I have
to be honest here, not every shot I take are as crisp or nice as what I
post on my site. Lots of people can take great shots of airplanes, but
it takes a real pro to mess them up! Here are some of my less than
stellar shots to prove that yes, I do sometimes take crummy pictures.
In this shot, I was experimenting with shutter speed. As you can probably tell, the shutter was open a tad too long and left the shot overexposed. Even with some substantial editting, the shot is still not right. The shot below is the editted version.
Another over-exposure. I was trying to get a full prop arc in the shot while maintaining focus and lost some focus on the airplane due to too much light. Editting in photoshop did clean it up quite a bit. See below for the editted shot. Better, but the focus is soft.
Okay, now for the stuff that no amount of photoshop work could fix.
Tried to catch the Thunderbirds doing an opposing cross. As you can see, I didn't lead the main group quite enough. Darn, that would have been a cool shot!
Another opposing cross that went bad. Even if it had turned out, they were too far down the field for it to have been as dramatic. Oh well, I will keep working on it!
I swear, it looked cool through the viewfinder! I tried to frame the helicopter between the hangar and the tail of a C-46. A combination of soft focus and general bad composition relegated this photo to the "What was I thinking?" file.
The next 2 shots were another experiment that looked better in my mind than on the sensor of the camera. I tried to photograph a couple of airplanes reflected in the chrome bumper of a pickup truck.
Yikes! It's like an old warbird in a funhouse mirror!
Attempting prop blur with the plane in focus. Low shutter speed and not picking a proper steady stance lead to this fuzzy image.
Whoops! Who parked that plane there?! This shot has BAD written all over it.
At first I wondered what the heck was in my shot. The I realized what happens when you zoom past an umbrella top. Interesting effect, but not what I wanted. I thought the Air Force might have to re-open Project Blue book. Nope, just Tom needing to close his black umbrella!
When they say large lenses pull in the image, I didn't know that this is what they meant! It swallowed up half of this Mustang!
I still have no idea what got in this shot.
Good lighting, good focus...Sometimes it would be nice to be about a foot taller!
As much as I love Mustangs, I wasn't trying to shoot one this time!
Ouch! It's always a good idea to keep track of where the sun is. Not only does it foul your shot, but sunlight maginifed through a zoom lens is a bit painful! This was after a heavy amount of editting in photoshop to try and salvage something.
The lighting was great for this shot, too bad nothing else was! I was watching a tail of a B-52 to make sure that wasn't going to be in the shot and in doing so, lost complete concetration through the viewfinder. This is one of the "Ones that got away" shots. Unlike fishing though, I have evidence that it could have been a good shot!
After shooting slower planes lately, I forgot about leading an airplane a bit. Just as well, he was heading right into the sun anyway.
So now you see, I really do take crummy shots too. This is just to prove that I have and that not every shot that I take is a good shot. Every shot is a learning experience and I learned from these.