UKC

I'd appreciate any comments, or advice good or bad, on my first ever visit to the Mach Loop and my editing abilities with the images.

I only got to four passes of the Military, and selected seven images to stick on Flickr.

Seems like Scotland and The Lakes got most of the playtime.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/the1lemming/53517041655/in/photostream/ 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/the1lemming/53516609851/in/photostream/ 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/the1lemming/53516775228/in/photostream/ 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/the1lemming/53516927414/in/photostream/ 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/the1lemming/53517041765/in/photostream/ 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/the1lemming/53516609956/in/photostream/ 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/the1lemming/53517041775/in/photostream/ 

My fave is Texan 2. And I may just print it off.

Hawk2 for me. 

This is your first visit? I might have to setup lots of troll accounts to downvote your OP a lot, because you're irritatingly good!

My mate, who is big on flying military sim stuff, pointed out that both pilots were wearing white gloves. I never even noticed.

Shame I deleted that evil feature years ago.🤣

Even though there were only four passes all day, I’m pleased with the handful of keepers. Just seeing one trainer prop aircraft at the start of the day was enough to make the trip worthwhile.

Yup, Hawk2 is great - lots of detail.

They have come out really well - looks like you got the panning thing sorted out!

How did you handle the focus? Was the new system on the G9Mk2 fast enough for auto-focus or did you use a fixed pre-focus? I'm just wondering of there is any point having a go with my G9Mk1.

I took my G9m1 and G9m2. If there had been a lot more aircraft then I may have fired off a few shots with my original G9.

I have no doubt that the original G9 would have performed just as well however I had a new toy which had Phased Detection, so I stayed with that.

I put the camera into auto focus and had it concentrate it's attention around the middle of the frame. Not sure if this was wise as it's quite hard keeping a fast moving subject in the viewfinder let alone ensuring that it sticks into the center of the viewfinder.

Maybe next time I'll use the entire image area to focus with.

I did not go with the idea of pre focusing because I could not guarantee what to focus on. There were too many variables.

I do use the pre focus method when my quarry can be predictably relied on to be in the same spot.

I never even considered Back Button focusing. I think, with the computational grunt under the hood, Back Button focusing is consigned to the history books.

Just need to improve my panning technique.

Thanks for the details. The panning looked pretty successful to me.

I did it completely different to everybody there. Everybody stood face on to the target and then turned their upper body the direction the aircraft was travelling. Now't wrong with that I hear you say, however your spine has a larger range of movement.

Say for example the aircraft/subject is moving left to right. I would pivot my stance so that my left hip was facing the incoming aircraft/subject and my right hip was facing the direction that the aircraft/subject would follow.

I would then rotate my upper body towards the subject, while keeping my feet and hips where they were. As the subject/aircraft passed, I was able to rotate from left to as far right as I could giving me a little more range of movement in my spine to follow the subject left to right.

Other people may do this but I've never seen anybody else do this, and it works for me.

That's a climber's approach to balance and movement, as opposed to a photographer's!

I don't follow your point here, could you expand? Back button is just a way of turning auto-focus on/off yes? as an alternative to using a half-shutter press, or having auto-focus on full-time. What's the link between how you turn AF on and the calculations that auto-focus software uses?

Ahhh.

That's will be the answer then 😜

You have to use an extra didget to focus, and I can't be arsed developing memory muscle to achieve this esoteric art.

I believe, with no scientific evidence to back this up, that modern cameras have really, really powerful systems that can lock focus incredibly quickly without the need for Back Button focusing.

These puppies were doing 400mph (Airspeed equivalent unknown) and the auto focus did well enough to keep me happy. And its with Panasonic's older DFD Focusing rather than their new Phased Detection Auto Focus which Sony users have had for ever.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/the1lemming/53120877370/in/album-721777203146...

Ok, thanks, it sounds like you think back button focusing is different to what it actually is.

Decoupling the AF on/off from the shutter release can be useful if you want to keep the focus on a specific subject that isn't moving, for several shots, even while other objects move around the frame or get closer to the lens and might otherwise distract the AF.

As you say, turning AF off is not what you want when you have one fast-moving subject in the frame like a jet.

I may have the concept of Back Button focusing wrong, and I probably have got it wrong.

I thought that Back Button focusing was to split the task of focusing and taking images from one dedicated button, to assigning those duties to their own button. One button would be tasked with focusing on a subject and another button would be tasked with taking images.

Nothing technical to add, except to say I think they're fantastic images, keep doing what you're currently doing, it obviously works!

is there a significance to white gloves ? 

(Or are they perhaps just going on to a souree afterwards?)

Different kind of flight, but I really like the pair of tits and the square format banded demoiselle coming to land. Belters.

I liked the Demoiselle as well. I took a punt with my 200mm lens on something tiny and put it through the Topaz washer to see how sharp I could get it, before it looked too edited.