Civilian Aviation

Nice weather for photography this morning so I headed off to a spot near Hallingbury / Hatfield forest that I hadn't visited before to get some departure shots and was hoping for some wildlife as well, the wildlife didn't oblige as much as i'd hoped, several buzzards all between me and the sun and a few other bits and a pair of deer that came very close for a few minutes, no red kites today and I didn't have time to go into the forest for the hawfinches that are reported daily.
got some nice banking shots although this spot was a bit far for the biz especially those that didn't bank left and the UAE Air Force A.330 was a nice military movement (that's back on Sunday for the benefit of the 50 shades of grey fans), here are a selection...
cargo departures:
A7-BFM B.777F Qatar Cargo Stansted 16-02-2018 5579 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

A7-BFM B.777F Qatar Cargo Stansted 16-02-2018 5593 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

A6-DDA B.777F Etihad Cargo Stansted 16-02-2018 5772 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

A6-DDA B.777F Etihad Cargo Stansted 16-02-2018 5789 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

some locals....
One of Ryanair's newest 737s EI-GDV
EI-GDV B.737 Ryanair Stansted 16-02-2018 5677 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

still some 'old scheme' EZYs about
G-EZIJ A.319 EasyJet Stansted 16-02-2018 5840 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

Jet-2s always look better in the sun
G-JZHX B.737 Jet2 Stansted 16-02-2018 5635 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

G-FDZA B.737 TUI Stansted 16-02-2018 5559 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

the UAE Air Force A.330, shame it was going off across the pond so it didn't bank round towards me
1300 A.330 UAE Air Force Stansted 16-02-2018 5479 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr
some biz..
HB-JGP BD.700 Stansted 16-02-2018 5428 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

HZ-MS4B Gulfstream 4 Stansted 16-02-2018 5536 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

M-VQBI BD.700 Stansted 16-02-2018 5737 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

A40-AJ A.319 Stansted 16-02-2018 5870 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

Finnair A350 OH-LWB in 'One World' livery outbound from LHR:
OH-LWB A.350 Finnair 'One world'scheme overhead Stansted 16-02-2018 5659 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

and 2-DEER is a rather nice B.787.............. but not this morning!
These were only about 20m from me...
Deer at Hallingbury 16-2-2018 5686 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

hope they are of interest, thanks for looking
C&C welcome
Andy

Great pics, thanks for posting up

Nice set Andy, some are a bit soft though - is that when the lens is at full reach?

Great set and that UAE A330 is a superb catch

Mike wrote:Nice set Andy, some are a bit soft though - is that when the lens is at full reach?

yes pretty much so and the biz and one or two others are heavily cropped. I was trying a new location a bit further out and wide of the flight trying to get banking shots with a bit of a front view. I think I was being a bit over-optomistic but if you don't try you will never know!

What I need is an airport in a valley with a hill on the south side of the flight path!

Great angle Andy on that second Ethiad pic. Nice to get all the title on an airborne shot.

Denis.

andygolfer wrote:

Mike wrote:Nice set Andy, some are a bit soft though - is that when the lens is at full reach?

yes pretty much so and the biz and one or two others are heavily cropped. I was trying a new location a bit further out and wide of the flight trying to get banking shots with a bit of a front view. I think I was being a bit over-optomistic but if you don't try you will never know!

What I need is an airport in a valley with a hill on the south side of the flight path!

That explains it, I didn't realise just how far away the aircraft were from you, they've turned out well.

yes Mike, they were so far away I could only hear them - I pointed the camera in the direction of the noise and hoped, just got lucky!

I think part of it is down to my lack of editing skills too, I had another go at the 2 B777s last evening to see if I could brighten them and then replaced the originals but obviously not enough for you to notice There just seems to be a lack of vibrancy to the pics - might be moisture in the air softening them at that distance as well though.

Always interesting to see your explorations of potential vantage points Andy. Heat haze has inevitably affected a few, but the shot of the Etihad with some bank on is fantastic and well worth the effort.

thanks Nick, it's quite enjoyable looking for locations on the map, relating them to the position of the flight paths and then going out to the footpaths to see if you've worked it out right. This one was a bit of a walk but pretty good once I got there, only trouble was that I left my gloves in the car and it was a long walk back.

Do you use lightroom by any chance for editing?

Caravelle 10R wrote:Do you use lightroom by any chance for editing?

No, I just use the Canon 'DPP' program that they give out with the camera when you buy it. I could probably do with something better at times but haven't ever got round to getting anything.

thanks for asking
Andy

It's a bit of a pain that Lightroom is subscription only now part of Photoshop CC. That said both Photoshop and Lightroom have a dehaze slider, Lightroom in the develope module. It works quite unlike any other tool and actually cuts through arial haze. The effect is not possible to replicate with any other tools as although colours get more saturated it is not a straight saturation boost. For aviation photography it is extremely useful.

Caravelle 10R wrote:It's a bit of a pain that Lightroom is subscription only now part of Photoshop CC. That said both Photoshop and Lightroom have a dehaze slider, Lightroom in the develope module. It works quite unlike any other tool and actually cuts through arial haze. The effect is not possible to replicate with any other tools as although colours get more saturated it is not a straight saturation boost. For aviation photography it is extremely useful.

thanks - wish I had that it would have been useful for some of these, especially the earlier ones.

I should really come here often and contribute to comments rather than leaving it for months!!

Cracking set of shots Andy! Nice catch on the UAE Voyager, but I really do like the cargo shots


James.