Thanks for posting these. I have a soft spot for Viscounts as when I was young they used to fly over my house as we lived a few miles from Leeds/Bradford airport.

my all time favourite would be the Aeronauts (as it was called in Britain) which was filmed at Dijon with all those Mirage IIIs.

I used to love watching that and have been trying to find out what it was called – but nobody I’ve asked to seemed to remember it – so I’m very happy now – thanks.

Excellent photos.

I bought a Nikon D50 last week and am very pleased with it – I used it at the weekend in auto mode to see how it coped and was impressed – I had the good fortune to be in the garden as Breighton’s Mustang “Susy” flew over in a clear blue sky- too high for the standard zoom to give a good picture but the autofocus locked on the “dot in the sky” very quickly and the picture was good enough for me to enlarge it and confirm that it was “Susy” the rest of the weekend the only flying things I saw were seagulls but again the auto focus and autoexposure did not have a problem.
Not wanting to get into the Canon vs Nikon debate (as I doubt you will feel restricted or disappointed with either – they are both very good makes – which is why choosing between them is so difficult on a camera vs camera basis) I will just say that after much comparison I just prefered the sample images I saw from the Nikon, the handling of the camera and the standard lens supplied with the kit seems very good (sharp, quick and quiet).Studying the features and technical side of both I found neither had enough of a clear advantage over the other to make my choice – it was a difficult one to make.

Thanks for posting – I couldn’t make it there myself so it is good to see what I missed.

What does this mean, to the layman:

35-210mm, F2.8-8 (6x Zoom)

and how does it compare with this

38-380 mm, F3.2-3.5 10x zoom

and this:

28-300mm, F2.8-4.9 (10.7x zoom)?

You are not comparing like with like here. The S7000 has an F2.8-3.1 lens – ie it is has a maximum aperture of F2.8 at 35mm and F3.1 at 210mm (as you no doubt know this is not the actual focal length of the Fuji zoom but the 35mm equivalent – it is quoted for ease of comparison) – these are the figures that compare to the ones you list for the S5600 & S9500. The F2.8-8 range you quote is the full range of available apertures (but not all are available at all focal lengths).

Great – thanks for posting. Love that last Sunderland photo and I’m always happy to see Beverley photos.