Hi Bob,

Thanks for replying and thanks for the advice. I suspected the first shot would be the best choice so its nice to know that my fledgeling instincts were right!

Regarding the sharpening, the original images are way sharper than these reductions. Is that just a result of using the cheapo free software that came with the camera? Or is it an unfortunate by-product of the resizing procedure?

> If you have CS2 or above you can also play around with Adjusting Shadows/Highlights<

What’s CS2…?

Exif data shows a very fast setting of 1/1000s – are you sure you had your Canon S3 in auto mode??

It looks like a dullish day, too – so the camera was fighting for light on two fronts.

Actually, now I come to look at the order of the shots as they are on the camera I suspect that it may have been in ‘sports’ mode (I tracked the aircraft all the way to the runway) so that would explain the speed. Obviously that feature is only going to be a useful under certain conditions…

It was a grey old day too, but it was the only day of the five day forecast that wasn’t calling for rain which was I decided to make the trip (only an hour each way so no big deal really). This was my first time at the fences and I’ve certainly learned quite a bit, unfortunately through bad results rather than good ones but what the heck.

So the homework is-

RTFM (Read The F—-g Manual) again and perhaps pay a little more attention this time.

Practice with the manual settings.

Learn a bit more about what the software can do.

That’s a lot to be getting on with for a bloke who’s still learning to hold the camera steady…Just out of interest, on the bad light issue, at what point do you decide “Oh, sod this, its a waste of time. Let’s find a Little Chef”?

Amusing though, maybe it’s just a really thin phone card?

Doesn’t that depend on what angle you see it from…!?

Its not the Airshow Organisers fault.

I disagree in this case. The official Cosford Airshow website states that the airfield is “approximately 1 mile south of junction 3 on the M54” In that case, why did all signs for the airshow send you off the M54 at junction 2 and (eventually) onto a woefully inadequate B road through the village of Bilbrook? Those in the know obviously ignored the approved route and carried on on the motorway and it was particularly irritating to hear, on the airshow radio station, that “traffic had eased on the motorway and vehicles were now entering the site” when the vehicles who had obeyed the signs still had another two hours of sitting motionless, staring at the back end of the car infront, to endure.

The limited access seems to suggest to me that the venue is unsuitable for large numbers of persons and should not have attempted to hold an event such as this. And that most definitely IS the organisers fault.

A quick add to a thread that I started just to say that while booking a hotel for Cosford this year, I discovered that Stafford has a Hurricane Close and a Spitfire Close.

So it took a little longer to find the cash than I thought but I went for the Canon Powershot S3 eventually. Still in the manual reading/mistake making phase at the moment and I’m still waiting for a free weekend to go out roaming with it. I’ve found loads of useful resources online but what I need now is recommendation for a book on basic techniques that I can carry to read on the way to work etc there seems to be hundreds of these, how can a chap make a decision without flicking through them all? I don’t need one with loads of numbers and formula at this point…can anyone help