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Schiphol - called a heaven for a plane spotter , even after last year closing of the Kaagbaan place.

Nice pic of the smoky take-off of this ruslan, but still dog's pic is better .

Amin, Southend could be some for a start, not the best collection of flying machines, but not bad either especially when the entry fee is 1 pound when on a foot, biggest problem with Southend is usually weather, i.e. last year (on the day when I was there) only a very small of the scheduled flights happen (very low cloud base) and I think the second day was cancelled (I think on the previous years weather was the main problem as well), so worth to keep an eye on the weather when it gets nearer to the date.

Hi there,

I'm sure we have some people visiting or willing to visit some air shows.
I know RobE17 is a frequent visitor to these shows as well as me, who else is going to be the minority showing Pentax gear between all of these C&N ? .
First one for me this year will probably be Southend in May.
What are your plans?.
In case somebody would like to go, but is not sure when, where, for a good start, here's the calendar:
http://www.airshows.org.uk/calendar.html

Since I have 60-250mm, I don't really use this 55-300mm one.
Lens is in very good condition, glass elements are free from scratches, etc. Lens hood has a small cosmetic marks (nothing that could affect lens performance anyway).
Some photos taken with this lens you can find looking in my portfolio here (most of them taken with this lens, info on the lens in pics description).
I will add Hoya UV filter I used with this lens.
Looking for 170GBP delivered (to UK), bank transfer, collection welcome (cash payment then) I'm in London.
I will add some photos of the lens later on.
Questions - drop me a PM.

We've gone through all the explanation of RAW challenge in the raw challenge #1 topic and I thought it has been all said why it is RAW, what we want to see and why it is not just a photoshop or jpeg fun, so I'm a bit suprised this questions are raised again (and the subject still says 'RAW challenge'), on the other hand I know that Isdky knows what is this (RAW) challenge about, so will keep it going into the proper direction in #2.

Isdky, yeah great response, I'm happy it is going better than when I started it , will try my (limited) skills as well, but some time later.

Short visit to Watford today and my K20D is back in my hands after over month (ish) with Pentax, action described as "Repaired CCD-Block".
Out of curiosity some look inside, same body, has come back with firmware 1.0 and flash memory erased (so default settings, shutter count in exif shows 250 clicks), but camera is saving files with numbers continued as before repair (so suggesting much more clicks than 250). More from exif (PhotoMe), manufactured date same as it was originaly (well, one day difference , still 2008 though ), serviced bit not set, internal serial number have increased by three nearly and what I think may be interesting is production ID which has changed from 3 to 4 - just wondering if that can indicate newer sensor application (like some minor changes to whole CCD board/application). Can somebody look at your camera's exif before and after and check this?, maybe somebody who recently bought one could check what is the production id there.

This one really speaks, great photo, DOF could be a bit deeper to get beard in focus, but it is not a big problem anyway.