B-17 Bomber

[epmi314]

1. Don't know quite what forum this belongs in but give me your thoughts. An air show is down the way and this one flew right over the back of the house this morning.

2. The pictures are so much softer than original. I will search for the thread on that subject.

[Colin Southern]

Hi Scott,

It's normal for an image to soften when you down-sample it. It's pretty easy to fix - just apply an unsharp mask of around 0.3 Pixel, and 50% to 300% (as required).

Must have been great to see the grand old bird - in terms of photography, all I can suggest is next time use a slower shutterspeed to give a bit of motion to the props.

Great timing - by Dad used to fly on the Stirling aircraft during WW II - last weekend I had the opportunity to photograph his photo album, and found this shot of pilot Bob Renner (whom I met) sitting on the #2 engine of "Te Kooti" - the Stirling my dad used to fly on. I don't think it was in as good a condition as your B17!

[epmi314]

That's a great old shot. I'm certain that meeting the man in the shot added a great deal of context even in hindsight. I fear the pictures of my generation surfing facebook will not be so interesting! I think it was Oscar Wilde who said, "America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between."

Thanks for the tip on downsizing. I will give it a try and hopefully see some improved quality.

[ilovelucydog]

1. Don't know quite what forum this belongs in but give me your thoughts. An air show is down the way and this one flew right over the back of the house this morning.

2. The pictures are so much softer than original. I will search for the thread on that subject.

You did capture the striking shiny silver coloring nicely. The second image almost has a painted look to it. Both are nice.

[Donald]

Scott

I note Colin's point and agree (did you see this thread from yesterday about shutter speeds and propellers)? That notwithstanding, they are wonderful images. Well done.

[Colin Southern]

Any better / worse?

- Added a little prop blur

- Output sharpen

- Minor levels / saturation tweak

[Geoff F]

I have managed to 'unfreeze' propellors by doing something similar to Colin's method then reducing the opacity slightly on each blade.

Another thought about softness, Scott. Is the trouble coming from resizing downwards or when you upload to this site? For best results make your images 700 pixels on the longest side (or a fraction less) and no more than 150 kb.