Inconsistent Screening Standards

[Knight Hammer]

Normally I'd ignore minor disputes in screening standards, but today has been a new low. The following five photos were rejected for bad composition:
Photo ID: 11313050 11313028 11313001 11312950 11311013

To put it into perspective, each photo was stacked with 5 other accepted photos taken at the same location or with identical angles. With no notable changes in vertical centering, 4 of the 5 photos were rejected solely for bad composition.

Additional inconsistent screening problems include different standards regarding sharpness. The same photo rejected for soft could end up as oversharpened with a minor USM sharpening with 20%, radius 0.2. Occasionally unsharpened photos could even end up as oversharpened, despite no sharpening whatsoever applied. It is absurd that to get a photo accepted one has to manually blur certain parts of the photo (most likely livery edges or control surfaces).

Identical screening problems have been encountered by multiple members of my spotter group, including some long-time site contributors with very high acceptance records. We hope that either the screening process could be significantly expedited or the screening standards could be more consistent. At this time unfortunately it is neither of those.

[B7772ADL]

Hi,

Have you taken advantage of the appeal process if you think your photos were wrongly screened?

Positing a composite blur doesn't help identify the center because I can't really make anything concrete from it at all, but they do look high in the frame.

Regards.

[Knight Hammer]

Hi,

Have you taken advantage of the appeal process if you think your photos were wrongly screened?

Positing a composite blur doesn't help identify the center because I can't really make anything concrete from it at all, but they do look high in the frame.

Regards.

I am posing the stacked photos as a comparison to previously accepted photos, as there are no clearly defined standards for vertical centering. Photo 11311013 has been appealed and rejected. The rest are awaiting the appeal cooldown.

[LuftSpotter]

Guess you need to lower your aircraft a bit. The length of two double arrow lines should be the same.

[Knight Hammer]

Guess you need to lower your aircraft a bit. The length of two double arrow lines should be the same.

As the aircraft is in a slight nose-up position this is how I did the vertical centering. The main landing gear was taken into consideration in addition to the fuselage. Based on past examples I suspect the screeners do not factor landing gear (or at least not as much as ground photos) in composition for ground-to-air shots. Such rejections have never occurred to me for aircraft on the ground.

[YsMilan]

As the aircraft is in a slight nose-up position this is how I did the vertical centering. The main landing gear was taken into consideration in addition to the fuselage. Based on past examples I suspect the screeners do not factor landing gear (or at least not as much as ground photos) in composition for ground-to-air shots. Such rejections have never occurred to me for aircraft on the ground.

I agree with the above view, it is indeed too high
“A good indicator for side-on shots is to center the area between wings and window line. If an aircraft is just about to touch down, centering the area covered by the aircraft and runway might also work.”--Upload guidelines

[Knight Hammer]

I agree with the above view, it is indeed too high
“A good indicator for side-on shots is to center the area between wings and window line. If an aircraft is just about to touch down, centering the area covered by the aircraft and runway might also work.”--Upload guidelines

What is mentioned in the guideline does not factor in the landing gear. I believe, from an aesthetic perspective, that when the landing gear is down the aircraft should be framed higher to compensate for the balance of the picture. This is more evident for certain aircraft that have a comparatively large fuselage-height-to-length-of-landing-gear ratio: for a 777 it can be as high as 3:1 while for an F35 it is close to 1.

[mahagonny]

You are totally off track and your frustrated post certainly won't help you.
Instead use the pre screening forum if you have any doubts.

[Knight Hammer]

You are totally off track and your frustrated post certainly won't help you.
Instead use the pre screening forum if you have any doubts.

This is not a pre-screening request. I am perfectly aware of the reason of rejection. The aim of this post is to put forward and contest the inconsistency regarding certain screening standards that can be objective in practice.

[YsMilan]

What is mentioned in the guideline does not factor in the landing gear. I believe, from an aesthetic perspective, that when the landing gear is down the aircraft should be framed higher to compensate for the balance of the picture. This is more evident for certain aircraft that have a comparatively large fuselage-height-to-length-of-landing-gear ratio: for a 777 it can be as high as 3:1 while for an F35 it is close to 1.

So here’s the thing, all the guidelines call for is the fuselage and you add the landing gear, which of course you can feel is better, but it goes against the guidelines

[MarkLawrence]

As the posts above note, all centering is done by the top and bottom of the fuselage. Gear and the window line have never been attributes of centering. If you stick to those guidelines, you should have no issue regardless of angle of landing, taking off, etc.

[CO777/200]

Simply use the highest point and lowest point of the fuselage as fixed points. If the distance to the end of each side of the picture is the same, you did it correctly.
No matter which angle the aircraft has.