You guys are definitely tempting me to give it another go.

I guess the only thing is that if you hit the release, it always fires?

I had a go like that for a while. Possibly not a long enough go to get properly used to it.

One thing that made me give up sooner than I might have is that I look through the VF with my left eye, which means getting the thumb on the rear AF button in between the camera and my face.

It depends.

If the camera-to-subject distance is changing all the time, then shutter button.

If it isn't - the subjects are fast moving but in the same place - then rear AF button. That way you don't incur the AF delay after you've focused the first time.

Sure - you want them to buy the prints which is fair enough.

Horses for courses, really.

Nothing much wrong with these at all - very nice.

I'd be inclined to up the contrast a little on the Extra, and bring up the shadows and the mid-tone contrast on the Spitfire and the Stearman.

The Tornado is going a lot faster, so simply pointing the camera in the right direction is harder. You can get away with a much shorter exposure than you would have used for these, since there's no prop to look stupid if it's frozen.

Another vital bit of kit for photographing the Tornado is earplugs, IMO. The sheer noise level makes it a lot harder to concentrate on the physical coordination required otherwise.

This is only true if you print most of your work.

If mostly it's only ever seen on a computer screen, and for most people this is increasingly the case, then you have to do what you have to do.

It's no good saying to people that it looks Ok when printed, if it looks pants on the screen, and that's the only place they're going to look at it

Well, this is where we'll have to agree to disagree.

'Correctly' is not the same as 'appropriately', and answering literally, as you did, I'd argue is not necessarily the 'correct' response to an initially polite approach.

I agree that based on your account, he overreacted, and I also agree that such overreactions should not occur, but I still think that your initial reply would be likely to be interpreted as a bit arsey.

In general, I agree, but we do expect the police to investigate suspicious behaviour. And what may look suspicious to others can be very different from our view, in cases where we already know that we're not doing anything wrong.

From the copper's point of view, all he saw was someone sitting in a car for a period of time. Maybe he thought it was suspicious, for some reason neither Paul nor anyone else except the copper will ever know.

So he came over to check - I don't think that's unreasonable - and maybe Paul was a bit ill-advised to give an answer that though literally correct, was a bit pedantic that could easily have been perceived as lippy.

The copper seems then to have gone well OTT, which is inexcusable, but I don't think there's anything wrong with the initial approach.

Not for a moment justifying all the swearing from him.

But if it went exactly the way you recount it, your initial answer was the sort of pedantry that winds people up.

For example,

"Excuse me, do you have the time?"
"Yes thanks"

... is the sort of juvenile reply that would irritate people.

And in your case,

"Excuse me sir, do you mind telling me what you're doing here?"
"Not at all officer, I'm photographing those rooks over there with this camera. I'm not in the way of anything with my car here am I?"

... would probably not have wound him up in the first place.

Not sure why the police seem to be on such hair triggers - they ought to be trained not to rise to the bait and to deal with situations properly and according to the law.

But I'd contend that it's best not to wind them up in the first place.

I don't think anyone *really* thinks that we live in a police state.

However, freedoms are being eroded, a little at a time, and it's not a good thing.

It's not the ordinary bobby that's the problem, incidentally. It's the minority of nasty ones that get the rest a bad name.

Also, it takes two people at least to cooperate. 'Doing what they tell you' is not the same thing.