JoeDios.com Forums - View Single Post - How To Take In flight Shots

The reason I said to take pictures of your plane at different angles and in different lighting conditions is so that when you find these back ground pictures, you can match the shadows and lighting conditions better. Once you find a good back ground that matches your plane, go ahead and paste that sucker on there. Adjust the size of the plane so it looks good within the picture. Here's a couple of Rattlers were taken at as the sun was going down, so the lighting was perfct for this background.

Something else to keep in mind when matching planes to back grounds is relativity. How does your plane sit relative to the back ground? Does it look natural or does it seem a bit off kilter. Planes move in three directions so if it's a bit crooked, it could look as if it's banking or something but does it have a weird angle to it that doesn't look right? This Night attack chopper looks OK here, but then again, it looks a little off because the angles don't match quite right

Here's a neat trick if you want more than one plane in the shot. First we have the Skystrikers again. This picture is done easily enough. I simply pasted the same picture of the plane twice, just making the background one smaller to make it look as if it's in the distance. Using the same plane twice also ensured that the lighting was the same on both planes, as well as their angle.

Now this shot has the Night Raven and a Conquest X-30 trailing it. That Conquest is actually right behind the Raven as the photo depicts, there is no cut and paste editing there. This simple trick was done by setting the planes on the ground in this position and cutting away the ground and their landing gear. Doing it this way again makes the lighting the same and the perspective the same. Nothing like having two planes that are supposed to be flying together have two different light sources and flight angles.

Notice, too, that between both pictures, I used the same background.

Superimposing is all about the angle, blending in seamlessly, light sources and finding the right back ground.

As far as special effects are concerned, I haven't quite mastered those yet, but if you play around with your photo editing programs, you can make the flames coming from the back end of a jet engine or missile or you can add some blur to a rotor blade if you don't like the way the real thing came out or you couldn't get the rotors to spin.

I hope you found this tutorial helpful and if you guys have any questions, please feel free to shoot me a PM.

10-28-2010, 03:41 AM	#7
Otto the Otter "Toot" Spelled inside out Offline --> Posts: 2,297 --> Join Date: Oct 2009	The reason I said to take pictures of your plane at different angles and in different lighting conditions is so that when you find these back ground pictures, you can match the shadows and lighting conditions better. Once you find a good back ground that matches your plane, go ahead and paste that sucker on there. Adjust the size of the plane so it looks good within the picture. Here's a couple of Rattlers were taken at as the sun was going down, so the lighting was perfct for this background. Something else to keep in mind when matching planes to back grounds is relativity. How does your plane sit relative to the back ground? Does it look natural or does it seem a bit off kilter. Planes move in three directions so if it's a bit crooked, it could look as if it's banking or something but does it have a weird angle to it that doesn't look right? This Night attack chopper looks OK here, but then again, it looks a little off because the angles don't match quite right Here's a neat trick if you want more than one plane in the shot. First we have the Skystrikers again. This picture is done easily enough. I simply pasted the same picture of the plane twice, just making the background one smaller to make it look as if it's in the distance. Using the same plane twice also ensured that the lighting was the same on both planes, as well as their angle. Now this shot has the Night Raven and a Conquest X-30 trailing it. That Conquest is actually right behind the Raven as the photo depicts, there is no cut and paste editing there. This simple trick was done by setting the planes on the ground in this position and cutting away the ground and their landing gear. Doing it this way again makes the lighting the same and the perspective the same. Nothing like having two planes that are supposed to be flying together have two different light sources and flight angles. Notice, too, that between both pictures, I used the same background. Superimposing is all about the angle, blending in seamlessly, light sources and finding the right back ground. As far as special effects are concerned, I haven't quite mastered those yet, but if you play around with your photo editing programs, you can make the flames coming from the back end of a jet engine or missile or you can add some blur to a rotor blade if you don't like the way the real thing came out or you couldn't get the rotors to spin. I hope you found this tutorial helpful and if you guys have any questions, please feel free to shoot me a PM. __________________ The United States will conquer Terrorism with the help of God and a few Marines. Some people, when trying to avoid thinking about those things that cause them pain, turn to drink, or perhaps food, or drugs... I turn not to any of those... I collect action figures, turning my mind to the hunt, so that I might find a mote of peace... Over the years, I've found that alcoholism is much more socially acceptable by far.