pre-screen photos at dawn

[dlowwa]

Thx dlowwa

Wow. It looks like a complete different photo... the detail is there (finally).

I need badly to take some lessons on imaging editing... Which software are you using/recommend ?

.. and one final request : can you edit one more photo ? the Vueling EC-MBS ?

After this I'll change my "workflow":

1) wait 3 months until Fall, before take any more photos (to reduce heat haze )
2) take some edition lessons
3) get another zoom lens.
4) sent you a couple of my own craft beers

thanks again for your time and help

/rgds
a.m.

I use Photoshop CS5. 8 years old now, but still easily more than enough for editing of simple aviation photos.

Time of day can also make a big difference on the amount of haze visible, so you don't necessarily need to wait for the season to change. I shoot a lot in the summer, but only in the hour / hour and a half before sunset.

As for jpeg vs. RAW, both will be the same resolution if you've set your jpegs up that way, but the RAW file will contain a lot more information relating to color/exposure. If you trust your camera to get the jpeg processing right, there's not a huge advantage for RAW over jpeg. I still always shoot RAW since storage is cheap, and in the rare case the camera gets something like the white balance wrong, it's far easier to fix if you're working with a RAW file.

[a.m.]

i used to shoot in RAW but the amount of overhead and no real benefits made me go back to jpeg. Life is so much easier now

Thx Oleksiy

You know, I'm taking RAW and JPEG at same time. But to tell you the trued I never looked at the jpeg image out of the camera as been a possibility.
Always assumed that the RAW file would be better and specifically have more detail.

Since we need to resize it to a tenth of the original resolution.. any additional bit of detail could make the difference.
Anyway, I'll have a look... maybe the Nikon JPEG engine ends up by being good as hell

Thanks
/rgds

[a.m.]

Ok, so I took one of the RAW files you made available, and did a quick edit.

I see three issues causing loss of quality that can be ranked thusly:

1. distance - i.e. large crop needed (50%)
2. heat haze (25%)
3. lens softness (25%)

Even though the large crop is causing the biggest problem, there is still enough of the frame left to produce a decent edit. Compare the edit I've done below to yours from above, and hopefully you will see a marked difference.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]17403[/ATTACH]

That means for the most part, the quality problems evident (in the most recent set of photos anyway) are simply related to your editing. Not sure exactly where, but somewhere in your workflow you're going wrong.

Thx dlowwa

Wow. It looks like a complete different photo... the detail is there (finally).

I need badly to take some lessons on imaging editing... Which software are you using/recommend ?

.. and one final request : can you edit one more photo ? the Vueling EC-MBS ?

After this I'll change my "workflow":

1) wait 3 months until Fall, before take any more photos (to reduce heat haze )
2) take some edition lessons
3) get another zoom lens.
4) sent you a couple of my own craft beers

thanks again for your time and help

/rgds
a.m.

[dlowwa]

Ok, so I took one of the RAW files you made available, and did a quick edit.

I see three issues causing loss of quality that can be ranked thusly:

1. distance - i.e. large crop needed (50%)
2. heat haze (25%)
3. lens softness (25%)

Even though the large crop is causing the biggest problem, there is still enough of the frame left to produce a decent edit. Compare the edit I've done below to yours from above, and hopefully you will see a marked difference.



That means for the most part, the quality problems evident (in the most recent set of photos anyway) are simply related to your editing. Not sure exactly where, but somewhere in your workflow you're going wrong.

[Oleksiy Naumov]

i used to shoot in RAW but the amount of overhead and no real benefits made me go back to jpeg. Life is so much easier now

[dlowwa]

Back to the drawing board...

I notice I had Noise Reduction active on camera. (from a previous Via Láctea session..)
The rest is/was standard
- ISO 100, RAW, f8..f11
- Aperture priority mode
- Spot metter and focus

In the meantime I've changed lens from zoom 55-200 ... to Fix 50mm
Changed also software and resize method.
Resize RAW to TIFF 1280x720 (no compressed) , work on it and then export to jpeg
I can see an improvement in the jpeg quality... I barely can see the difference between the tiff and jpeg files.

Changed also the view point, now closer to planes ..
and strange enough the in flight photos look as good as the stationary ones.

The hour of the day was different ... just after noon ..and not afternoon.
Today was a bit hotter , so some heat gaze for distant planes... that's why I move closer to them.

So here's the results for your comments.

thanks for your time and help

/rgds

Softness and heat haze evident. Also some light editing halos. You can send me one of the RAW files if you'd like me to do a better edit, but if the heat haze is as bad as you say, might not be possible to get a good enough edit for here.

[a.m.]

Back to the drawing board...

I notice I had Noise Reduction active on camera. (from a previous Via Láctea session..)
The rest is/was standard
- ISO 100, RAW, f8..f11
- Aperture priority mode
- Spot metter and focus

In the meantime I've changed lens from zoom 55-200 ... to Fix 50mm
Changed also software and resize method.
Resize RAW to TIFF 1280x720 (no compressed) , work on it and then export to jpeg
I can see an improvement in the jpeg quality... I barely can see the difference between the tiff and jpeg files.

Changed also the view point, now closer to planes ..
and strange enough the in flight photos look as good as the stationary ones.

The hour of the day was different ... just after noon ..and not afternoon.
Today was a bit hotter , so some heat gaze for distant planes... that's why I move closer to them.

So here's the results for your comments.

thanks for your time and help

/rgds

[a.m.]

Thx dlowwa

Appreciate your feedback. Lots of possible issues/corrections.
Back to the drawing board then. Lab material is available: Every day 500+ planes land/takeoff here... so, there still a chance I can get a sharp photo

Thx again for your time and help.


/rgds

[dlowwa]

Thx dlowwa

Well, it looks nothing can be saved here

Let me try to understand the results

SOFT could be :
1) out of focus
2) not good lens
3) not good camera
4) overall bad processing

COMPRESSION could be:
1) wrong jpeg compression options
2) wrong software
3) bad processsing also

offcourse also bad photographer skills...

So it looks I have a potential HW problem and/or a potential SW problem.

HW just implies a new camera/lens...a no go at this moment.
SW... could be solved
Skills... well, who knows with time.

As such, I need one more favour from you in order to decide my next steps.

I'm including 3 files
1) An original 24Mb RAW file. ( I couldn't load this 30Mb RAW file... ).
So I've converted it to tiff and upload it here : www.flickr.com/photos/ajmm/43030731454
.. and original 6000x4000 resolution
2) A croped version in JPG format
3) ..and a resize/croped versions in JPG format.

Is there a change you can look at them and see if the original file is good enough....
..and therefore what is failling is the resize and or processing work ?

..or if the original file isn't good enough and therefore I should focus my hoobies somewhere else

thanks again for your time help (and) patience

/rgds

In this case, it actually helps that you posted the wrong size first. From those images, I can see that they are quite soft as well, and the whole frame, so that means focus error is not the main issue. Camera itself has little to do with sharpness, and since these are not processed, processing is not the issue either. That leaves lens softness as the likely culprit, though the exif has been stripped, so I can't tell if the settings have contributed to the problem.

The full size images area also highly compressed, so somewhere along the line, either in camera or in processing, you've compressed the files.

As for the uncropped images you've linked; also somewhat compressed, but not terribly, and still quite soft. Looks like it's a combination of lens softness and slight mis-focus, since the background looks a bit sharper than the aircraft. Try stopping down next time to f/9-10 as this should help reduce the lens & focusing problems. If you're working with RAW files (.nef), then also change your save settings when importing/converting to jpeg to make sure the quality is set at maximum, and that should alleviate the compression issues.

The newer upload-sized edits look better, but still have issues with color/contrast, and compression.

[a.m.]

These would be rejected for:

1. soft, cut off, compression
2. soft, compression
3. soft, cut off, compression
4-5 heat haze, compression

Thx dlowwa

Well, it looks nothing can be saved here

Let me try to understand the results

SOFT could be :
1) out of focus
2) not good lens
3) not good camera
4) overall bad processing

COMPRESSION could be:
1) wrong jpeg compression options
2) wrong software
3) bad processsing also

offcourse also bad photographer skills...

So it looks I have a potential HW problem and/or a potential SW problem.

HW just implies a new camera/lens...a no go at this moment.
SW... could be solved
Skills... well, who knows with time.

As such, I need one more favour from you in order to decide my next steps.

I'm including 3 files
1) An original 24Mb RAW file. ( I couldn't load this 30Mb RAW file... ).
So I've converted it to tiff and upload it here : www.flickr.com/photos/ajmm/43030731454
.. and original 6000x4000 resolution
2) A croped version in JPG format
3) ..and a resize/croped versions in JPG format.

Is there a change you can look at them and see if the original file is good enough....
..and therefore what is failling is the resize and or processing work ?

..or if the original file isn't good enough and therefore I should focus my hoobies somewhere else

thanks again for your time help (and) patience

/rgds

[dlowwa]

Thx dlowwa

Sorry, didn't knew about the size limitation for pre-screening.

Here's then a subset of them with (hopefully) the correct size 1280x720.


thanks again for your time and help

/rgds

These would be rejected for:

1. soft, cut off, compression
2. soft, compression
3. soft, cut off, compression
4-5 heat haze, compression

[a.m.]

1) only images edited for upload will be pre-screened. These are all well beyond the maximum size allowed for upload.
2) please limit your pre-screening requests to a maximum of 5 images per 24 hours.

Thx dlowwa

Sorry, didn't knew about the size limitation for pre-screening.

Here's then a subset of them with (hopefully) the correct size 1280x720.


thanks again for your time and help

/rgds

[dlowwa]

Dear All

are you so kind to comment on these images taken at dawn ?
thank you for your time and help.

/rgds

1) only images edited for upload will be pre-screened. These are all well beyond the maximum size allowed for upload.
2) please limit your pre-screening requests to a maximum of 5 images per 24 hours.

[a.m.]

pre-screen photos

Dear All

are you so kind to (also) comment on these photos ?

thanks for your time and help

/rgds

[a.m.]

Dear All

are you so kind to comment on these images taken at dawn ?
thank you for your time and help.

/rgds