Segovia hot air balloon festival 2025

I was happy to be able to make it to the annual balloon festival in Segovia in July as it's always a wonderful event to photograph and enjoy. In the end I only got shots from the Friday early morning event - the Friday afternoon one was cancelled due to high winds, the Saturday morning one was cancelled due to the threat of rain and I became ill on Saturday afternoon so couldn't get up early for the Sunday morning. I was really disappointed but it reinforced the idea that you need to go when you can, not leave it until the weekend when there are more balloons.

I took the K 24mm f/2.8 and the 28mm f/2 along with me to get some shots with vintage lenses. The 24mm was more useful as you can imagine, with being quite close to these huge balloons in a limited space. This year it was moved a short distance to a field that is smaller and flatter which overall was worse for nice backgrounds.

All photos taken with my Lumix S5 and K&F L to PK adapter. I still have photos to go through so may add more later. I also finished a film in my Olympus Mju, another in a Canon EOS 300X and shot a whole roll of Fuji Pro 400H in a Yashica Mat 124G but who knows when I'll get around to developing and scanning them...

With the 24mm



Balloons V by Jonathan MacDonald, on Flickr



Balloons IV by Jonathan MacDonald, on Flickr

And with the 28mm



Balloons III by Jonathan MacDonald, on Flickr



Balloons by Jonathan MacDonald, on Flickr



Balloons II by Jonathan MacDonald, on Flickr

Nice set.
Almost wish I was there but you wouldn't get me up in one for love nor money!

Lovely. And that blue sky! Great work here Jonathan-Mac.

Agreed on both counts.

Superb.
The going up, coasting along and going down is OK. It's the landing that can get 'interesting' (said from experience of a single flight).

Steve

Very enjoyable set of images! Colourful balloons and contrasting blue sky complement each other. Thank you for sharing!