Didn't go to the show, but did grab some pictures from a far. Here's a few. Sorry it's mainly Thunderbird, just didn't feel like dealing with the crowds.

Thanks for sharing. I particularly like shots 4 and 5

What a size difference between the F22 and the F86!

Cheers

Nice pics Panther,thanks

very nice, I had a few friends there. Glad they had such great weather!

From what I saw of the crowd lines, there wasn't much there. 166K they said on their FB page for the whole weekend. But my friends crowdline shots only showed 2 deep...

Nice shots Panther!

I was there, and got there at 9:30, half an hour before the shuttle buses started running. I was still waiting in line when the show started at 11:00, and watched the F-35 and F-22 formation from the racetrack parking lot - very frustrating.

Ouch! Don't know what was up with that, I could see the traffic jam on the I15 on Saturday from the ICU of the base hospital.

Can never be enough pictures of an F-16!

Thanks for posting.

I attended this. Great show! May post some of my photos.

yea, the line in was insane.

Finally got around to processing mine. It was a great show, just frustrating that I missed the F-35.

Sharp Arthonon!

I hope to one day get the full understanding of processing images.

Thanks! I usually just do some cropping, adjusting levels a little bit, then downsize and sharpen. I'm only using an old version of Photo Shop Elements so it's pretty basic stuff. If you're not sharpening them after downsizing, that might be making them a little less sharp.

http://www.jid.me.uk/tutorial1.html

Here's what I learned by, I only have PS Elements as well. It doesn't have the "curves" that this site talks about.

level the shot
remove dust spots
crop
Layers
Levels layer
saturation layer
contrast layer

resize and sharpen
apply copyright

Thank you so much. That should help a lot, I'm sure for you guys who do this all the time, there are things that make your skin crawl in the images I posted.

I shoot in RAW and use Lightroom for the adjustments. I think I've gotten better since I first started photography with my ol' point and shoot Sony.

I'm lazy - I shoot straight to jpeg

Your images look fine to me. About the only thing I would prefer is if they weren't mostly the bottoms of the aircraft, but from a technical standpoint, I don't see any major issues.

I concur about nothing wrong technically with your shots, lighting is everything and you can't always change it. I shoot JPG & RAW. 99% of the time I'm just editing the jpgs, very rarely will I use my RAW but it's great to have if the lighting wasn't in my favor.

For landscapes, I almost always use the RAW file as it allows more editing that matters. With jets and blue skies not much to edit.

I started shooting raw because every time the images were coming out way too dark. I've been trying to understand more about my equipment and why images are coming out looking like it was a dark day.

I really need to get out and just take more pictures is what it boils down to.

In case it helps, I'm using a Canon 7D with a 100-400 lens, and just about all of the aircraft shots I post are shot with the following settings:

Shutter Priority Mode (Tv)

ISO <200

Exposure Compensation +1/3 stop

AI Servo Autofocus

I think I have a custom setting that bumps saturation and sharpness a bit over the default, but nothing crazy.

Those settings allow me to shoot at 1/320 or below for prop plane and helo shots, and then crank it up to around 1/1000 for jets, and still get decent exposure. All I usually do in post for exposure compensation is reduce the levels a small amount in PS Elements, since some shots come out a little brighter than I want with the +1/3 setting.

Hi Panther, here's a video on You Tube about processing aviation photographs using Lightroom that may be of interest. I learnt a thing or two from it - hope it helps

Cheers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sccx5Gcv3rc

More great information. Thanks!