Topics

31

Irish Air Corps / RIP Brig Gen MacMahon DSM

« on: October 26, 2010, 10:13:59 pm »

Brigadier General B.L. (Barney) MacMahon DSM, former GOC Air Corps, passed away suddenly last night (Monday 25th October 2010).

Removal Thursday night and burial Friday morning from St Pius' Church Templeogue, Dublin. Timings as per newspapers.

Barney was best remembered for his leadership in introducing the Alouette III helicopters to service in the State in 1963 and developing SAR and air ambulance roles to which many citizens owe their lives to-day.

The air ambulance role was a European first (I think) and continues to this day and has evolved an international capability too. Barney and his crew were awarded a DSM for a rescue in Glendalough in adverse weather in the early 70's and he went on to progress through the ranks to achieve Brigadier General rank in 1985, retiring from the Air Corps in 1989.

May he Rest In Peace.

32

Site Information / Photo screening decisions, opinions please.

« on: October 25, 2010, 11:23:46 pm »

This post is primarily aimed at all the photographers who upload their pictures to IrishAirPics.com / WorldAirPics.com but of course any member is free to chip in.

Over the last few days some of my screening decisions have been criticised while over the last few months I have also heard some moans & gripes about my decisions so I figure I must be doing something wrong somewhere.

The most complained about reject reasons are "Level" and "Aircraft Too Small" / "Aircraft Not Centred" (too small & not centred are interrelated), but I have also heard griped about other reject reasons too.

I'm in the process if updating the site software to (hopefully) improve how pictures are uploaded and how pictures are screened, and as part of that process I want to define (as much as possible) what I'm looking for with regards to uploads.

Now, to give you some background on how I screen pictures, here are my monitor details:

Samsung SyncMaster 226BW 22" flatscreen LCD monitor calibrated with a Spyder3Pro calibration device.


Why am I giving you my monitor details?

Well the brightness of my monitor can affect how your pictures look to me, too dark or too bright, so by default seeing as my monitor is calibrated I trust it is correct. Generally speaking if I decline a picture for too dark or over-exposed I tell you what is wrong in the comments field.

As well as that, when I switched to an LCD monitor from a CRT monitor pictures that I thought were perfect were full of grain, they were quite bad really. So that may be the cause of your picture being declined for being grainy.


My Prior Screening Experience

Well to be honest, outside of screening for IrishAirPics.com / WorldAirPics.com I have no screening experience. I base my screening decisions on my own photographic experiences & preferences, I have also used my experiences uploading pictures to the likes of Airliners.net & PlanePictures.net and adjusting my photos based on their reject reasons.


My Position On The Aircraft Too Small" Reject

All pictures on the website are automatically resized to a maximum of 1024 pixels wide.

Why is this? I do this for 2 main reasons... to minimise server usage and to minimise picture download time.

Therefore, seeing as the pictures are slightly small in these days of large monitors, i like to have the aircraft fill as much of the frame as possible. Now that doesn't mean that the nose or tail of the aircraft has to be within 1 pixel of the edge of the picture, you can find some samples of my preferences here:

http://www.worldairpics.com/screening_guide.php

What do you as a user think of this?
 

Why Am I Posting All This?

Well I need to get user feedback, I need to know what you think of my screening decisions, am I too harsh, am I too easy, am I too inconsistent?

I need your help guys, I want to attract new photographers & keep the ones I have, I don't want IrishAirPics.com / WorldAirPics.com to be seen as the website that it harder than Airliners.net to upload to while at the same time I don't want the website to be seen as the place to go if Airliners.net won't take your pictures. This is probably one of my more important posts so I'd appreciate it if you could take the time to reply with your thoughts.


Thanks in advance,

Frank.

33

Aviation Videos / Chipmeet / Air to Air Photo Academy 2010

« on: October 17, 2010, 01:27:07 pm »

As some of you may know in May 2010 I took part in the Air to Air Photo Academy / Photoflying Days organised by Eric Coeckelberghs at Zoersel in Belgium. This Academy coincided with the annual Chipmeet, some of my photos can be found here: http://www.irishairpics.com/photo-reports/Chipmeet-2010/

The reason I'm posting in the video section is to let you know that PlanesTV, who were present at the academy also, have a series of videos online where you can get an idea of what it's was like to do this course.

There are plans to hopefully run this course again next year and I can tell you now that I'll be going back!

Anyway, on with the videos (you'll need to register to see them but registration is free):

http://www.planestv.com/video/875
http://www.planestv.com/video/876
http://www.planestv.com/video/877
http://www.planestv.com/video/878


Regards,

Frank.

34

Site Information / Video Suggestions

« on: October 16, 2010, 09:22:45 pm »

Hi Guys,

The YouTube box on the homepage could do with being updated & refreshed with new videos so I'll gladly accept any suggestions, I'm sure there are some real good videos on YouTube I haven't come across yet, post here, email me or PM me.


Thanks in advance,

Frank.

35

Site Information / Photo Upload Page

« on: October 16, 2010, 08:25:28 pm »

Ladies & Gentlemen,

I plan to stop using the IrishAirPics.com upload page at the end of this year and start using the upload page on WorldAirPics.com:

http://www.worldairpics.com/upload/

If you are a member of this forum then you are eligible to use the new page. You can check to see if you are set up to use the new page simply by clocking the link above, if you can see the upload form then you are good to go.

If you are logged in and see this message send me an email or PM:

This page is currently on trial with selected members of IrishAirPics.com / WorldAirPics.com

There were a few small issues with this page in the past but these (hopefully) have been resolved. By having you log in to upload pictures it opens up the possibility of adding more features including the ability to see what pictures you have in the upload queue.

And for those of you who are concerned about your forum username being linked to your photographer / real name the two are linked in the background but the link is not publicly available.


Regards,

Frank.

36

Site Information / Slight changes to the homepage / screening queue

« on: October 16, 2010, 04:13:08 pm »

I've made a few slight changes to the homepage and the screening process, details are as follows:

Homepage
I've changed the middle block of the "Top Shots" section, the "Top of Last..." to display the top pictures of the last 48 hours instead of the last 7 days, this will hopefully allow for a greater turnover of pictures on the homepage.

If for whatever reason no pictures have been added in the last 48 hours this section will automatically default back to displaying the top pictures of the last 7 days.


Screening Process
To help ensure that there is a constant turnover of pictures on the homepage I've implemented what can be best described as an "approved & queued" system.

Basically what this means is that, if for example myself or the other screeners are unable to screen pictures for a few days due to the likes of work, sickness or travel, I can now approve pictures as normal but instead of the picture being displayed on the website immediately it goes into an automated queue that displays the pre-approved pictures at a rate of 1 picture every 2 hours.

Hopefully these changes will keep the website refreshed more often than it is now.

As always feedback, comments & suggestions are more than welcome.


Regards,

Frank.

37

Irish Air Corps / Life Magazine pictures taken at Baldonnel during the Emergency

« on: October 10, 2010, 12:03:24 pm »

While on one of my many rambling trips around the internet I came across 4 pictures taken at Baldonnel dated as 1941. They may be of some interest to some of you:

http://www.life.com/search/?q0=baldonnel

38

Site Information / Picture Hit Tracking

« on: October 08, 2010, 05:04:52 pm »

I'm sure I mentioned this information before but just in case here's a reminder:

- When a photographer uploads a picture the IP address is recorded with the picture

- Every time someone looks at a picture their IP address is recorded along with the the time


What's the significance of these two bits of information?

I can check to see if there are excessive hits on any given picture from a specific IP address, including if the specific IP address is the same as the upload IP address


What does all this mean?

I can see if a photographer or anyone else for that matter is artificially bumping up the hit count of any picture. I understand that a photographer will check their picture from time to time to check the picture but there's checking the picture then there's doing the dog on it.


What will I, as site admin, do about this?

I can and will make an adjustment to the picture hit count that will better reflect the actual hits of that picture if I feel there is abuse.


Please play fair


Regards,

Frank.

39

Site Information / Website downtime 2nd - 4th October 2010

« on: October 04, 2010, 03:38:44 pm »

Afternoon All,

As some of you will have noticed the website was down sometime between Saturday 2nd October and Monday 4th October.

The cause of the downtime was the database that runs the picture gallery crashing sometime on Saturday night. I've managed to match most of the pictures that were in the upload queue with their photographers but there are 2 pictures that I cannot find an owner for:

 - EI-EMN, Ryanair 737 landing at Dublin. Taken on 2nd October 2010.
 - EI-IRE, Challenger taxying for takeoff at Dublin. Taken on 1st October 2010.

If you think you're the photographer of these pictures can you please contact me via email or PM.

Please accept my apologies for this mess up, I'll try to put in place more frequent website backups to prevent such data loss in the future.


Regards,

Frank.

40

Aviation Waffle / Editing photographs prior to uploading

« on: October 02, 2010, 05:57:59 pm »

In preparation for the introduction of new screeners to the IrishAirPics.com / WorldAirPics.com website I'd like to give you all an idea of the screening stats for the website.

Since the 31st July 2005 30,434 pictures have been uploaded. Out of that number

23,879 have been accepted, and,
6,504 have been declined, the balance have still to be screened

A total of 30,383 pictures have been screened, this gives a declined rate of 21%, in other words 1 in 5 pictures are declined.

The Top 15 reasons for a picture being declined are as follows:

1	Picture Not Level:	834
2	Picture Too Grainy:	746
3	Aircraft Blurry:	483
4	Aircraft Too Dark:	433
5	Aircraft Not Centered:	421
6	Picture Too Small:	411
7	Aircraft Too Small:	384
8	Aircraft Not In Focus:	379
9	Poor Quality Picture:	293
10	Sharpening Required:	212
11	Aircraft Obstructed / Part Cut Off:	193
12	Badly Scanned / Pixelated:	189
13	Dust Spots:	149
14	Heat Haze:	148
15	Oversharpened:	98

The above figures for rejections should actually be higher except for the fact that I hate declining pictures and I would make "tweaks" to an otherwise good picture in order to accept it. Unfortunately this is a carry over from the time when the website was originally setup and I used to edit every picture before manually adding it to the site.

Over the last few weeks and months I have been declining pictures but where the reject reason might not have been obvious I've included additional comments which has has led to an improvement in uploads.

The thing is, if I can make an adjustment to an upload then so can the photographer who originally uploaded the picture.

However, sometimes it feels as if the photographer is just dumping the contents of their hard drive into the upload queue.

There is nothing more frustrating that declining an obviously bad picture and having the photographer complain about the picture being declined. Compare the picture you want to upload with other pictures on the website before uploading to see if the quality is good enough.

A lot of the pictures that are declined can be improved upon with editing prior to uploading, if you don't know how to edit the picture correctly then please learn how to. Here are links to tips on how to edit aviation pictures in Photoshop:

http://www.jid.me.uk/workflow/Workflow2/index.html
http://www.airliners.net/faq/editing_guide.php
http://www.airshows.co.uk/blogs/photography/

(Photoshop is pretty much the industry standard but if you don't have Photoshop or Photoshop Elements the above instructions can more than likely be translated into whatever photo editing software you use.)

If you feel I'm being too harsh in my decision to decline your picture feel free to question it or appeal the decision. And if you still aren't happy with my decision then I suggest you try submitting the picture in question to the likes of Airliners.net or JetPhotos.net and see what they have to say about it.

These websites have accepted pictures I wouldn't accept and I have accepted pictures they wouldn't accept but the fact is these websites are setting the "industry standard".

All feedback and comments, as always, are welcome.


Regards,

Frank.

41

Shameless Promotion / Aviation Fair 2010

« on: September 25, 2010, 02:33:15 pm »

The 18th Annual Aviation Enthusiasts Fair will be held at The Aer Lingus ALSAA club, Airport Road, Dublin
 
Sunday,  28th November 2010, 10.00am to 16.00pm
 
Everything for the Aviation enthusiast from Air band radios to Flight simulators
 
enquires…. aviationfair@ireland.com


Admission Free

42

Aviation Waffle / A blast from the past

« on: September 24, 2010, 10:47:23 am »

While surfing around the internet I came across a very interesting website that archives websites at certain points in time.

I found a snapshot of IrishAirPics.com that was taken on 27th November 2002, almost 8 years ago. Click here to have a look.

According to this archive image there was 275 pictures online. And if you go back even further to the very first website I had, with the archive taken in 1999 there was only 80 pictures online: click here

43

Aviation Waffle / Newcastle Fly-In Sunday 26th September 2010

« on: September 17, 2010, 08:57:21 pm »

Hi Guys,

Newcastle Airfield (EINC) is having an open day on Sunday 26th September 2010, Michael Traynor is one of the organisers and he asked me to pass on this message:

An open day & fly-in at the recently re-developed airfield at Newcastle, Co. Wicklow is scheduled for Sunday, 26 September 2010. Please see attached notice.
 
A Temporary Restricted Area will be in place & any pilots intending to fly in should contact Michael Traynor at traynorm66@hotmail.com who will forward joining instructions / procedures.
 
We are involved with a local facility assisting children with intellectual disabilities who will benefit from the day.
 
 
Look forward to meeting some of you there

Entrance fee is EUR 5.00 per car.

44

Site Information / Current website issues - 16th September 2010

« on: September 16, 2010, 11:57:05 am »

Hi Guys,

I'm currently having some issues with the WorldAirPics.com website, something funny is going on with my ISP.

For some reason http://www.worldairpics.com/ does not work but http://www.worldairpics.com/index.php does. So for now here are links that can be used to access the site:

WorldAirPics.com: http://www.worldairpics.com/index.php
Forum: http://www.worldairpics.com/forum/index.php

Sorry for any inconvenience caused.


Regards,

Frank.

45

Irish Air Corps / Air Corps EC135 on display in the RDS, 15th - 17th September 2010

« on: September 14, 2010, 02:15:09 pm »

The Defence Forces will have a stand at the Higher Options Careers Exhibition in the RDS from September 15th - 17th 2010.

The stand will include a Mowag Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC), a Light Tactical Armoured Vehicle (LTAV), a Giraffe Radar system, an EC 135 helicopter, a Naval Service Rigid Inflatable Boat (RIB), a Bomb Disposal Robot and an assortment of military equipment.

Hopefully this is of interest to someone.