Inspired by Piotro's splendid Vulcan, I've had another look through, and found one just after it took off.

Not as good as Piotro's (though it is harder to light the underside ), but it's just about worth showing:

[IMG]http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t244/chris5gd/Aviation/Farnborough%202010/IMGP1600.jpg[/IMG]

Excellent detail. Just shows what good glass and extra pixels makes possible.

I think the Hercules and the Vulcan are a bit too tight in their frames though. Very good, otherwise.

(Note to self: have another look through the Vulcan shots and see if there's anything worth salvaging!!)

Yes, I take this point completely.

They've all been cropped to one extent or another, and I didn't really have this sort of compositional approach in mind at all when I had this first pass through them.

My reject rate is enormous with aircraft photography. The chance of missing the moment, being lumbered with rubbish light at the critical instant (bright background cloud is a disaster, and there was a lot of that yesterday), or being slightly unsharp, is so high that I'm pleased if I get a few that look even moderately Ok. I took about 1000 frames yesterday, and I've got about 40 that are ok-ish.

So the first editing pass is to get the ones that are lit right, and are sharp enough for the detail. If I find I still like a shot after I've done some basic cropping/levels/shadows/resize/sharpen, I'll return to it and try to improve the composition. However, I'll admit I often have to make a conscious effort to do this, since I'm more interested in the aeroplane than the art. So thanks for the reminder!!

To be honest, I'm getting a bit despondent with no decent glass longer than 300mm. It makes getting the fast jets incredibly difficult since they're small, and because they're not really close enough when they're doing interesting things. Nearly all the above were taken with the DA55-300 **, and I'm thinking I may not bother next time unless I have a Bigma by then.

At the sort of smaller airfields I visit a lot, you can get a lot closer to any action that's going, so 300mm is a lot more practical.

__________

** Just to give you an idea of how big the A380 is, 55mm was nowhere near wide enough to get it all in as it came past on its take-off/landing roll!

I'm in the process of getting my passport renewed, and I thought I'd do a self-portrait rather than sit in one of those booths and get something even more horrible than is usually the case when I find myself at the wrong end of the lens.

I've taken one that will do, and I've taken care to make sure that the dimensions and proportions are consistent with the regs..

I'm not planning to print it myself, but can anyone that's been round this loop give me an idea of any other gotchas I might face - and indeed where to get it printed.

TIA.

Thanks.

It was pretty dramatic when the Typhoon took off in front of me, too:

[IMG]http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t244/chris5gd/Aviation/Farnborough%202010/IMGP1417.jpg[/IMG]

No, the only US FJs were F16 and F18.

No, I think it's real - I changed the WB to 'cloudy' (which it was!) on that one, and it's come out looking rather warmer than the others, which I left 'as shot'.

I'll probably change that one, but I'm all edited out for now.

A dozen or so here.

Well, I've found a few half way decent ones. I completely failed to get the Red Arrows Synchro Pair shot I wanted, and later in the day the light was mostly rubbish, so I got a lot of silhouettes. Anyway, I salvaged a few.

[IMG]http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t244/chris5gd/Aviation/Farnborough%202010/IMGP0843.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t244/chris5gd/Aviation/Farnborough%202010/IMGP0883.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t244/chris5gd/Aviation/Farnborough%202010/IMGP0923.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t244/chris5gd/Aviation/Farnborough%202010/IMGP1116.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t244/chris5gd/Aviation/Farnborough%202010/IMGP1447.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t244/chris5gd/Aviation/Farnborough%202010/IMGP1129.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t244/chris5gd/Aviation/Farnborough%202010/IMGP1174.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t244/chris5gd/Aviation/Farnborough%202010/IMGP1514.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t244/chris5gd/Aviation/Farnborough%202010/IMGP1530.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t244/chris5gd/Aviation/Farnborough%202010/IMGP1247.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t244/chris5gd/Aviation/Farnborough%202010/IMGP4454.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t244/chris5gd/Aviation/Farnborough%202010/IMGP4464.jpg[/IMG]

A few more here... I'll add some more there if I find any...

Blimey, if you weren't even on the field I can't even begin to imagine how to get anything useful. You did pretty well in that case.

I couldn't resist the temptation to scoop some pics off the SD cards on to the 'puter, just to see... it's not as bad as I thought, so I'll post a few tomorrow.