AP Heli Photo Session

[furyphoto]

Well, Actually, it's a photo session of my finally finished AP Swift with Askman 360 mount.
Waddaya think?

http://www.helifreak.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=29062&stc=1&d=1193102779

Actually, the Nikon is just there for show, that thing weighs a ton, the poor old Swift could never lift it!

I am planning on focusing my marketing on the photography, not the gear, but what do you know, everybody wants to see a picture of it! SO I set up the studio, and did a bit of a Glamour Shots session.

[cbdane]

Well, Actually, it's a photo session of my finally finished AP Swift with Askman 360 mount.
Waddaya think?

http://www.helifreak.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=29062&stc=1&d=1193102779

Actually, the Nikon is just there for show, that thing weighs a ton, the poor old Swift could never lift it!
I am planning on focusing my marketing on the photography, not the gear, but what do you know, everybody wants to see a picture of it! SO I set up the studio, and did a bit of a Glamour Shots session.


Nice photo but there seems to be something strange about it that I just can't quite put my finger on. There are weird halos around the pool noodles and the tail boom. The short depth of field seems simulated since your backdrop is in reasonable focus but the tail is blurred? Also, the portion of the main blade at equivalent distance from the camera as the blurry tail also looks reasonably sharp?

Something about the overall presentation makes my brain squirm. Nice colors and lighting though.

[Wbird]

Love the photo

I never think of taking decent pics of my stuff until after... well... you know. LOL Once it is lying there in the heap I always say to myself, man I wish I had a couple of good pics of that bird before I flew it. I never had a good backdrop like that either. Here is a pic I recently took. Again I should have taken a couple of minutes to set it up on the lawn or something instead of on a dirty garage floor.

[bullaculla]

Nice photo but there seems to be something strange about it that I just can't quite put my finger on. There are weird halos around the pool noodles and the tail boom. The short depth of field seems simulated since your backdrop is in reasonable focus but the tail is blurred? Also, the portion of the main blade at equivalent distance from the camera as the blurry tail also looks reasonably sharp?

Something about the overall presentation makes my brain squirm. Nice colors and lighting though.

He could be manually blurring things in PS, or just bad JPEG compression. Also, background light is a little bright for my taste. I would've used a longer lens and stood farther away to get more separation from the backdrop, and it would have cutout more of the top draping of the cloth. but thats just me :)
All in all, the heli is well lit and i'd love to see the full size original. :thumbup:

[dreslism]

Looks good Andrew. Any more aerial shots from it?

I'd love to see some more of your AP shots.

Thanks,

[furyphoto]

A couple of fresh ones in Daily Pics...

http://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=12872&page=48

[SeismicCWave]

>>. There are weird halos around the pool noodles and the tail boom. The short depth of field seems simulated since your backdrop is in reasonable focus but the tail is blurred?<<

That's called a Gaussian Blur effect in Photoshop. You create a separate layer of the picture blur the second one. Put a mask on it and create a hole in the mask. The hole will reveal the area in focus and sharp the rest of the mask will be blurred. That is a technique used for portrait photography to soften up skin tone without sacrificing the focus of certain areas.

Before digital and photoshop we used a soft filter that has a blur ring and a clear middle.

[furyphoto]

Yeah I cheesed it up a bit for fun, SeismicCWave is right on the money with the technique. You can use the same process to make you aerial shots look like train set miniatures. I will probably send the non-soft focus one out to clients, but I was feeling a bit "Sears Portrait Studio" at the time.

"Before digital and photoshop we used a soft filter that has a blur ring and a clear middle"

-Ah the good ol' days

[bullaculla]

We used to make our own when we wanted off-set blurred images. UV filter and some petroleum jelly :D

[Wa11banger]

cool looking bird and nice effect

Rick

[SeismicCWave]

>>Ah the good ol' days<<

I don't miss them much.;-) Especially developing 35 mm Ektachrome. I like the instant gratification of digital.

>>UV filter and some petroleum jelly<<

Let's not bring back too much painful memories.;-) What a mess!