Jim Horn, QPSA  


OC Blue Angels in Formation by Jim Horn, QPSA

August 2019 - OC Blue Angels in Formation

August 2019 - Jim Horn, QPSA

Original

About the Image(s)

Sony α99ii, Sony 500mm f/4 lens with 1.4 teleconverter (focal length 700mm), f/5.6, 1/4000 sec., ISO 1000, circular polarizer, tripod, gimbal.
The US Navy Blue Angels are the highlight of the Ocean City Air in Maryland every June. Here they fly in their classic formation called the “diamond.” They flew over the beach three blocks from me on the fifth floor of my timeshare condo. I rotated the image about 90 degrees clockwise so the F 18/A Super Hornets were flying up, now down “ then cropped it. I used Noise Reduction at high ISO so that I could use a very fast shutter speed and good depth of field because these jets were screaming fast. In Photoshop I used Camera Raw Filter dehaze, white and black, highlight and shadow adjustments with smart sharpening. Please compare this photo with my July 2019 entry and let me know which you like.


This round’s discussion is now closed!
8 comments posted




 
Wow! Just great!   Posted: 08/14/2019 16:49:31



Laura Lee Bartholomew   Laura Lee Bartholomew
Jim, your image for July and this are like comparing apples and oranges. They are very different. Rotating the image so the jets were moving upward was a good choice. I am wondering if you should dial down the dehaze filter. The image feels a bit unnaturally sharp considering that the jets were moving. I think the dehaze might be accentuating the noise in the sky that does not exist in the original.   Posted: 08/14/2019 21:21:02
Jim Horn   Jim Horn
(Groups 5 & 15)
Laura, I appreciate your review. I started all over from the original RAW photo and came up with this. Dr. Jim   Posted: 08/15/2019 13:24:28
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Laura Lee Bartholomew   Laura Lee Bartholomew
The amount of sharpening looks much better. There is far less noise in the sky. Your new edit is much brighter than your original edit. You might want to consider dialing down the brightness just a bit.   Posted: 08/18/2019 20:13:54



Laura Lee Bartholomew   Laura Lee Bartholomew
The amount of sharpening looks much better. There is far less noise in the sky. Your new edit is much brighter than your original edit. You might want to consider dialing down the brightness just a bit.   Posted: 08/18/2019 20:13:56



 
Agree with Laura on the noise in the shot. Your second edit did improve the image, however, the noise is still there. One fun thing you might want to try is to rasterize the image in PS as a poster (there is a built in filter for this). I removes the noise and lets you do some creative thins with the colors.   Posted: 08/25/2019 15:04:13
Jim Horn   Jim Horn
(Groups 5 & 15)
Jim, I found time to search Photoshop. I did not find a filter for poster or rasterize. Please tell me how to find this in Adobe Photoshop CC 2019.
What I did on this photo was in filter, reduce noise - and did this step twice. Dr. Jim   Posted: 08/29/2019 08:57:52
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Jim: Apologies, but the effect is not in the filter section of PS. Instead, look at the adjustment choices in PS. You will see that one of the choices is called "posterize". It is on the third line, second from the left, in my layout. Try this and see what you get. Good luck.   Posted: 08/29/2019 10:55:40