Your photo prefrences

The Rocketry Forum

Help Support The Rocketry Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

DizWolf

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 17, 2011
Messages
4,721
Reaction score
27
I've been taking rocket photos for a bit, and there's different ways of going about it. I tend to shoot fairly dark on the pad, so that when the rocket breaks the horizon you still get useable photos most of the way up.

I know what I like, the question is what does everyone else look for in a launch photo? If I'm fairly backed out, I can get an OK ignition photo, a good rail and horizon break shot, and then follow it up to apogee. My question is which photo do people really like? I'm guessing the horizon break. The pad is cool, but not in flight yet... In flight can be cool, but usually the flame is trailing off by that time and not as impressive. Breaking horizon gives reference and usually shows the kickup around the pad.
This shows a pretty typical sequence "shooting for the middle" None of the shots are particularly spectacular, But I got all of them and they're all useable.
15188985397_49b491b73e_z.jpg
15188745499_3a7125778b_z.jpg
15188901258_41724869f3_z.jpg
15372325671_6156efcd83_z.jpg


Brings up the other question.... how many people have -ANY- interest in shots over 50 feet? I can usually follow it all the way up, and on my own flights I find it very interesting to see....But that's me. Is it worth the time and frames to burn 50/60 shots on each flight? of course, thats how I catch things like this-

14545473882_c6befb3df4_z.jpg
15375180732_42f305afd6_z.jpg


as awesome as they are.... people just don't seem to buy photos of their $1500 rockets exploding. :)

I can key on the pad for really nice shots.... but then I lose it before the horizon shot...

15375101822_17ce9e630c_z.jpg
15188658149_1c60307f30_z.jpg
15188658019_9c47fe423a_z.jpg


So, what are your thoughts? Which shots do you like? do you have any interest in apogee/deployment/recovery photos? Let me know!

Oh, and tips for good photos.... the lower the sun the better. The morning and noon shots are going to be rough in most light conditions unless it's totally overcast, and then launches are washed out usually anyways. Later in the afternoon you can get the sun at your back and some really clean shots.

Thanks
 
Last edited:
I'm sure its fairly safe to assume you are shooting digital in this day and age.

My suggestion would be to set your exposure for the best outcome of the rocket on the pad.Whenever possible I use a very high shutter speed to "stop" the action, giving a clean and crisp photo of the moment. You can still capture the action as it lifts off in burst mode. Digital photography gives us several advantages over film. First is the ability to take a greater number of photos without the high cost of film and developing. The second is the advancements made in post production, our digital darkroom. Don't be fooled by the old film foogies and their claims of how photographers were so much better in the old days. They used just as many darkroom and developing tricks to get the desired effects as we do today. The main difference is how much time it took them compared to now.

A couple of pointers for any action photography.

1. Don't worry about perfect composition. Always capture "more" than you think you need. Digital cropping is easy to do and can add much to a photo.

2. Shoot in manual exposure mode to capture what you want. Stop the motion, blur of motion blur the fore or background, capture a large depth of field. Its up to you!

3. Don't worry about super high megapixels. The higher you go the more imperfections you will have.

4. Action photos with plain (blue skies) are boring unless something is exciting.

5. Don't share every photo. Only share the good ones and not 5-20 shots of the same thing. There is nothing more boring than looking at a dozen shots of a smoke trail. Photography is about telling a story and capturing the mind's eye. Go video if you want to capture and convey every second of an event.

Have fun!

Jerome :)
 
I took 11,000 shots at URRF2 I only uploaded about 4,000, and made a highlight gallery of 421.

I'm realizing I uploaded way way too many....and trying to narrow the selection. I think banging it down to 421 was too tight... Personally I love seeing how long it took for a motor to ignite...and compare sub seconds out of the exif data to check stuff and burn times. I however realize not everyone cares about all that, and if they do they can email for the shots. So just trying to hone in on which shots to pull out. 5 minutes a photo of editing doesn't sound like much...until you have to do it 10,000 times...


https://davidmccann.zenfolio.com/f986429550

I love digital. 8 frames a second helps with warp nine motors.
 
Last edited:
My opinion is a greedy one. I really like the photos you took of my Bad Attitude on the red motor for a couple of reasons:

1. The resolution of these images is such that I can crop as I see fit. Surely it gets a little grainy the more you zoom, but it's more than sufficient for my eyes as they are grainy themselves.

2. I enjoy seeing the rocket increase in altitude in the frames because "you never know what you're going to get!" Case in point, the blue 6000 CATO...

3. The apogee deployment pictures are really incredible!

4. I know that the instance I am referencing was at a much smaller launch, but your ability to snap pictures of where rockets land is unbelievably helpful. I never would have found my 4" Lil Nuke upscale without you guiding me in and looking at the pictures. The Bad Attitude was helped by your pictures as well.
 
Thanks Dan, info like that really helps.

I've found more than one of mine by getting a good photo of it going into the corn. Works best at small launches when I'm not trying to get photos of 200+ rockets a day, but I try to get what I can when I do see something drifting down into trouble. Works best in a two man team with radios. What I really need to work on is an app/program/whatever to do what we did that drunken night on FB with Alex's rocket. If I had most of the numbers programmed, you could punch in the pixel width of a known part, what the known is, and it'd spit back the distance. Can't be too hard :)
 
Personally I want everything in Hi-res the more pixels the better. many different angles are great, I tend to take a lot of photos on the pad, the motor coming up and ripping of the pad, I try to catch at least some of the ascent. I tend to delete most of the dupes and crappy ones unless something Kool happened. My biggest buzz kill is a great photo of my rocket that has been cropped to low res....
 
I typically like to just upload uncropped photos, but I've found the vast majority of people look at it and go "it's so far away" and don't seem to realize how much they can crop and not lose anything/ don;t want to do any editing on their own.

Think I'm going to aim for shots like this and people can take them down tighter if they choose...

14532310916_0c860d7371_c.jpg


This was a tight crop off the same flight.... wrong place for the light but I wanted to be on the flight line for my own flight :)
14394250110_c06a018c50_z.jpg
 
Last edited:
David, the first of the above 2 shots is perfect, as you get the flame, the smoke, the impact on the ground, the liftoff, the horizon, and is close enough to be able to crop and edit (like some of us can), or leave it as is for folks that prefer not to.
If you have the time shots of deployments would be nice as well.
At LDRS we plan to be moving launches right along, so I think you may need to focus on just one area, like the above, or you will get worn out pretty quickly by trying to capture too much too quickly.
And BTW, don't forget the sun screen! (I know I sound like a dreamer based on the crazy weather we have been experiencing to date, but I am optimistic LDRS will be sunny and hot! ;)
Greg
 
And BTW, don't forget the sun screen! (I know I sound like a dreamer based on the crazy weather we have been experiencing to date, but I am optimistic LDRS will be sunny and hot! ;)
Greg

I'll pack sunscreen and a wool cap :) Probably need them both on the same day the way things are going.
 
Back
Top