JohnJ From United States, joined Jun 2000, 1295 posts, RR: 4 Posted (5 years 9 months 2 weeks 2 days 20 hours ago) and read 1574 times:
I took the two photos in the links below at PVD this past weekend. The weather was partly sunny, temps in the low 50s, winds gusting up to 16. The sun was behind me at about a 30 degree angle. My equipment is a Canon Digital Rebel with a Canon EF 75-300 USM IS lens, using Program mode. In the first picture, the horizontal stripes are not crisp - especially notice the fuselage stripe on the US Airways 737 - it's quite jagged. And the color separations on the Southwest 737 are not at all crisp. Any idea what gives here? My first thought is atmospheric conditions magnified by the zoom lens, but the humidity should have been pretty low that day, the temps were chilly and it was generally clear. Perhaps these are oversaturated or improperly exposed?
N737MC From Canada, joined Oct 2000, 651 posts, RR: 26 Reply 2, posted (5 years 9 months 2 weeks 2 days 20 hours ago) and read 1525 times:
Program mode? Ooh...no
Shoot in Manual, Shutter Priority, or Aperature Priority mode for better results..
I just had like 35 shots accepted with my 300D and the conditions I shot in was not that stellar. I was shooting in TV mode, which is Shutter priority.
Dazultra From United Kingdom (England), joined Nov 2003, 689 posts, RR: 54 Reply 3, posted (5 years 9 months 2 weeks 2 days 20 hours ago) and read 1499 times:
My equipment is a Canon Digital Rebel with a Canon EF 75-300 USM IS lens
I wouldn't expect any cracking results using this lens above 200mm. Also keep the aperture between f8-11 and thats how u'l get the best out of the lens.
Benyhone From United States, joined Mar 2001, 206 posts, RR: 4 Reply 5, posted (5 years 9 months 2 weeks 2 days 19 hours ago) and read 1485 times:
John, I don't know. You shot at 1/500, which should be quick enough to produce a sharp photo at 235mm. But what I don't understand is the f8.0 in cloudy-hazy weather. f8.0 and 1/250 is typical for a bright day. I wouldn't go f8.0 and 1/500 unless it was VERY bright & clear sunshine with a white aircraft ....
I'm not convinced it was heat-haze ... I'd say it was the exposure. Try as Aaron said & put it on Tv mode, and set the shutter to 1/500 (for action) and let the aperture set itself. See what happens (that's the beauty of digital, right?)...
As for what happened in your scans - without knowing your post-processing it's hard to tell. But it looks like something was wrong w/ the exposure, and you tried to correct it in PS, which produced the jaggies.
Aaron - I knew your shots would turn out (!!) - congrats on getting them uploaded!
ExitRow From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 6, posted (5 years 9 months 2 weeks 2 days 18 hours ago) and read 1445 times:
The "waviness" of the cheatlines is most definitely due to refraction from the thermals eminating from the runway. As discussed in another thread, hot weather isn't a requirement for these, just temperature differential. Also... are these full-frame or did you crop and resize up?
Craigy From United Kingdom, joined Jun 2001, 1118 posts, RR: 0 Reply 8, posted (5 years 9 months 2 weeks 2 days 16 hours ago) and read 1361 times:
I echo Jan's comments, P mode is fine for me. You say that it chose 1/500 F8 - the only reason to use Tv or Av mode is to ENSURE either 1/500 or F8.
For best results, try shooting in RAW mode with the sharpness at its lowest setting (-2?).
This sets ZERO in-camera sharpening, so that you can apply your own USM after re-sizing.
I agree that heat-haze is the culprit with your shots - unfortunately the laws of physics are against you. The only way around heat haze is to shoot aircraft higher in the air where the heat reflected from the ground is less.
I suspect that there is a taxiway between you and the plane which is reflecting the heat.
Regards,
Craig.
(enjoying the clear, crisp weather in the UK)
Mia777 From United States, joined Sep 2002, 1161 posts, RR: 9 Reply 9, posted (5 years 9 months 2 weeks 2 days 15 hours ago) and read 1330 times:
Don't blame the camera. I own one and I am plenty satisfied with my results (as other Rebel owners are as well). That's like blaming shoes for not running so fast. Now in some cases that may be so, like in photography, the camera may be only 1.3 mp or your lens is crap but in this case I have used your setup and have pictures on here with it.
JohnJ From United States, joined Jun 2000, 1295 posts, RR: 4 Reply 10, posted (5 years 9 months 2 weeks 2 days 14 hours ago) and read 1282 times:
Don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming the camera - I was just concerned that these images came out this way and wanted to make sure it's not malfunctioning or that I'm doing something stupid. To the naked eye, the environment that day was crystal-clear and there didn't seem to be a reasonable explanation for the waviness other than some idiosyncrasy of the camera or user error. Having heat distortion on a 50-degree day didn't seem to be an issue.
After having my submissisions rejected time after time after time at this site, I'm finally enjoying a pretty good acceptance rate here after beginning to use the Digital Rebel, the linked pictures notwithstanding. So, I fully understand the value of this camera and overall am quite happy with it.
ExitRow: these pictures are cropped to 1024x768. The full-size, unaltered image looks the same, though, so that is not the culprit, nor is any sharpening or lightening I've added.
Thanks, everyone, for the input and suggestions. I guess I'll have to be aware of this phenomenon in the future.
Scooter From United States, joined Jun 1999, 787 posts, RR: 3 Reply 11, posted (5 years 9 months 2 weeks 2 days 8 hours ago) and read 1230 times:
Guys, it's NOT heat haze. I have this problem on my 10D sometimes when shooting in JPG format...this is a post processing issue.
Solution? Nothing is guaranteed, but shoot in RAW format, and play with different resizing. FYI, I've found that I tend to get these nasty jaggies whenever I scale down more than 50%. Anything 50% and above stays clean.
I've also discovered that Corel PhotoPaint will resize images cleaner than Photoshop will. That's why I still keep an old copy of PhotoPaint around...
JohnJ From United States, joined Jun 2000, 1295 posts, RR: 4 Reply 12, posted (5 years 9 months 2 weeks 2 days 7 hours ago) and read 1200 times:
Sorry, Scooter, I have to disagree with you. The link below is the unaltered image of the USAirways 737 straight from the camera - it looks every bit as bad as, if not worse, than the post-processed image in the link above (beware - the file is 2MB):
PW100 From Netherlands, joined Jan 2002, 1596 posts, RR: 11 Reply 19, posted (5 years 9 months 2 weeks 1 day 14 hours ago) and read 1047 times:
I agree it's heathaze. Like already mentioned, heat haze is not driven by
OAT [Outside Air Temperature], but rather by temperature differential in the atmosphere. Light traveling through air with constant temperature will follow a straight line [at least at relatively short distance; gravity will curve light as well but I don't think you'll be shooting rovers on Mars . . . ]. However when that light ray enters air with a different temparature, you'll get a [small] refraction. Especially large [black] concrete surfaces between the camera and object will kill an image through heathaze if the sun is shining, even under low winter sun.
This photo was taken at a temperature just below freezing [-1 degr Celcius], but there is massive heat haze on the 777 [partially caused by the F100 APU though]. At the same day I shot from the very same location a KLM 744 and KLM 777 nose to nose, but the photo really was destroyed [well at least to A.net standards that is] by the heat haze. These photo's were taken with a 10D [1.6 crop] combined with 400mm focal length.
High temperatures will increase heat haze, since there is more activity and temerature differentials in a hot atmopshere. Also take a good look at the surface between the camera and object. Concrete and sand are excellent in increasing heat haze, while gras and water tend to reduce heat haze. Low temperature [even freezing cold] is by no means a guarantee for eliminating heat haze.
Harm
Immigration officer: "What's the purpose of your visit to the USA?" Spotter: "Shooting airliners with my Canon!"
Navigator From Sweden, joined Jul 2001, 267 posts, RR: 22 Reply 20, posted (5 years 9 months 1 week 6 days 3 hours ago) and read 870 times:
Dear John,
What you see in the first picture looks like heat blur. It must have been a warm day. On the second one I think I see slight motion blur also. Not disturbing though.
I don´t think you have a problem with the Rebel judging from those pictures.
If you want to avoid motion blur with long tele lenses I think the Canon DSLR:s produce almost the same picture quality with ISO 200. I can never see the difference anyway. The penalty you may get is outweighed by the sharper images you get from better shutter speeds or better aperture settings.
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Yep, that's heat haze all right! Seriously though, I'm suprised it would be that bad with temps only in the low 50's.
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