Excellent shots...the second in particular...looks great LARGE.

Somewhere i've never been but looks well worth a visit.

regards

Karlo

Have you looked at US site?

They did a review of built-in Astrotracer v external unit. This and subsequent 'chat' might give you some clues.

Meant to comment on these earlier as they brought back memories from a very long time ago.

Lovely set , showing off what to me is my favourite part of the Lake District and one of the most beautiful landscapes in the whole of the UK.

Cheers for showing these.

regards

Karlo

Certainly made me smile...the first one in particular.

cheers

Karlo

Agree with the above comments...looks like my sort of place.

Great shots.

The US site had 'Architecture' as its monthly competition theme recently...one of these could have done very well in that competition.

regards

Karlo

Weather wise Steve...July can be pretty unpredictable as this past decade has shown. If you've booked for an overnight camp there at least you'll get four half days to go at. You'd be very unlucky to be rained off for two full days...although it does happen. I'll probably be going yet again with one of my sons but don't normally book until 3-4 months beforehand.

Agree with your concept of a stripped down, K-mount DSLR...i've often thought there'd be a niche market for it if the saving could be 15-20% compared to fully specced 'big brother'. I do occasionally experiment with some of the 'bells and whistles' but wouldn't miss many of them if they went. Similarly lens wise...i'd be very interested in a MF 200 F/3.5 with IQ , focussing ring to match the Samyang if cost was substantially lower than AF version.

One other advantage of shooting MF is that the battery lasts so much longer. Although I took two batteries with me to Old Warden recently for one of their flying displays, I only used one but still took about 1150 shots and had approx 5-10% left in it at end of day. (K-5IIs).

Anyway see how you get on at an RAF airfield...that's the sort of practice you would need. Air Force 'grey' and cloudy background is a good test of you and your equipment.

Hi Steve,

always good to talk aviation photography particularly with a fellow masochist using Pentax cameras pre K-3III!

I've used a K-50 for several years and have been using a K-5IIs for past few months. Over the years i've shot well over 10,000 aviation images with digital equipment.

My thoughts...for what they are worth...your Pentax 55-300 will be your best overall choice by far if restricting yourself to one lens although it has two major limitations...1) not WR (assuming) and 2) AF with K-5 is very slow.

If RIAT is dry ...not a problem...if very wet could be a major issue.
My 55-300HD WR great if wet but slow AF...I can usually only get 2-3 shots before it loses AF when aircraft flying towards me (as in getting closer not necessarily head-on)

I've only ever been to Mach Loop when I knew weather was dry...no point in going otherwise so not an issue here particularly.

Any 55-300 lens is ideal reach wise for both RIAT and Mach Loop unless you want to capture epaulette rank badges on pilots shoulder...in which case you will need a quality 300m to crop or a longer lens. (as Chris mentioned).

If the weather is dry when i'm shooting aircraft these days then my preference is to shoot with a manual lens
and benefit from no AF problems. Suits me better as I grew up with successive 35mm film cameras when used to MF all the time. With aircraft you are shooting close to infinity vast majority of the time so most focussing is just small adjustments within a very limited range. If the focussing is slightly out you've messed up the shot, BUT better a slightly OOF shot than miss it altogether due to poor AF performance, and when you get it right it's usually very good with a sharp lens.

I've recently been using the Samyang 135 F/2 which i'm very pleased with. Reach isn't fantastic but adequate most of the time at airports/airshows and if you nail the focus it will crop nicely up to 75-100%. As it is designed to be MF the focussing ring is very nice to use, wide, easy to grip and well dampened. I've also used the Pentax M 80-200 F/4 which is reasonable IQ and quite compact and light. The Samyang as well also works ok with a Pentax 2x convertor i've got giving me effectively a 270 F/4.

Only other thing to mention is shooting style...i'm very much a sniper rather than machine gunner...single shots...rarely more than 4-5 in one aircraft pass...this works well with MF but not so well if you prefer to 'spray and pray'.

regards

Karlo

Another vote from me...great images.

regards

Karlo

Thanks for that info Peter...can't say i'm au fait with the whole 'colour profiling on a web browser' thing, but what you wrote sounded interesting. The 'banding' and 'jagglies' only seem to be present on large expanses of blue sky...have seen them on main ephotozine site as well...but...my son doesn't get them using Firefox.

I might try Firefox and see how it compares with Opera for general browsing which i've been using for over 10 years.

Anyway...have learnt something today.

regards

Karlo

Hi Jonathan...yep, it seems like it is something to do with that. I've just roped my son in...on his desktop the images are fine...no banding...he's using Firefox browser most of the time...Google some of the time.

I'm using exclusively Opera and we just tried my machine browsing with Internet Explorer and it is bad on that as well. We are both using the same WiFi connection...so it must be down to browser compression.
Very annoying when using for photo work. Might have to change browsers.

As i've only really started noticing it within the past few months i'm wondering whether it is caused by more people being online during the current situation causing browser people to use a higher compression?

Anyway, pleased in a way to have tackled this and got some sort of an answer.

Your pics look even better without the banding.

regards

Karlo