Question about blurriness

RadarContact · Jul 22, 2014

I was wondering if a professional photographer could answer a couple of questions for me.

I like to upload my photos to a certain aviation website but recently I have been getting a lot of rejections from a certain site and I'm wondering if there's something more to it. (Maybe it's because they have too many?)

This photo below was rejected due to blurriness. I have stared at it over and over and I simply can't tell where the blurriness is. Am I right in saying that is extremely picky?

http://www.airliners.net/addphotos/rejections/big/20140722_z1405206412.2936fedex.jpg

Thank you.

astroNikon · Jul 22, 2014

I'm not a pro .. but what's blurry in that photo ??

RadarContact · Jul 22, 2014

astroNikon said:
I'm not a pro .. but what's blurry in that photo ??

This is what I am trying to understand. Lol. I have been almost depressed lately trying to comprehend some of the rejections coming from the site.

Designer · Jul 22, 2014

Sorry, I'm not a pro either.

Looked sharp to me, but I'm not the world's best judge of sharpness or focus.

Designer · Jul 22, 2014

In taking a second look, and without knowing the selection criteria, there could be just too many of that type already, or it could be that the composition just isn't anything special.

astroNikon · Jul 22, 2014

Maybe airliners.net only wants commercial airliners and not package delivery photos?

Personally I love those old MD-10/11s. I see them flying by from 5-6pm and I've been trying to photo them.

Maybe, they just need their glasses checked ?
maybe they only allow a certain storage per user submissions and you've reached that. What if you subject a photo that has a small file size ? ... just trying to figure out why ....

Braineack · Jul 22, 2014

from their site:

Furthermore the photos need to be bigger than about 1000x667 pixels. Keep the format at or near 3:2 aspect ratio, or larger if using a 4:3 ratio camera. Anything bigger than 1600x1600 will automatically be resized.

you uploaded a 814x551 image.

and

How do you have the NERVE to reject my photos?!
Well, naturally it's in our interest (and yours as well if you think about it) to keep the database quality high. If we choose to deny one or more of the photos you upload, you will receive an e-mail describing what photos were not added and the reasons for it. Please do not take it personal if we choose not to add one or more of your photos to the database. We receive many hundreds of photos daily and reject about 50 to 70 percent of them. The most frequent reasons are bad scan quality of different types (blurry, dark, small size etc). Dont try to reupload photos that have been rejected by our screening team without any changes done to improve the quality. Our screening team checks all uploads against recent rejections and if there is no change noticeable than the photo will be rejected also. Doing reuploads without any changes might result in a temporary ban from the site. If you dont agree with the screners decisions please use the appeal link provided in the E-mail you have got. I will then decide about addition into the database.

and

The reasons described in the automatic e-mail are not always exact. I've tried to make it capable of including the most frequent reasons of rejections and warnings but it's impossible to include all. Don't just upload the photo again (It's bound to be rejected again) but instead really try to improve the photo. Have a look at other photos already in the database and compare them to yours.

and

I try to be as fair as possible. Believe me, I've been doing this for a while now and I know what I'm doing. If your photo was rejected, there was probably a good reason for it. Read the confirmation message and make that change. And no, to get your photos rejected does not mean you are a bad photographer. Most of the professional photographers with photos in the database have got one or more of their photos rejected at some time.

your image was not to size.*

/thread.

* a little bit of sharpening would hurt.

hamlet · Jul 22, 2014

A panning shot of it going up into the sky would get their attention.

RadarContact · Jul 23, 2014

Awesome. Thanks guys.

I was wondering if someone could tell me if the shot below is soft around the aircraft's nose/wind screen, or is it pretty sharp?

http://www.jetphotos.net/img/6/2/0/4/87994_1406155402.jpg

Thank you!

astroNikon · Jul 23, 2014

Yes but you are shooting a flying plane at 1/644 shutter speed
Try a faster shutter speed
increase your ISO from 100 to 400 to get a faster shutter speed.
your settings were 1/644, f/9, ISO 100

fyi .. i get alot of planes flying over my house from small cessnas landing at an airport 1/2 mile away, to 2 medium size airports to the Detroit Metro airport where the Fedex planes are always flying past in certain wind conditions.

Josh66 · Jul 23, 2014

Designer said:
In taking a second look, and without knowing the selection criteria, there could be just too many of that type already, or it could be that the composition just isn't anything special.

astroNikon said:
Maybe airliners.net only wants commercial airliners and not package delivery photos?

It may be a combination of these two points. The photo is certainly not blurry - that may have simply been the closest canned response to why they don't want it.

I've never submitted anything to that site, but I've browsed a lot of the photos there. It seems to me that they like to see the whole plane. Having the registration number visible seems to be an important detail too.

hamlet · Jul 23, 2014

If you wanna check out a edit i made to show what i mean you can at this link: http://i.imgur.com/w8XGH6J.jpg

bvjgcigh · Jul 26, 2014

I sort of feel as if there is some blurring at first look, but I also can't seem to spot any when I look closely at it... I feel like it was sharpened in camera or post (I'm not good at spotting anything and I'm not a pro- I could be completely wrong).

astroNikon · Jul 26, 2014

Rats .. out getting dinner .. wind conditions changed .. and a gigantic Fedex MD-11 flew low overhead at 6:40. Missed it again

Josh66 · Jul 26, 2014

astroNikon said:
Rats .. out getting dinner .. wind conditions changed .. and a gigantic Fedex MD-11 flew low overhead at 6:40. Missed it again

They ARE gigantic too... I worked on a few MD-11s once - the overwing emergency exits are bigger than the front door to my apartment, lol!

There's a sort of "trap door" in the cockpit that goes into the electronics bay, which has another door - through the skin and down to the ground. If both of them are open, you can stand in the cockpit and see the hangar floor - something like 30 feet down.