Some help with some Air-to-air shots please!

[AJ]

Hi guys,

I took these just north of Guam and am hoping I may be able to scrounge them up to acceptance level. As they were taken from 2000' below it is a challenge, but I'm sure you guys are up to it. The second shot actually has a vapour trail from the aircon. packs streaming off the tail, which I am having trouble preserving.

Thanks in advance!

[JeffinDEN]

They are overexposed, thus the halo around the plane, and the pasty whiteness.

Next time I would use spot, or center weighted metering to prevent the camera from "seeing" all the dark blue sky and slowing your exposure to brighten the scene. With spot or center, it will expose more for the white fuselage, then for the sky.

[AJ]

Thanks Jeff, I've been having trouble with what you suggested I believe due to the flightdeck windows (elements etc.).

I would have had more time to shoot but we were on a M.79 plan and he was doing at least M.83!

Thanks.

[screaming_emu]

Sweet shots none the less. Those are always some really cool pictures. Do you have opportunities to get shots like that often?

[AJ]

Thanks mate. Not as many opportunities as I'd like, quite often it seems that I spend the whole night with aircraft everywhere, but at sunup they're all gone!

It's a shame JAL wasn't pulling contrails, 38,000' and all. As he raced away he started with the contrails about 30nm ahead .

It's certainly easy when they're same direction like Air NZ: [photoid=47799], but opposite direction is a b*tch!:[photoid=135652]

I'll just keep trying!

[Leftseat86]

Hi AJ, send the originals to [email protected]

I'll see if I can mess with them abit

Shooting Air-2-Air like that, I would use the same technique I use when shooting contrails, if on a bright sunny day, under-expose 1.5 or 2 stops.
Or use center-weighted metering as Jeff suggested

-Clovis

[egll]

No we are not becoming Anet-and heaven forbid that we should ever do so


Unfortunately as much I liked these pictures from a personal point of view I didn't think that the quality was there, I thought they were sowing more than the normal amount of compression and were somewhat soft, although I felt that the exposure was within the limits despie being a bit off.

I wouldn't be offended if you felt that you wanted to appeal them-thats what its there for



Matt

[AJ]

Clovis, they are a pretty big file, do you want be to crop out the jumbo and send them?

Matt, appealed and failed, rightly so I guess. Thanks anyway!

[Leftseat86]

How big are they? My yahoo account can accept up to 3MB

-Clovis

[AJ]

Guys, thanks very much for your help, she's going to join my personal collection, I'll just have to wait for the next opportunity!

Any luck Clovis?

[Simpleboy]

Some help with some Air-to-air shots please!

ill have a play around with them but dont expect a miracle, but i do have lots of time on my hands

[Chris_SE]

Your caption on the Qantas shot says 1600km/h... thats ~mach1.3..? Or are you referring to the relative speed maybe... Nice shots anyways! Are you a pilot?

[AJ]

Hi Chris, yes, that was our closing speed.

Yes, I am a pilot!

[Leftseat86]

Hi AJ,

I played around with it, ran it through neat image et all, yet...there are just too many large flaws to make it work. But I'm sure being the lucky guy you are you will have many more opportunities to get the same...

-Clovis

[AJ]

Thanks mate, I'll just have to go out today and chase some Virgins (Blue, that is) around the domestic skies to get a shot!