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[rj88]

i am totally new to photography, but ive always had an interest. want to start taking things to new levels. critique and add insight plz. these are a couple of my favorite pics.

peep the reflection lol

 

[rj88]

feedback plz... is that what C&C means? critique and comment?

 

[cfphoto]

Well you seem to have a good eye for perspective. Run with that and you'll be shooting a high percentage of "keepers" in no time.

The last photo looks like the best composed to me.

 

[Lazy Photographer]

Love the aircraft carrier shot. We don't have an aircraft carrier here in Canada. I think we might have a fighter jet though. But we have no bullets or missiles for it because that would just be un-Canadian. We have red and white Vancouver Olympic hats left, though. Our Navy will trade some for a missile.

The sunglasses shot is neat. Not too keen on the other two, sorry. But I agree with cfphoto, you're off to a good start.

 

[alannahrose]

#1 Very cool shot! I would crop out the person on the very left side since all the other people are just feet and hands, and his head is in it.
#2 Another interesting shoot, but it seems a little out of focus.
#3 Just awesome; great pan.
#4 Very nice silhouette. I would crop some off the bottom though.

 

[rj88]

thanks for the feedback.

 

[creisinger]

Not many photographers get that close to the planes of an aircraft carrier not to mention take a shot during take off or landing.

You shot the full frame plane photo at f9.11 - this is what my EXIF viewer is showing me !

Try to get down to f5.6 or lower depending on the lens you are using to get more shallow depth of field which will also allow you to reduce exposure time. That's all a good thing! Maybe you also increase the ISO maybe to 400 to get an exposure time of maybe 1/800 or 1/1000 of a second. That should freeze the plane.

Ideally use a tripod! I don't know if you can do that.

But make sure you focus on the right spot.

I don't know if the planes actually take off in intervals of every 10 seconds or so like in Top Gun (probably not that fast...) so if you get a chance of shooting a series it should be possible to get a couple of sharp pics of the planes.

I'd love to take those pics!

 

[supraman215]

I actually like the idea of the slower shutter if you can follow the plane well which it looks like you did. If you up the shutter too much the background will freeze, even if it's out of focus. I like the background motion.

 

[creisinger]

Causing background motion is one thing.

I was referring to stationary shots with a very low aperture in order to keep things simple. Get your focus point and hit the release button (ideally a remote shutter release) when the plane passes the focus point (ideally just when the wheels leave the ground).

That way the plane/cockpit whatever you focus on is tack sharp but the background will be out of focus. That will separate your subject from the background - the easy way.

That hard way is to locate yourself exactly a the point next to the plane where you want to shoot it and pan with your camera precisely to get that shot right with enough motion blur. Easier said than done. If you can get it, good for you!

 

[benlonghair]

First of all, I like the first one. Composition, movement, focus are all good.

The second one is a good idea. Focus is off and so are the curves. Too much white in there, at least on my monitor at work.

On the third one, I'd up your aperture to slow down your shutter speed and practice panning. Somebody said open up to 5.6 to lower the DoF, but I'd say close the aperture, lower the shutter speed and let the motion blur pop the jet from the background.

I like the fourth one too. It could be improved, but I'm not sure what I'd do... maybe move closer to get more of the swing and water.

 

[supraman215]

Closing the aperture would also ensure that the whole jet was in focus. creisinger your idea will work to ensure the jet is crisp as you mentioned but you'd have to mask and do the motion blur PP. I would try to get the motion blur naturally first.

 

[creisinger]

I think I'm not understood properly. This may be due to the fact that English is not my native tongue.

Again, just to explain it more thoroughly, there are two ways how I would approach this shot:

1. and to make it easier on everyone here who wants to start panning: Use a slower shutter speed (you used 1/250) like 1/100 or 1/80 to get more motion blur so that the plane looks like it's shooting by at 10.000 mph.

I'm not going into the fact that this technique does require a lot of practice until you get a shot that you want to hang on your wall.

2. This technique was suggested by me as I see it a lot easier to accomplish than panning. Primarily I also believe that photography does go along with the fact the your subjects are mostly in focus. That makes it a lot easier and more pleasing to look at. The photo of the plane is not in focus nor is the panning successful.

Just throwing your camera around without knowing what aperture, ISO or exposure time to use is not making anyone more of a pro or delivers better pictures.

Having your camera stationary (yes i know, he won't get motion blur, I know. Yes I know, I haven't forgotten!) makes life easier and you can focus on other things that you need to take care of like choosing the proper focal point, aperture, angle, exposure time, white balance and ISO to get a nice shot.

Now, one more time about panning. I have greatest respect for photographers who mastered this technique. There are really not a lot of people who can pull that off successfully.
I'm not talking about my neighbors kid strolling by on his bike trying to pan along, downsizing the image from 16 Megapixel to 600 pixels width so one can brag about their panning skills.

I'm talking about panning on a fighter jet 1500 feet away with a 500mm lens so you can identify the pilot in that picture at full resolution.

Everybody has different expectations of how the image should look like. I personally wouldn't bother at this stage to start trying with the panning technique. I'd rather get some tack sharp stationary images and then move on to the more difficult techniques.

But, everybody's different.