Southport Air Show

I wanted to pop up to this to hopefully see the two Lancasters together, and obviously the rest of the stuff. Anticipating traffic I went on the train, which seemed to be a good move. Weather on Saturday was quite poor, however, so I was quite disappointed with a lot of the shots, and because of the weather a lot of the flying programme was disrupted. Just as I was about to give up and head for the station, though, the commentator interrupted the current interview for the two Lancs, an impressive sight. I watched them, then decided to leg it for the train and forego another view of the Vulcan - which turned out to be the correct decision as it didn't show. I was booked somewhere else with the car on Sunday, otherwise that would have been a better day.

So, some shots. There's a lot of messing around, and I'm not that experienced at doing that so in some cases it's just 'auto contrast' and hope for the best.

1. A great sight, even if I found it difficult to get them both in the same shot.

[IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a149/hpfirenza/Southport%20Air%20Show%202014/IMGP5632a.jpg[/IMG]

2.

[IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a149/hpfirenza/Southport%20Air%20Show%202014/IMGP5578a.jpg[/IMG]

3. Typhoon made an incredible noise

[IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a149/hpfirenza/Southport%20Air%20Show%202014/IMGP5503a.jpg[/IMG]

4.

[IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a149/hpfirenza/Southport%20Air%20Show%202014/IMGP5510a.jpg[/IMG]

5.

[IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a149/hpfirenza/Southport%20Air%20Show%202014/IMGP5471a.jpg[/IMG]

6.

[IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a149/hpfirenza/Southport%20Air%20Show%202014/IMGP5409a.jpg[/IMG]

7. Lucky framing on this one

[IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a149/hpfirenza/Southport%20Air%20Show%202014/IMGP5329a.jpg[/IMG]

8. First time I've seen a Red Arrows display as opposed to a fly-past, low cloud meant it was a flat display but still very enjoyable.

[IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a149/hpfirenza/Southport%20Air%20Show%202014/IMGP5117a.jpg[/IMG]

9. Catalina opened the show

[IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a149/hpfirenza/Southport%20Air%20Show%202014/IMGP4947a.jpg[/IMG]

Unfortunately my Sigma zoom has developed a fault, where it won't zoom out past about 100mm any more. It seemed to do it once then clear itself, but now it's done it again and won't clear. Not looking forward to finding out what it will cost to repair - it had just been serviced before I bought it (used), but that will be well out of warranty now.

As always, any criticism welcomed.

I went on the Sunday. The two Lancaster Bombers were a sight to behold and you're right about the Typhoon, it's roar was tremendous, it made my insides vibrate. The unexpected appearance of the Vulcan was the icing in cake of a day of superb weather for a flying display. A truly halcyon day apart from the horrendous traffic queues which sadly caused me to miss the Red Arrows close up.

Ironically, my main purpose for attending the Southport show was because it was the last time the two Lancasters would be flying together and so the last chance to pay homage and be a part of such a great history making event, but after leaving Southport, they headed for Northallerton to do a flyover and on route passed directly above my house some fifty miles from Southport. For me that would have been memorable indeed to see!

Considering the miserable atmospheric conditions you encountered on the Saturday, you should be proud of your photographs. Thanks for posting them....

Some nice images there! Especially the Mustang. I was lucky enough to go both days. Very nice show, Will definitely go again in future!

Cheers. That was my main reason as well - the only place 'up north' we'd have seen the two together, and as the Canadian one goes back today (or may already have left) no chance of anything else. It would have been nice to get better shots of the Lancasters, but the experience was the main thing really - other things put on better displays because they're more agile, but no-one was complaining about the Lancs just circling a few times. The terrible light helped set the scene, I felt.

[IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a149/hpfirenza/Southport%20Air%20Show%202014/IMGP5650a.jpg[/IMG]

The Catalina is superb. I adjusted the levels then found.....

some odd artefacts in the image..




Best regards

Thanks.

I was about to say that most of that will be my amateur-ish attempts to clone out the marks on the original that are either on the lens, in the lens, or on the sensor. I was planning to upload the unedited image as a comparison, but then it seems to have little in the way of marks when I look at the original jpg.

All I've really done is crop the image, adjust brightness and contrast, resize it to 800x whatever, then run the unsharp mask on it. Most of that is by pure habit, though sometimes I'll forget about the unsharp-ing if it doesn't look like it will help.

I must say I prefer your adjustments than mine, looks as if I'll have to experiment with adjusting levels a bit more. I also should play more with the raw file rather than the jpg.

Sorry to be late to the show - haha. We went on the sunday - took 3 hours from East Lancs and so we watched the Red Arrows from the queue on Marine Drive. Once parked up and on the beach below the pier the show was excellent. I like number 5, the vortices on the Jet Provost. Great to have seen the 2 Lancasters slowly flying around and then the Typhoon with its amazing power - 8000 feet vertical climb in 5 seconds. Good experience to take photos of planes in flight with bright sunshine then clouds.

Cheers, I was quite happy with 5 except for the overall graininess of the plane once I'd messed with the contrast.

Even on Saturday there were cars still queueing to get in long after the show had started, which was about 30 mins late due to weather. I'd spent some time writing out the sequence of events as I don't have a working printer, about five minutes in I realised I might as well throw it in the bin as everything was rescheduled.