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[Sam Posten]

Having trouble picking a fave!

16-OC-AirShow-1882 by Sam Posten III, on Flickr


16-OC-AirShow-1940 by Sam Posten III, on Flickr


16-OC-AirShow-1980 by Sam Posten III, on Flickr


16-OC-AirShow-1729 by Sam Posten III, on Flickr

Flickr seems to have added some gnarly noise to these tho, gonna have to figure out why....

 

[Mike Frezon]

I loooooove #4 (the last one), Sam!

#1 comes in a close 2nd!

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Shot #1 is my favorite, Sam.

Nice job. I have never shot an air show. Looks like fun.

 

[Sam Posten]

Thanks for the kind words guys.

It was a LOT of work going solo. I decided to go gear heavy, 2 bodies, Monopod and 3 lenses. I didn't want to waste the $139 I spent on a VIP spot which came with parking, food, shelter (tent and umbrella plus seating) and soda/water/beer. But I had to hump all my gear by myself and watch it the whole time. I grabbed a few bites and a few bottles of water, but it was hard to get back to the tent to do so with nobody to watch my stuff. Next time I will pay for a friend / assistant even if no family wants to drive down from NJ to see it.

I took 2900 shots and made 300 selects. I took way more than I expected, filled a 64GB card and started on a second. Next time I will be more cautious. If I go solo again it will be single body, but I really didnt want to have gear conk out on me so I definitely don't want to go single body if I can avoid it.

I'll have to work on the settings to get that nasty grain out of the final versions.

 

[Sam Posten]

Full set now up. Lot of work to cull and edit, I think a lot of em are a bit too blue, will see when printed. Think I get rid of most of the fuzz tho.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/kadath/albums/72157669988488076


16-OC-AirShow-0291 by Sam Posten III, on Flickr


16-OC-AirShow-1306 by Sam Posten III, on Flickr


16-OC-AirShow-1499 by Sam Posten III, on Flickr


16-OC-AirShow-1729 by Sam Posten III, on Flickr


16-OC-AirShow-1893 by Sam Posten III, on Flickr


16-OC-AirShow-2107 by Sam Posten III, on Flickr


16-OC-AirShow-2231 by Sam Posten III, on Flickr


16-OC-AirShow-2517 by Sam Posten III, on Flickr


16-OC-AirShow-2585 by Sam Posten III, on Flickr


16-OC-AirShow-2588 by Sam Posten III, on Flickr


16-OC-AirShow-2927 by Sam Posten III, on Flickr


16-OC-AirShow-3168 by Sam Posten III, on Flickr


16-OC-AirShow-3458 by Sam Posten III, on Flickr


16-OC-AirShow-3649 by Sam Posten III, on Flickr

 

[JohnRice]

Excellent Sam. Liking your D500? I'm curious. They all seem to be at +2/3 EV. I've kind of felt my D7100 tends to overexpose a bit, so I'm more likely to go under, slightly. Is this something you do frequently?

 

[Sam Posten]

No, this was a first. At calculated exposure I was getting pure blacks on the undersides of the planes. Only way to ensure I'd have enough latitude was ETTR and hope I wouldn't suffer worse blown highlights.

Direct overhead sunlight onto fast movers in a cloudless sky is the definition of a worst case scenario. It worked out well 90% of the time.

Maybe someone has a better strategy, I'm open to suggestions!

 

[JohnRice]

OK, had to look up ETTR. Funny how that's a little reversal of philosophy from film photography, where with B&W in particular, it was always "expose for the shadows and process for the highlights". Now it's the reverse. I guess I've been doing this, in a way, but I'm still getting over the fear with digital that highlights will instantly lose detail. So I don't push it far enough. I can only push it so far with the D7100. I expect if I was using a D810 I could push it a lot further.

 

[Citizen87645]

I had to look it up too, but knew (and practice) the practice, despite not knowing the acronym.

I never got deep enough into use of film to actually practice the expose for shadows guideline, but heard it often repeated.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Using ETTR is a staple of most Canon dSLR shooters, as their sensors tend to be noisy in the shadows. Sam, that was probably the best solution for the conditions you were shooting in. When I shoot birds in flight against a clear sky, I will experience the same issues if I do not ETTR. While I can recover some of the shadows in Lightroom, the noise can become an issue. I have better luck reducing highlights in LR, but It's a fine line using ETTR and not blowing out any essential highlights. Using your histogram and a highlights "blinky" display mode (I assume Nikon has one of these) with some test shots will at least give you a good starting point.

 

[JohnRice]

I had to look it up too, but knew (and practice) the practice, despite not knowing the acronym.

I never got deep enough into use of film to actually practice the expose for shadows guideline, but heard it often repeated.

You need to have control over processing, so it was mainly with B&W, especially when you processed your own film. Especially useful with sheet film, since every exposure can be individually developed. It's the foundation of The Zone System. It was also workable with E-6 transparencies and a lab that offers push and pull processing. It was never a viable option with color negatives.

 

[Sam Posten]

The funny thing is I have been trying to avoid use of my display a lot and had turned it off 2 weeks ago to see how comfortable I was without it. I usually check 1-3 frames then hit the down arrow to see the histogram, but with the latitude I usually get I don't go nuts over it. I left it off all day Saturday and had plenty of battery left despite taking almost 3k images. I think I'm finally fully comfortable in my camera handling. Now if I could just do the same with colors =) Most folks with color blindness just say F it and go B&W but I love color so I bang my head against it despite the pain =)

Thanks for the kind words tho guys, it's appreciated. And yep Scott I do the same at Conowingo with the Eagles.

On the D500: Loving it. I thought it would give me more crop latitude than I'm used to but not so much. Its files have a lot of Dynamic Range. But they do NOT react as well to sharpening as my D4 does. I can be a lot more aggressive with sharpness on that body, and I am not sure why!

 

[Mike Frezon]

Sam:

Those are some stunning images. Can't believe you took THAT MANY!!! I might reference that 2900 number the next time my family makes fun of me for taking copious pictures of the dogs, granddaughter, etc.!

 

[Sam Posten]

Well it was 20 years since I last went to an Air Show and I didn't have a FILM SLR with me then let alone a DSLR. Making up for lost time! =) Thanks for the encouragement.

2900 raw captures-> 300 selects -> ~15 to show off and put in the book =) It's all about being picky once you have the big set.

 

[Citizen87645]

Not as hard to keep up with as jets, but still fun to shoot. Click on any of the photos will get you to the entire album on Flickr.

 

[Sam Posten]

I usually only do throw away shots on my iPhone but this one came out ok IMO

Disney Springs Steamboat by Sam Posten III, on Flickr

 

[JohnRice]

Living with the Rocky Mountains right out my window, that's pretty much what I've focused my photography on. This summer I decided I'd make a point of exploring some of the wonderful little farm towns that are all over Eastern Colorado. This is downtown Nunn Colorado. Well, as close as there is to a downtown. It's, at most, 30 miles from home, and even though I've lived most of my life here, I'd never gone there. If Nunn had one more traffic light, it could be a "one light town".

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Some shots from the July 4th parade in my hometown of Plymouth:

 

[Mike Frezon]

It was nice of President Lincoln to make an appearance!

Nice shot of Abe, Scott!

 

[Scott Merryfield]

It was nice of President Lincoln to make an appearance!

Nice shot of Abe, Scott!

Thanks, Mike. He saw me sitting there with my camera, so decided to have some fun and pose for me. The only other participants to react to me were the USA Hockey NTDP folks, since I was wearing a NTDP tee shirt and USA Hockey hat (we have season tickets) . One of the team officials walked over and applauded me. Lol.

Edit to add:

Here are a couple of photos of the USA Hockey folks. The National Team Development Program (NTDP) had four players taken in the first round of last month's NHL Draft, including first overall choice Auston Matthews and 7th overall Clayton Keller.