Fashionably Late: RIAT 2017

Airshow Photography from the UK and around the world
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Pringles
Posts: 1742
Joined: Fri 25 Apr 2014, 11:15 am

Fashionably Late: RIAT 2017

Post by Pringles »

What with it being only a month until Christmas I thought it about time that I finally shared some of my photos from this year's Royal International Air Tattoo! It's been a busy year for me away from the airshow season, so I only uploaded the last of them to Flickr this morning :oops: Anyway here's a select few of my best, hopefully a little different to what we've all already seen from this year's offerings. There were not the best or easiest conditions on the Saturday, the day I attended (aside from a short few hours at Townsend before leaving an hour before the B2 on Sunday :surrender: ) but hey-ho, here's what I have to offer:

1)
Image
USAF CV-22B Osprey by Alexander Prins, on Flickr

2)
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RAF BBMF Lancaster 'Leader' by Alexander Prins, on Flickr

3)
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'Thunderbird 5' by Alexander Prins, on Flickr

4)
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USAF Demo Team 'The Thunderbirds' by Alexander Prins, on Flickr

5)
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Italian Air Force RSV M-346 Master by Alexander Prins, on Flickr

6)
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Ukrainian Air Force Su-27 by Alexander Prins, on Flickr

7) BOOM!
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Army Air Corps Apache "Wall of Fire" by Alexander Prins, on Flickr

8)
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Italian Air Force IDS 311° Gruppo by Alexander Prins, on Flickr

Thanks for taking a look, more can be found on my Flickr :biggrin:
If life gives you melons then you're probably dyslexic

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Tommy
UKAR Staff
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Joined: Mon 14 Mar 2011, 11:39 pm

Re: Fashionably Late: RIAT 2017

Post by Tommy »

The Lanc nose-shot is pretty decent, nice slow-shutter work, and good catch with the Apache in front of the pyro!

I'm thinking as I'm typing, but some food for thought;

As a point of preference as opposed to judgement, bland weather is a bugger to photograph in, but I think the shadows on the aircraft in some of these could be pulled out and the vignettes be pulled back just a touch. I'm of the opinion that vignetting can work really well to direct the eye to the subject (I use them more often than not, especially on dull grey overcast days), but I think to make them too heavy, they can become distracting. For my tastes, they're just a touch over-egged. I hasten to add that many of my RIAT shots suffer from the same problem, and I've since re-edited them when I went back to them with fresh eyes.

Osprey shot's quite nice, but (& this may just be some OCD on my part) the tail being cut bugs me a little bit. I think with cropping (rotors are subject to debate, I'm fine with those things cut-off) but as a general rule with the actual airframe itself, either include as much as you can, or really go for it and get right in there with a tight crop, and focus on the cockpit or something. The halfway house is if you want to crop out, say, wings, then try to make it symmetrical. Unless your original shot has the tail part cut off (and I've been there 0000s of times!), then try and expand so there whole machine is in frame. As it is, it looks like "more of a clip, and less of a crop" if that makes sense?

I hope you'll forgive the essay, but hopefully it's of slightly more value than "great shots!" or zero comments because people are afraid of making points perceived as negative. You're a decent photographer, so don't take it that I'm saying these shots are bad, quite the opposite, they show potential, and I like a lot of your other work which is why I'm bothering to take the time to give some of my thoughts, which may or may not be correct. We don't learn a jot from people who are afraid to give feedback or agree with us all the time.

Ooooor feel free to disregard what I say as gibberish. My GF does! :grin:

I'd love to see a couple more, if you have any. :up:

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Pringles
Posts: 1742
Joined: Fri 25 Apr 2014, 11:15 am

Re: Fashionably Late: RIAT 2017

Post by Pringles »

Hi Tommy, thanks for the detailed response, it's always helpful to receive such informative feedback!
Tommy wrote:As a point of preference as opposed to judgement, bland weather is a bugger to photograph in, but I think the shadows on the aircraft in some of these could be pulled out and the vignettes be pulled back just a touch. I'm of the opinion that vignetting can work really well to direct the eye to the subject (I use them more often than not, especially on dull grey overcast days), but I think to make them too heavy, they can become distracting. For my tastes, they're just a touch over-egged. I hasten to add that many of my RIAT shots suffer from the same problem, and I've since re-edited them when I went back to them with fresh eyes.

I was reasonably happy with my vignetting, however as you point out, perhaps it's over-done a touch on the first two in particular - maybe in the quiet months before next season I'll come back to them with, as you say, fresh eyes.
Tommy wrote:Osprey shot's quite nice, but (& this may just be some OCD on my part) the tail being cut bugs me a little bit. I think with cropping (rotors are subject to debate, I'm fine with those things cut-off) but as a general rule with the actual airframe itself, either include as much as you can, or really go for it and get right in there with a tight crop, and focus on the cockpit or something. The halfway house is if you want to crop out, say, wings, then try to make it symmetrical. Unless your original shot has the tail part cut off (and I've been there 0000s of times!), then try and expand so there whole machine is in frame. As it is, it looks like "more of a clip, and less of a crop" if that makes sense?

Unfortunately it's a case of the latter - not all of the aircraft is in frame - that's not actually been cropped :hide: Aside from that I was reasonably happy with the outcome of the overall shot aside from one killer for me that has really been exaggerated by the drab colours: blasted chromatic aberration! Of all my shots here that Osprey shot is probably the worst offender, and although I've given it one pass over to try and fix, I might come back to it and alter it some more...

Tommy wrote:I'd love to see a couple more, if you have any. :up:

Not any that are worth sharing here! :hide:

Thanks again for taking the time to give the feedback, it really is appreciated
If life gives you melons then you're probably dyslexic

Berf
Posts: 1242
Joined: Thu 24 Aug 2017, 7:12 pm

Re: Fashionably Late: RIAT 2017

Post by Berf »

As long as it is not blurred or out of focus much of it is down to how long you want to spend processing or how proficient you want to become at it especially if all the conditions are not perfect.

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