Agree Mike, the Harrier in the wet did provide the opportunity for some excellent shots. Also a bit of moisture in the air does sometimes turn what might have been a nice but unspectacular shot into something more interesting...BUT have to feel for Jeallen and others who spent a lot of money on tickets they didn't end up using. One of the major disadvantages with the advance purchase system these and other events rely on these days. Had we been faced with heavy rain for all or most of day on saturday I doubt we would have done a round trip of 280 miles for the experience either and would have lost £116 just on two tickets.

Am keeping one eye on the weather for Duxford in September as a strong possibility as we haven't been there yet and I personally prefer the balance of aircraft types likely to display there...too many near identical fast jets at Fairford...would prefer more variety of aircraft types.

The tents / ladders aren't allowed within 10m of the fenceline for obvious reasons and tents/brollies are limited to 1.5m in height.

This year for the first time my son and I didn't make a frenzied dash to get to the fenceline but found a slightly raised spot just in front of one of the twee premium catered tents/paddock. Other than when stuff was taking off (nosewheel lift off type shots) didn't really lose out and it was a bit less stressful with no-one trying to elbow their way in or leaning over your shoulder. a lightweight plastic caravan type step about 10-12" high is the only 'improvement' I would add if we did the same again.

Some images to hopefully convey the atmosphere of the event via crowd. All with K-50 / DA HD 55-300WR as I didn't want to be changing lenses back and forth.

1. Early arrivals set up



2. Breitling No.6



3. Old Bike



4. Ice Cream van


5. Feel the Force



6. Canadian Ramp Queue



7. Thanks Dad



8. Taking a break



9. Eyes Left



10. Eyes Right



11. Big Wheel



12. The Italians are coming



13. Full House (over 170,000 visitors over three days)



14. The French are coming



15. Spanish Navy Harrier



16. Blue smoke



17. A400M

Really good set...lots of different ones, lots of colour and detail.

Regards

Karlo

Mike : Yeah, we were expecting saturday to be quite dull and possibly showery for an hour or two...in the event just a few spots of rain for about 10-15 mins and the weather just kept improving from mid-late morning onwards.

We lost the Chinook display...I do like the helos so that was disappointing...went tech, and when they released the flying programme a few days before...the C-27 Spartan wasn't flying on saturday which was a shame as one of my favourite displays. We did get the BA flypast though, which was quite special and in good weather as well...i'll post a shot tomorrow!

I thought the Blades were quite good...not seen them before and I do like the A400 so i might not have been as disappointed as you were with that combo although given the choice the 747 retro + Reds would still have been my first choice.

I took the 55-300WR for the entire flying display...my first Fairford with it. Overall I was quite impressed...definite image quality improvement over the Tamron 70-300
and much more manageable than the Sigma 150-500 and lighter around the neck...BUT it hunted quite a lot...i lost a few shots with it and ended up using mainly manual focussing...probably about 65-75% of the time i would guess by the end of the day when i put the 18-55 on for the static. I was impressed by the image quality at f18-f22 where i spent quite a bit of time when shooting the props and blades and overall very little purple fringing at any setting which was a nice change
again from the Tamron.

Am hoping that Pentax get the 70-200 f4 out before long as combined with the 1.4x convertor should make a quite versatile pairing and allow me to improve my IQ even more over the 55-300.

Post some more shots on here with your Pentax kit and i'll lookout on your Flickr for the D500 ones.

Best wishes

Karlo

Excellent shots Mike.

Sounds like the weather on saturday was slightly better although as we were leaving we were thinking that weather on sunday was going to be better than saturday
from what they were saying over the PA system during saturday's display.

Just so glad we didn't go on the friday!

regards

Karlo

I normally use Manual or TAv for planes so not a problem. It might explain why my son used to get very good results on his K-S2 and currently on his EoS 7D using AV
though.

regards

Karlo

On the odd occasion I have used AV for aircraft I have always been pleasantly surprised that the camera seemed to have selected a fast enough shutter speed...I was half expecting slower speeds might be selected ruining the image...just put it down to luck.

Nice shots those Gareth.

Regards

Karlo

You're welcome.