5 years and 1 day ago. Best spotting day ever !!

Frank · Post by **Frank** » 29 Oct 2007, 15:55

Hi All

Actually, this is just a topic to celebrate the best day I ever in my aviation photography career. And it wasn't even during a base visit, no it was just outside an airbase. A bit like Soeterberg in the eighties enjoying the sight of Eagles and Phantoms taking off, each of them flying about 4 missions a day.

The place which you have to have visited at least one time in your life is Nyutabaru airbase in the south of Japan, which i still call after this day: Paradise on earth.

We were so busy enjoying ourselves that we did not have time for lunch or anything else, only photography. At 6.30 we were already present at the airbase and before 09:00 am we already had shot 8 camouflaged Agressor Eagles, 4 Naha Phantoms and 4 Local based 301 Hikotai Phantoms.

The day continued and each aircraft flew at least four missions. It was take off, then run back to the spot suitable for landing shots and then run back again. 18 rolls of film full and an exhausted camera after the day had ended.

Amazing. I want to go back !

Here some pictures of the day. I recently had my slides scanned so I just wanted to share them with you. More on this trip you can find at http://franknoort.nl/japan" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Enjoy !

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jimmy van drunen · Post by **jimmy van drunen** » 29 Oct 2007, 16:06

very very very nice pictures !!!!!!!

specially the F-15

gr. jimmy

jeroenow · Post by **jeroenow** » 29 Oct 2007, 16:25

Hi Frank,

One word... AWESOME!!! I have some technical questions...
What film did you use, what scanner did you use to scan your slides and what alterations you had to do to get your scans so natural, so real?

I hope to hear from you...

Cheers Jeroen

Warthog 71 · Post by **Warthog 71** » 29 Oct 2007, 16:29

Frank,

What a great set of shots, we have to go back soon! let's have a beer Saturday and pick a date!

Grtz,

Marcel

Ps. So you can make these birds digital, without a Nikon...

roel lodder · Post by **roel lodder** » 29 Oct 2007, 16:35

very nice ideed ,Frank!!!!
Well done!
I was there in 1995, so I can understand when you
say I wanna go back!
Grtz,
Roel

Flanker27 · Post by **Flanker27** » 29 Oct 2007, 19:28

I love em too.

amarx · Post by **amarx** » 29 Oct 2007, 20:03

Daim Frank VERY nice pics

r.e.hendriks · Post by **r.e.hendriks** » 29 Oct 2007, 20:23

Awesome shots Frank!!!!
Damn I'm jalous!

Best regards, Rob.

madruud · Post by **madruud** » 29 Oct 2007, 21:15

what scanner did you use to scan your slides and what alterations you had to do to get your scans so natural, so real?
gr Ruud

Frank · Post by **Frank** » 29 Oct 2007, 21:59

Nice to see all the enthusiastic remarks ! I can definitely recommend it to anyone to give it a try in Japan.

Marcel. Your on. Next saturday we will make some plans

About the scanner. I did not scan them myself, but i went to http://scancare.nl" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; instead. It is actually a one man company owned by Andries Bos who has a Nikon Coolscan 5000ED scanner. Yes I know, I can't hardly say the word Nikon and have it removed from the EXIF info on my pictures already but I am quite satisfied with the result. I went to Dronten with 200 slides to drop them off personally and asked Andries if he would scan them in 3000 DPI with dustfilter. Especially the dustfilter option (cost 7 cent extra) is a valuable investment as it saves a lot of time.

A week later I retrieved the slides and 3 DVDs again, full with 200 scanned slides in TIF format. Another ride to Dronten as I don't want to sent my beloved slides via mail. Cost were in total 60 Euro as each slide cost 30 cents to scan. Well worth the effort as it will take me days to get this result.

Of course, some aftercare is needed. The last 8 years of my "analog career", I used Fuji film, which is quite easy to convert to a useful digital pictures. Using Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop I made the following steps to create the JPG images which I have uploaded here.

Lightroom
In Lightroom I created a new catalog to import the TIF. As each TIF is about 60MB in size, it will slow down my Lightroom database drastically so I did not want them to interfere with my precious Lightroom database. In Lightroom, I press the D for develop mode and use the White Balance tool (Eydropper) to go over the image to see what colours come close to the actual colour i want. If you move the eyedropper tool over the photo you will see the small photo in your navigator window (in the top left of your screen) change in colour. Normally I will change the "Temp" with +6 and leave the "Tint" on 0. It differs per image though. The TIF images need some contrast so it is needed to move the "Blacks" slider in the Tone menu somewhatto the right. Most used values are +5 till +8, you can see it for yourself. If the triangles in the histogram turn into a colour, you went to far.

A bit of Shadow / Highlights to finish it off and then I am ready. In the Library mode I add the keywords (Registration type and squadron + location to the file and then I will export it to Photoshop.

Photoshop
In Photoshop I will start with using Noise Ninja to remove the grain. THis will enhance your pictures with awesome results. A bit of sharpening after that and sometimes some Shadow/Highlight to give the picture a bit of balls. Then save it and I am ready! I could have enhanced the pictures all the way in Photoshop but I just love the editing possibilities in Lightroom !

I must say, thet my older images, most Kodak 64 are a lot harder to enhance. But still I managed to get some satisfying results. Nice that you enjoyed the pictures, here some more from that same trip to Japan.

Key · Post by **Key** » 29 Oct 2007, 22:03

Well done Franky! You 'had' your slides scanned? Either way, apart from the other pleasant aspects this is a nice showcase for A->D conversion!

And... going back is not a bad idea at all, trust me.

Frank · Post by **Frank** » 29 Oct 2007, 22:04

One more, just to prove that it also possible to get good results with older slides. Actually the first day that I did some real military spotting was at Soesterberg at 15-05-1985. Some NF-5's were temporarily based here. Here one of my first pictures, I think it was even made using my old Practica MTL-3

warthog64 · Post by **warthog64** » 29 Oct 2007, 22:08

wauw! very nice pics frank!

Key · Post by **Key** » 29 Oct 2007, 22:14

Ah, we crossed.

Frank wrote:Yes I know, I can't hardly say the word Nikon and have it removed from the EXIF info on my pictures already but I am quite satisfied with the restult.

Thanks for proving that the 'Canon pose' is really just a principle, nothing to do with real arguments.

We Nikonians respect everyone's choice of camera, after all it's the photog making the pic (and you did that well).

Greetz, also from my colleague Marcel vB.

Erik

SquAdmin · Post by **SquAdmin** » 29 Oct 2007, 22:25

Frank, I'm really amazed by the quality of these scans! Just to get an idea, could you please post an unedited picture (or something which comes closest)?

TIA

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