Prep for Lancaster bomber flight next weekend (duxford - 14th sep)

I am hoping to go on Sunday as I am working the Saturday, shame as I really want to see and hear the Vulcan.
I will be taking my EOS 7D, sigma 17-70 for the static and museum shots, EF 70-300L IS USM, and battery grip.
As for memory cards I have only very recently purchase a 8GB extreme 60mbps.
I know I really need a min of 32GB 60Mbps cards. I am working on purchasing some on the next amazon Black Friday sale offer.

Hope the weather holds out !
 
my 16GB 90MBps extreme pro got here just in time.
I also have a 16GB 30MBps as a backup which i will have to use
my 32GB MBps recently broke, that was my all purpose card!

I would love to have sen the vulcan, next year i will go on my own, or perhaps can organise a OCUK photo meet!
 
I've got a free afternoon, so I'm going to bike up from Ipswich and catch the show. I doubt I'll actually go in though - just see what I can grab from around the fences.
 
Well, me and a mate made it up there just in time for the display. Didn't see the Tornado in the end, but we were a few minutes late. We didn't go on the airfield but instead found a local field at the south end of the runway and rode our bikes into it. That meant that we missed all the low level action over the runway but were in a good location for the turns.

Unfortunately we were shooting into the sun for much of it, hence the processing choice. Still, good fun for a Saturday afternoon.



Dark skies at Duxford Airshow 2014 by Greg Kingston, on Flickr




Vulcan XH558 and Gnats by Greg Kingston, on Flickr




Vulcan XH558 and Gnats by Greg Kingston, on Flickr




Intense smoke by Greg Kingston, on Flickr
 
philstanbridge said:
The Vulcan was absolutely incredible and I think what makes it more surreal is that this one was the one that dropped its payload in anger all those years ago during the Falklands conflict. Even more astonishing, the pilot flying on Sunday was the pilot who flew in that raid, in that aircraft. It's a symbolic aircraft for a number of reasons, but look at that silhouette. It makes it look prehistoric, but it was so graceful in the sky.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2038265/vulcan.jpg
Click to expand...

Aaaah. Martin Withers. Lovely guy. :D

He was the captain on XM607 which was the reserve aircraft on Black Buck 1. XM598 was the lead aircraft but had to return to Ascension Island after it had a pressurisation failure. XM607 is now the gate guardian at RAF Waddington.

Martin Withers also lead Black Buck 7. Another bombing raid on Port Stanley Airport.

Sadly, the Black Buck missions were a bit of a failure really. 1 solid runway impact and a couple of near misses that nibbled the edges. Was a good psychological impact though. Knowing that we could hit that far with our nuclear bomber.

Sadly, we don't have the capability to do that anymore.
 
I drove up there prepared to part with my £27 and to deal with some crowds and traffic etc... Instead I got plenty of traffic and a full event so I ended up doing what I've done for every other airshow and sitting in a field lol.

Seems like it was an alright day all in all. I didn't take a massive amount of photos until the Lancasters turned up and then I went a bit mental :D I also pretended I was a WW2 AA gunner when the Red Arrows turned up since I haven't seen them this year and the weather was quite nice.

The £27 saved will go towards petrol and the Burger King I had on the way back :D
 
al4x said:
I was in a field too

I'm pretty disappointed with my results all in all.
Click to expand...

Disappointed how? Not sharp enough or just all looking a bit bland/boring?

I was definitely disappointed with my Vulcan shots after the Shoreham Airshow but then I found a processing type that worked for those dull/dark and almost colourless shots and I was happy :D

Ideally I would have liked to have been closer but since it was all a bit last minute I think I did alright in the field I was at.

I was there - https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place...m!3m1!1s0x47d87c2435156333:0xe8f4e4cd234e77be
 
al4x said:
Sharpness.

Almost every one isn't sharp
Click to expand...

Were you using the 1.4x TC? Did you test it before to see what you could expect? Were you using a tripod/monopod or just handholding and what kind of exposures were you using? You'll have to upload a few :)

I'd seen a lot of these planes already so rather than repeat the same stuff, I got even more adventurous with my exposures and I even tried 1/45 on some shots. I knew my chances of getting one of those in focus were slim so I rattled off plenty of shots :) I ended up with a few 1/60s and one or two 1/45 shot that are worth keeping lol

Obviously those were on a tripod though... I don't think I'd bother going below 1/250 if I was handholding and even then I suspect my hit ratio would be low.
 
I was using the 1.4x but I was usually at 1/800sec
Some were on and some weren't on a tripod

I expect that out of a couple of hundred I might keep 2 or three. And these aren't really that Good either
 
Well AF with extenders does take a hit along with the image quality. Focus might need some micro-adjustment when using the TC too. At 1/800 there shouldn't be too much of a problem from motion blur either.

The poor weather doesn't help though! Most of the shots I took earlier on in the day will definitely need some processing because right now they're very very dull
 
I never really get that sharp pictures from this lens in general. Might be one of the reasons I don't take it out much. I will have to upload a few. But yeah pretty disappointed overall
 
That's one of the reasons I didn't stick with my Sigma 120-300mm F2.8 S. It was a good lens on it's own but really wasn't up to what I wanted when I stuck a TC on it.

It's certainly worth checking whether it needs a bit of micro adjustment too if you haven't already.
 
well at least you didn't injure the traffic in the car park on the way out over an hour and a half without moving . Expensive day £6 programme £2 cup of tea £6 flightline pass ,that's without petrol and ticket ,couldn't even give away my free child pass ,stuck it on an entrance sign ,
Anyway my pics of Lancaster aren't up to much
very dark not enough light ,tried the slow shutter speed for prop blur but ended with more blur than prop,
Anyway the red arrows were better the sun came out ill post some
a gh4 with a limitless buffer in jpeg at 7ps soon builds up pics over 2000
 
I can't micro adjust on my 60D

I hadn't to leave before the red arrows unfortunately

I dunno what to think about this lens tbh
My little 100mm macro L is absolutely perfect. It's harder to get a bad shot than good.
I never use it on a tripod and I'd say keepers rate is more than expected.

It's hard to know if I'm at fault or the lens. But in general I don't think I've really liked any of its pictures that I can recall.
 
My measly offerings.


_DSC7723 by charleskimberley91, on Flickr


_DSC7687 by
charleskimberley91, on Flickr


_DSC7681 by
charleskimberley91, on Flickr

I was over to the east of Duxford in a field off the A1301.

Nikon D700 + 70-200 f2.8 + TC-20E3

Edit: They've lost a massive amount of sharpness in going from RAW => JPEG => resizing and uploading. Will try to sort that out later
Edit2: Turns out I shouldn't use photo bucket :D
 
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The_Abyss said:
Well, me and a mate made it up there just in time for the display. Didn't see the Tornado in the end, but we were a few minutes late. We didn't go on the airfield but instead found a local field at the south end of the runway and rode our bikes into it. That meant that we missed all the low level action over the runway but were in a good location for the turns.

Unfortunately we were shooting into the sun for much of it, hence the processing choice. Still, good fun for a Saturday afternoon.



Dark skies at Duxford Airshow 2014 by Greg Kingston, on Flickr




Vulcan XH558 and Gnats by Greg Kingston, on Flickr




Vulcan XH558 and Gnats by Greg Kingston, on Flickr




Intense smoke by Greg Kingston, on Flickr
Click to expand...

Graet shot with the 2 Red Arrows ! :)
 
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