Jaybird

I had a similar problem taking pictures of a huge Vickers Gunbus with a working nine cylinder rotary (not radial) with a beautiful hand carved wooden propeller at Rhinebeck a couple of years ago. When it was placed out on the field, the left ailerons were drooped all the way down and the right ailerons were even with the wing panel and the elevator was level. I did post one of the pictures a few replies ago, but I noticed the out of position control surfaces and didn't post any more of it. It was run there but not flown (there is a video of it flying at a later time) and I've never heard so much noise from a model engine. As with the full scale rotary engine, the exhaust goes right out the top of the cylinder so there is no way to muffle it.

Slight aileron droop on both sides could be considered scale for a static shot of WWI aircraft but not one all the way down and one level...again the cable must have snapped!

Jaybird

abufletcher

Let's just say for all the stunning color, the willingness to get to the field early, the great photography (which includes being ready to capture that morning mist), I'm willing to cut those ailerons some slack.

RodanAZ

Pun intended, right? [8D]

Idigbo

It was a long trip over the pond, but I had some spare cable and have repaired Davids aileron cable

Ian.

abufletcher

By the way, for anyone interested in creating a "WWI era" look for black and white photos, it's worth remembering that because of the type of film used in those days (blue-sensitive orthochromatic film) the blue of the cockade and on the tail was much lighter than the red, which was rendered almost black. Also both film and lenses of the time were less contrasty. You can get this effect in Photoshop by using the Channel Mixer instead of Desaturate. You first click to convert to monochrome and then dial down the red and boost the blue and green.

tenacious101010

My Feedback: (97)

Not the quality of a nice camera, but a different perspective on scale photography.There were taken with a cheap key-cam, about $35 on EBAY. Now that I have the system worked out, I can figure out how to get rid of the date stamp. Next that screw on the cowl has to go along with a couple covering wrinkles. I think if I work at the scale details of the airctaft that shows in the images, there is real potential for some great scale flying shots. These were taken at the recent Blue Max event in Sanford Florida.
Denny

rcphotog

Hey Denny ( tenacious101010 ),

I love this image!

At first glance, it looks like a low resolution still-shot from an IMAX movie

Can you imagine mounting an IMAX camera on the tail of a SE5 ? ....can you say ...tail heavy

I think this type of photography is fun and has great potential for this thread.

...if only the pilot had a little grime on his face

Great effort and thought on camera placement too. I like it.
Ken.

Mein Duff

Very Clever Abu... will have to try that out

Mein Duff

This Photo is too coool for words !!!!

abufletcher

I just have to post this photo here. As many of you probably guessed, this is an actual WWI-era color photo of a N17 using the Autochrome Lumiere color photography process. What's fascinating to me is how much it looks like a model in this photo. And the photography itself is very instructive about stereotypes people often hold about "old planes and old photos." First, notice that the image is incredibly sharp. This is because it was taken using a large-format plate camera (probably 8" x 10"). This means there's about 52 times as much "real estate" on the negative as on a typical 35mm negative. I'm not sure what this equates to in terms of megapixels but it's a LOT. The "toy-like" quality of the photo is the result of the way large format cameras can be tilted and shifted to affect the depth of field.

Finally, notice are really clean and colorful the aircraft is.

mark fadely

That's good information Fletch. It's good to hear the photoshop tips you use to make better scale presentations.

Thanks,

Mark

mark fadely

Great shots! These make such a cool perspective with the camera placement and ultra-wide angle lens. Nice job putting something so unique and cool in this thread. I can invision all sorts of interesting camera angles for this. Hope to see some more.

Teus

Don,

I like the photo very much, but my mind says it's a model!

Is it the angle or is the prop too small? The clumps of grass look a bit great (off scale) too.

And if this is a model, it's a perfect shot of a very beautiful model [8D]

avionette

my balsa usa 1/6 pup

NeilHutch

x

abufletcher

Teus, it really is an actual photo of an actual full-scale N17 taken during WWI. I was amazed when I first saw the photo as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autochrome_Lumi%C3%A8re

Spuetz

Avionette, it looks so real! That table, that sewing material! That's exactly what they used to have in 1918! Wasn't it a British tradition to always put huge dining tables in the hangar. Throw some sewing materials on them, replace the original propeller with a tiny black one (for protection), and store the plane on that table to protect it from floods. Also the war budget always allowed for huge paintings to be pit in the hangar. After all the boys were risking their lifes, so they deserved giant, museum-like interior design in their hangars... ;-)

Spuetz

Don, I doubt that very much! This is a model with a Quadra engine or similar. Dude, the radial Rotary Engine is missing! This is Wikipedia, a great crowd sourced web service, but not always very reliable! Who knows where they got the picture from... It certainly is a picture of a model!

avionette

ok you go to scale voice, i will show you the real ww1 work!

chasrb

Hey congratulations everyone on reaching 200 pages on this thread! I believe 1/10 of them have what was set out to be the intent of this thread. This is a very cool thread, I can imagine sitting with some of you like Mustang51, Abufletcher and Spuetz having a few beers at the pub and talking over the posts of the day.

abufletcher

Spuetz, if it IS a model (which I absolutely don't believe it is), it can't possibly be an RC model. Just look at how deeply inset the "dummy" engine is. There would have been absolutely no room for an actual "model" engine. And look at the other extremely rich detail. No this is a REAL Autochrome Lumiere of a REAL N17 photographed nearly 100 years ago. What is causing this image to look "toy-like" is the usual visual effect possible with the "tilt and shift" features on large format cameras. Recently we've seen this technique used for ad to make actual video of street scenes look like a toy diorama.

As for "unscale grass clumps" well I photographed just such clumps yesterday on a hike.

Dwhart24

DSC_2563 by dwhart24, on Flickr

DSC_1512 copy by dwhart24, on Flickr

DSC_1564 by dwhart24, on Flickr

Spuetz

Hey Don,

you might be right! Amazing! I was wondering about the "tilt shift" thing. How does that actually work? My camera has that function and it looks unreal! but how's that done?

abufletcher

http://www.funzug.com/index.php/crea...illusions.html

http://illusion.scene360.com/video/4.../#.UQ4b_ujud7w

I'm not sure how the modern day technique is done (particularly with video) but if you're working with a true large format (plate) camera it is possible to shift the lens up and down as well as tilt is forwards or backwards and right or left. The allows the photographer to selectively manipulate the depth of field of different parts of the image. For example, with typical 35mm photography wide angle lens tend to allow great depth of field and telephotos often give only a slice of sharp focus. But with an adjustable field camera you could produce the sharp slice of focus with a wide angle or front to back depth of field with a telephoto.

I think the toy-like quality of this particular image is also partly the result of the Autochrome Lumiere process.

*****

Ah, here we go:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_faking

NeilHutch

Hi All,

I guess someone had better notice some pictures have been posted (got my facetious head on this morning![>:] Sarcasm comes on, later in the day[&o]) Great pictures, David - love the first shot. Looks like the Tripe has almost got the right firing angle.

TTFN,
Neil