In June of 2019, there was an air show a few hours north of where I live. The event was called Wings over Northern Michigan. I had a few posts for the event. The event should be every two years. Unfortunately the event will not happen this year. I was cancelled prior to Covid. Seems the event had grown too much for the airfield to handle. So, it wasn't moved to handle the crowds. Just cancelled. Or maybe the growth wasn't the real reason. I did have a good time. To me it wasn't a particularly large show. There were no national events. There were no national sponsors, some local. There were a lot of lawn chairs. I'd certainly go again.
One of the unadvertised participants for the show was a B-2 Spirit fly by. Stealth Bomber. Many years prior to the modern version of this aircraft, I was fascinated by the original versions. They were never totally successful. The YB-35 and YB-45 models designed by Northrop in the 40's were passed over for other USAF projects. The early models probably could have performed better with more powerful flight control computers.
But the time is now for the flying wing.
The show followed a pretty good storm crossing the region. When I arrived at the airfield, it was still raining. I remember the vendors who were setting up their stalls were pretty well soaked. But the weather forecasts for the day were correct and the storm passed as forecasted and the show went on as planned.
However, the skies didn't clear up right away. Interesting to re-visit the photos of show and see the weather improvement through the course of the day. As there were mostly prop driven aircraft for the show, I was in total prop mode. Slow shutter speed. And I might have previously mentioned that the B-2 flyover was unadvertised. So when the fly by started, there I was shooting at 1/200th of a second. Rookie. I did figure out my error at some point, but the fly by was about 75% done. That being said, I did get some good shots but only from one perspective. It could have been much worse.
As an early event, the sky was just plain AWFUL.
Technically, it's in focus. Not something you'd hang on a wall though.
Photographically it needs help. I could replace the sky. Nice clean lines, easy to mask. But an unplanned sly replacement to me is usually option of last resort. What the photo really needs is just some definition in the sky. A tweak. A little blue would be nice, but I'll settle for cloud definition. What this needs is a touch of HDR. Just a touch.
HDR (High Dynamic Range) has come a long way. On my personal journey I've enjoyed every setting from full blow clown colors to helping save a photo. The software has evolved as well. Working with RAW files helps as well. Not sure if this pulls with JPG. In this case, the HDR is not too offensive.
With the HDR, the contrast of the sky was not to my liking. A few years ago, would have been great. And on the dark aircraft - the contrast doesn't show as much so who cares? But the sky was a bit distracting with all the contrast noise. A little (Actually, a lot!) Topaz DeNoise helped out. There were a few small areas where the noise or HDR remnants remained so I tried a new trick in Photoshop. New trick for me anyway. I used the healing brush at 10% flow, instead of 100%. I may never use 100% again. It's all about the journey.
This takes me back to when I'd try to offer a question - is it a photograph or a drawing? This HDR process offered up some unintended consequences. And I like all of them.
First off, the cockpit window really stands out now. It shows up a bit in the original. but here it is catching. What also stands out, when the photo is viewed at 100% is the serial number and the AF logo behind the cockpit window. All cool stuff. The coolest thing is the subtle changes to the aircraft skin. That is real aviation stuff. Love what RAW files capture. Once you know what to look for, you can see it in the original shot. Low level flying interacts with the temperature of the fuel in the wings - and other areas. High altitude flying is always cold, and when you bring warm air in contact with the cold skin this is what you get. Condensation. I can only guess that this is realistic on the special skin of the stealth aircraft as I only know what normal paint, camouflaged or flat, will do. I'll go with this is pretty close.
It's a nice save of a good photo in a lousy environment.
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