Offutt Air Show - 2012

John Klat will perform at 7 events in 2012.  We were fortunate to see what he can do with an airplane.  Wow!

I didn't expect much from the Soviet built Yak-52.  They were amazing!

The Yak-52 was built as a trainer.  I don't think that they had maneuvers like this in mind.

Gunfighter and Big Beautiful Doll are regulars at the Offutt Air Show.  They are always a challenge to photograph.

The F-86 Sabor was one of the United States first jet fighters.

The Harrier is not a stealth fighter.  It was the loudest aircraft of the day.  It is amazing - able to land like a helicopter.

The USN F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet moves so fast that that it pushes a cloud of water vapor along.

Neither I nor the pilot saw the F/A-18 nearly collide with this large bird.  When you are flying at nearly the speed of sound, you don't want this kind of close encounter.  The depth of focus is very shallow with the 400mm lens I was using.  The bird is in focus so it is the same distance away as the aircraft.  The aircraft passed within a couple of feet of it.

As the F/A-18 departed, I wondered if it is one of the last of its kind.  Will drones take over this type of warfare?  This airshow had some of the first manned fighters.  It may also have had one of the last.

I need a SmugMug Exit Strategy

My online photo gallery - KurthPhotoPlace.com - is going to disappear if I don't cough up additional money.  I received an email yesterday saying that if I pay by the month, my costs will double.  The email included a recorded message from Chris MacAskill in which he calmly looked me in the eye and explained  the reasons for the price increase.  Apparently we are uploading faster than storage prices have decreased and the pro accounts are more expensive to maintain.  He says that the large increase is because they resisted making small increases since 2005.

I don't believe a word of it.  This is a drastic change and it will get worse.  The message was sent out at 10:00 on a Friday night preceding a three day weekend.  I'm afraid that additional changes are planned so this news needed to get out ASAP or we wouldn't be ready for additional bad news as soon.

The change included a new SmugMug level of Portfolio.  The Portfolio price is about the same as the old Pro  level  but you can no longer set prices and use the other  features that allowed you to be reimbursed for your services.  Interesting enough, I've always been charged extra for the Pro level services.  When my clients ordered,  SmugMug skimmed a percentage of the sales.  When they sent me money that I had earned, they kept a percentage.  If I select the Portfolio pricing, my clients will no longer be able to order on line, so SmugMug will lose the percentage of sales they collect from their labs, the percentage of sales they collect from me and the percentage that they get to put my money into my bank account.  If they aren't making money on my pro account - they certainly can't afford to lose those commissions.

Chris MacAskill said that we need to pay more so SmugMug doesn't have to get money from investors.   Sadly, I see an IPO or company sale in the future.  The price increases make the company look more profitable.  The higher monthly charge shows a potential for even more revenue.  The unlimited uploads Chris says he wants to keep will support future price increases or service reductions.

I started KurthPhotoPlace.com in 2007.  I've invested hundreds of hours uploading and building it.  Chris is right, SmugMug is storing more for me each year.  Chris has gambled that this price increase will not make me leave because he knows he has me by the balls.  If I leave, KurthPhotoPlace dies.   It's too big and too expensive to move.

One of the reasons that I chose SmugMug in the first place was that it charged a reasonable amount for its services.  Other lower cost sites were available, but I wanted to use one that would be around beyond 2012.

I'm not affected by this  price increase until I renew.  I have a year or longer to ponder my next move.  Even if I chose to stay with SmugMug, it's apparent that I need an exit strategy.   What if the 10:00 message on a Friday night preceding a three day weekend had been that SmugMug is closing or that SmugMug has been purchased by Adobe?  More bad news is on the way and I need to be better prepared.

Removing the Evidence

I spent several hours photographing the Fontenelle Forest wetlands this morning.  I ended up with over 600 images on my card. I never had this problem in the days of film.  600 images was 24 rolls of film and hundred of pre-Obama dollars.  

That was then and this is now.  My camera can take 600 images in 60 seconds provided that there is time for the buffer to clear between bursts.  I usually have the camera in high speed mode and try to take the photos in short bursts.  Today I took quite a few pictures of a raccoon looking for food at the side of the pond, a blue heron fishing and goldfinches plucking thistles.  

My first shots of the racoon were at 1/13 of a second.  I shot plenty of extra shots because I knew that 1/13 second wasn't going to stop any movement.  Ever after I had more light, my subjects moved fast and randomly,  This is a problem because I don't want 600 images.  I would be happier with the best ten or twelve.  I need to toss 588 images before I can put the best dozen into Lightroom.

I could easily spend all day picking the best but I want to spend as littile time in front of the computer as possible.  I certainly don't want to spend a lot of time on photos that I'll discard anyway.

Step One - Delete all the God-Awful images.  The cardinal in the image below is not looking at the camera.  Aside from this blog, I'll never use this image.  I use the Slideshow feature of Breezebrowser set to advance to the next image as soon as I have ranked the current image.  I rank pass/fail.  I can view 600 images and rank pass/fail in 5 minutes.  It varies, but I can usually cull 1/3 of the images in this step.

Step Two - Pick the sharpest images from each sequence  Remove the others.

I use Breezebrower to view thumbnails of my session.  

I took a two shot burst of this sunflower.  My shutter-speed was 1/23 @ f13.  At 1120mm, the depth of field is very shallow. The lens is image stabilized and mounted on a sturdy tripod.  The images are exact duplicates of each other.   I don't need two copies in Lightroom so I compare them in Breezebrowser.

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The compare mode in Breezebrowser allows me to look at the place where I expect the image to be sharpest and compare the exact same place in the second image.  The comparison in Breezebrowser fills my entire screen.

The images below show the difference at full resolution.  Notice the white speck in the middle of the left half of the center of the flower.  On the bottom images, it is shown twice.  There was more movement during the second exposure than during the first.  The rows of seeds look sharper on top as well.

 

Depending of the subject matter, I can usually eliminate 3/4 of the remaining images in Step 2.  

I begin Step three by copying all the remaining images to a directory that I load into Lightroom.  I make a few adjustment in Lightroom for exposure, contrast, color temperature and composition.  I remove any images that do not respond well to the adjustments.  If I have several similar images, I try to eliminate the weakest examples. 

At the end of Step 3, I may be down to a dozen images or I could have fifty,  In either case, I've eliminated any evidence of "spraying and praying".