away. Mods - delete if it's unappropriate or shift it elsewhere. All these are taken on a Pentax Optio 60, 6mp digital camera outputting 2mb Jpegs.

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Hmmmm. It depends what you intend the pics to be sky high. Often as not aeroplane pics tend to fit into the category of the " record shot". The first shot is classed as a "candid portrate". The big problem is the red release handle on the canopy, it draws the eye away from the main subject.

When taking pics of any moving object, try and imagine them flying/moving from left to right, the way the western world reads a book. Leave space infront of the subject to move into.

Too much to say in a few words...lots to it that can be improved with a little care and thought.

I could rattle on for hours about photography. I'm a much better photographer than I am an archer..
Nice gliders.

[sky_high30]

The first one was just a portrait - he was in the right place at the right time. My big problem is anticipation - I find it a lot easier with my SLR than with my digital as I can actually *see* what i'm taking (One problem with digital - the sun shines on the screen and you can't *see* anything).

If anyone feels the need to use any of these, then do so but credit me for them. I have decent size ones somewhere i think.

[Thunk]

Well, you did ask for criticism...

Pictures of aeroplanes are for aeroplane geeks. The rest of the world isn't interested. What starts to make any picture interesting is the inclusion of people, preferably doing something. Only the first picture you show has a human being in it, and it is framed so closely that it would only be of interest to his nearest and dearest.

Dynamics: Decide where the focus of interest is in the picture and place that according to the rule of thirds - one-third of the way into the frame and preferably one-third on the horizontal axis as well. And use diagonals to draw the eye towards the focus. One of your shot has two sailplanes in it, one of which is resting on one wing-tip. Try taking a shot with a couple placed on a third, and use that wing angle to draw the eye up to them. Hopefully you'll see what I mean.

Very basic rules, but we all had to learn them too. Some of us took a long time...

Originally Posted by thunk

Pictures of aeroplanes are for aeroplane geeks. Decide where the focus of interest is in the picture and place that according to the rule of thirds.

very true Thunk. I have taken a few pics of aircraft at airshows just fopr fun. They are near impossible to look anything more than...well just pictues of aircraft. This sort of pic rarely stands out in a crowd. Rule of thirds or not ( a very good one I may add) There is lots more to this to squeeze a decent shot out of this subject. Get rid of distracting background, not easy to do, or at least use depth of field to blur it out.

For a me people need to have eyes, sun glasses kill the subject. the eye is the window to a person character and soul. That glint of light is everything.

I always think " would I hang this picture on a wall?" if the answer is "yes" well at least you are happy, if the answer is "no" is't a bin job.

Oh and if critisism is in order, the chap in the pic is blurred, a no, no in any photograph. Soz for the criticise but hope it's constructive, it's the only way to learn.

[sky_high30]

He's not as sharp as I was hoping for. I couldn't get close enough and ended up resorting to digital zoom - which my camera can't handle at all well. I got a few goodish shots of people with reflections in their sunglasses - looks kinda wierd, but kinda cool at the same time.

Criticism is constructive, and being taken on board. Lets hope the weather holds again tomorrow! I take pictures of aeroplanes 'cos I like them and I like flying them, and find them photogenic, so I guess it just varies from person to person. Neil Stuart-Lawson (The Late, tragically killed in a flying accident last year) was a very popular aviation photographer and i'm getting inspiration from some of his work. See www.whiteplanes.co.uk.

[pwiles1968]

I would recommend getting onto a photography Forum, try and find a special interest one if you like taking certain photographs, I like Macro & Nature Photography mainly there are two good forums as examples, although probably not your area of interest.

You will learn a lot just looking at photographs and reading articles, you can get your photographs critiqued. I must say My Photography interest comes and goes, I have not taken serious photographs for a little while, but here are a few of my Photographs if you are interested.

With respect to the photographs I assume you are using Digital, you need to be careful of exposure levels, all of the whites in your first 3 pictures appear to be blown out, do you have a histogram function on the camera I find it invaluable, if you are in doubt try and under expose, you can recover under exposed photographs in photoshop or similar, but if you go over you can not.

[sky_high30]

When I got around to downloading them last night they were all over exposed something chronic - this is some rudimentary tinkering in ACDSee (Couldn't be bothered running up photoshop) to get them closer to being right. The white's in 2 were badly burnt...managed to pull them back a bit though.

[pwiles1968]

I would recommend setting your camera exposure about -1/3 to -2/3 if you are going to be photographing a lot of white things in daylight.