SkymonsterThe only time I’ve ever used the Eurostar was last year heading out for a European tour. We drove the tour bus onto the train, departed, and half an hour we were on French soil heading to Germany.
Actually, that’s not Eurostar – that’s Le Shuttle, which is a somewhat different service moving vehicles under the channel. Eurostar ONLY runs trains between London St Pancras/Ashford/Ebbsfleet (UK-end), and Paris Gare Du Nord, Lille and Marne Le Valle (Eurodisney) plus occasional (ski) trains beyond Paris.
Eurostar (which is only a train operator) now actually does pretty good business – it is the tunnel operator that has had financial problems since the tunnel was opened.
Andy
SkymonsterOn the contrary, I’ve used the Eurostar several times and have found the experience WAY better than flying. Compared to Air France, the Eurostar seats and space at the tables are better than airline seats, the service is better, and the food and drink is much better. The Eurostar has always been on time when I’ve used it whereas Air France has not. Checkin is just insert a ticket into a machine, and yes there is security, but its two minutes and fairly relaxed, rather than the sometimes massive lines at CDG 2F and the frenetic taking off of various clothing items often beloved of CDG security screening. The checkin times are shorter (or to put it another way, arrive at the deadline and you are going to make the train) and there’s far less distance to walk at either St Pancras or Gare du Nord than there is at either LHR (or BHX) or CDG. About the only thing airlines can do, on occasion, is beat Eurostar on prices.
So, despite me being an avid aviation enthusiast, there is no way I’d fly from London to Paris anymore – Eurostar every time. If I happened to be near Heathrow and wanted to be near Charles de Gualle or I was leaving the UK and was getting a long haul flight at CDG that’s a different matter, but I’m not usually in that situation. For point to point, I’ll take the train.
Andy
SkymonsterNevertheless Adam is right and I can’t understand why true enthusiasts are making capital out of “cutting off noses to spite faces” by not using any airline which gets them to a spotting “Mecca” for a fraction of other’s prices……or do their actions really match their words?
Actually, I don’t fly with Ryanair despite being an enthusiast – haven’t flown with them, and never will. There is a Ryanair base at my local airport – EMA – and it’d be oh so easy to give up the principal and fly with them (well actually, no it wouldn’t, not for me anyway). I take the view that for leisure travel, I will either pay for a trip on a “proper” airline, or not go.
Andy
SkymonsterI think you mean a teleconverter – or an “extender” in Canon terms. Can be gotten in 1.4x (so a 200mm lens becomes a 280mm) and 2x (so a 200mm becomes 400mm). As you rightly say, you lose some light. They are a compromise and also reduce quality of the image. To be honest, right now I think you’d be better concentrating on using the 200mm on its own, rather than diving in with a 2x as well – and in any case, 1.4x converters are easier to handle than 2x anyway Furthermore, unless you are going to stick with the 200mm long term, at this stage I’d suggest your money is better saved and then spent on a lens that goes up to 300mm or even 400mm, rather than buying a converter. However, if you can borrow a converter, by all means give it a go although expect fewer good shots (as a proportion of the total) with the converter.
Andy
SkymonsterOK, a few issues here…
Exposure / Metering mode
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Firstly, Duxford is a tricky place to shoot because the aspect is largely south-facing (i.e. into sun) until later on in the display – that is assuming we have any sun this summer! That makes exposure a little more tricky. Furthermore, with only 200mm available, the lens is going to be a little on the short side meaning that you’re quite likely to get some sky in the picture. If the sky is deep blue (fat chance!) then things will probably be OK – just set the camera to evaluative metering and let it get on with things and my experiences are that it’ll go a pretty good job. If its overcast, then you will need to set some exposure compensation – maybe +1/2 or even +1 – to compensate and make sure the aircraft details are pulled out from the dark aircraft against a still bright-ish sky. Still use evaluative, but set some exposure compensation and check the histogram (graph) after a few exposures to see if the exposure is OK – if you don’t yet understand histograms, then this is probably wasted advice as I don’t think there’s rime to explain it all and really understand it before the weekend!!!
Mode
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You can use any of the “proper” exposure modes – shutter priority (TV, where you set the shutter speed and the camera sets the aperture), aperture priority (opposite of shutter priority) or program (where the camera sets both). P is quite clever as the camera works out what lens you are using and increases the shutter speed to compensate for long lenses where there’s a risk of camera shake. However, P mode means less control and its probably not the best – use either TV (probably best for a “noob”) or AV. Whatever exposure mode you use (AV, TV, P), if you want pictures without the props “frozen” you need to make sure you end up with a shutter speed of 1/250 sec or slower. So either set TV mode and select a shutter speed of 1/250 or below, or set AV mode and select an aperture that makes the camera set a shutter speed of 1/250 or below – in the latter case you need to actually set the aperture and see what shutter speed the camera is going to select by pointing it at an aircraft. Problem is, the slower the shutter speed the more risk of blurring due to camera shake, and for a “noob” panning at less than 1/250 second is challenging and may result in more shaken shots than good ones. Practice makes perfect! If you don’t mind “frozen” props, set a higher shutter speed (say TV mode and 1/500) and that will cut down the risk of blurring due to camera shake.
ISO
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Leave it on set 100 unless its really dull or you really want/need to set a shutter speed of 1/500 or more. A higher ISO will let you select higher shutter speeds, but if you want blurred props (and by implication that means lower shutter speeds) ISO 100 is probably going to be necessary.
Lens
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As has been said alreay, 200mm is a bit short – 300mm would be good, 400 even better. If they take off left to right, my recommendation would be to stand on the tank bank at the western end of the field, as some aircraft come off the grass and get quite close to the bank. If they are taking off right to left, well, maybe still the tank bank and accept ground shots (take off) or landing shots.
If I’ve said too much and all the above is obvious, sorry. And if I’ve been far too technical – again sorry, but there’s a lot to learn and if it doesn’t all make sense then I strongly recommend either (a) some rapid practice or (b) taking a chance on what may be a bit of a lottery as to how many good pics you come away with. Remember, everyone takes some crap pics – we just don’t all admit it and we keep our rubbish hidden away from forums like this!
A
Skymonster£8 is about the going rate for a credit card fee these days, and the reason the charge is so high is because the airlines do not recieve the money for the flight you purchased until you have paid off your credit card bill…and if you are paying the minimum amount off each month, airlines have to wait before receiving all the funds, so I think they have higher surcharges for using a credit card because they want to try and discourage people from using them.
Incorrect… Except in the case of airlines like Frontier (where credit card issuers are trying to withhold funds due to the uncertain nature of the airline’s finances), airlines get paid regardless of whether the credit card holder pays off their balance or not – it is the card companies, not the merchant, extending the credit. Actually, the reason why credit card companies are trying to withhold payments to Frontier until after the passengers has flown is that, if the airline collapses, credit card holders will claim back from their credit card issuers – clearly, the credit card companies do not want to have to pay for the failure of their merchants, so they have an interest in whithholding money from merchants in difficulties until the service has been provided. Clearly, robbing Ryanair is not in this situation 🙁
Again, despite the fact that I hate the airline, I have no problem with Ryanair imposing surcharges. I just have a problem with them being deceptive with the way they go about it and prefer the more open “fuel surcharge” approach used by more honest airlines.
A
SkymonsterI don’t know why people continue to fly with these robbers – I’d rather not fly than give O’Leary a penny of my money
Give me the BA-style honesty of “its a fuel surcharge” rather than Ryanair’s dishonst “its a credit card fee per sector” (huh? credit card fees are per transaction in reality) any day. We all know fuel is going up – credit card merchant fees are not, despite Ryanair’s theeving approach to fees.
A
SkymonsterI don’t have any major issues with UA – they’re certainly no worse than any of the other majors. I’ve been to the USA on UA twice already this year, and already have two more trips booked – one to Chicago at the end of July and another to Denver and Los Angeles in September.
Andy
SkymonsterThis clause has been on Air Tattoo tickets for as long as I can remember.
Indeed it has, but it is sad to see these terms becoming more pervasive. As someone else remarked, it’ll only encourage some photographers to stay outside of the fence more. I can, to an extent, understand show organisers desire to make as much revenue as possible from their air show. However, given the scorn on this forum that is poured (rightly, to a degree) on photographers who do stay outside of the fence, linked with the desire for air shows to make SOME money, I’d have thought that organisers should be doing all they can to accommodate the requirements of each segment of the audience, rather than alienate some of them to the point of pushing them out to a non-revenue earning location – in other words, its a shame air show organisers don’t recognise that some revenue (i.e. get the gate money, but let photographers sell their results) is better than the zero revenue they get if photographers remain outside.
A
SkymonsterWell that’s the prediction of Easyjet’s German boss anyway. He is predicting a rash of airline bankruptcies as trading conditions continue to be difficult…
Well he must be almost as big an idiot as O’Leary then:rolleyes:
Andy
SkymonsterBA Open Skies – is the plan still going ahead?
Yes, although this is NOT a premium service – it is using 757s fitted with club world (business), world-traveller-plus (premium economy) and world-traveller (economy). It is in this respect similar to Air France Dedicate, which uses A319s with long range tanks and long-haul business and economy seats on low demand long-haul routes to Africa and the Middle East.
Privatair – flying. They shut down some lines, like Houston, only to open others, like Poona.
Privatair are not operating premium services in their own right – they are operating all-business class services for Lufthansa, Swiss and KLM. In the case of Lufthansa, the aircraft has been moved as the routes develop – for example, the aircraft that is being put into India was operating a service that has developed to the extent where it can now support an A340, so switching the aircraft can hardly be regarded as a failure.
Andy
SkymonsterBasically, its been demonstrated that as oil increases in price, so Ryanair hikes its ancilliary charges. Don’t get me wrong, I’d prefer to see an “all in” price from both “low fares” airlines and legacy carriers, but whilst other airlines prefer to be up-front about it and call it a fuel surcharge Ryanair prefers to hide behind punative rises in costs for things that are simply not going up at the rate Ryanair increases its charge – its quite simple, the cost to Ryanair of checking a bag, or using an airport check in desk, is not going up at the rate Ryanair has increased its charge, so all Ryanair are doing is trying to hide their increased costs behind higher charges and more rhetoric.
Of course, there is one thing Ryanair seems to be getting better at – free excursions into the countryside, as demonstrated by the 737 that they managed to park in the grass at Lodz today.
Andy
SkymonsterThe question is though, how long until the shuttle service get’s quango’d ?
As a point-to-point route, MAN-LHR is going to be a dead duck – if the increasingly competitive nature and service of the train (versus the hassles of air travel these days) don’t get it, the “green” thinking surging through this government and its successor surely will sooner or later. The only thing that will sustain the route in the longer term is on-line connections, and IF we ever get the north-south high speed [rail] line (which is currently gaining renewed interest) the on-line connections are likely to go too as the line plans envisage a direct link through LHR.
A
SkymonsterTo those who “rant” about the loss of such a service, the question is – how many times have YOU used the service over the last year or two? And if the answer isn’t that you’ve travelled on it several times or more (and ideally travelling on more than rock bottom fares), then you’re not the sort that’s helping to sustain the service.
Flights don’t exist for the satisfaction of the locals (observers of airline trends, spotters, or even airport operators) but for the passengers, who in turn are meant to make the airline some money. If the flight doesn’t pay (and from what I can gather MAN-JFK is very weak revenue wise) it goes. Very simple really – hyou can bet that if MAN-JFK was one of BA’s highest yielding routes, it’d still be operating. The people to blame for the loss of the service are those who live in the MAN catchment area, as they haven’t used the service enough [and/or at a high enough fare] to make it worthwhile for BA to run the service anylonger.
Andy
SkymonsterFrom what I’ve seen passing through on various airlines this last couple of weeks…
Taxiway Delta is currently dug up between D1 and D2 meaning that a/c have to taxi via A6-E7-D3 or vice versa. Also taxiway Delta is dug up between D4 and D5 meaning a/c from/to W and Y stands have to go via taxiway E.
The official appropriate notams are (those I refer to above in bold):
AGA : Q)EGTT/QMXLC/IV/M/A/000/999/5227N00145W005
FROM 08/03/25 00:01 TO 08/09/30 18:00 C1092/08
E) MAJOR TWY RESURFACING PROGRAMME, TWY CLOSURES AND RESTRICTIONS AS PROMULGATED BY INDIVIDUAL NOTAM BTN MAR 25 AND SEP 30.
AGA : Q)EGTT/QMRXX/IV/NBO/A/000/999/5227N00145W005
FROM 08/03/25 00:01 TO 08/04/25 18:00 C1071/08
E)RWY 15/33 ENTRY/EXIT AT HOLD T1 NOT AVBL DUE WIP
AGA : Q)EGTT/QMXLC/IV/M/A/000/999/5227N00145W005
FROM 08/03/25 00:01 TO 08/04/25 18:00 C1066/08
E)DUE WIP TWY D CLOSED BETWEEN INTERSECTION WITH TWY T AND HOLD D2
AGA : Q)EGTT/QMXLC/IV/M/A/000/999/5227N00145W005
FROM 08/03/25 00:01 TO 08/04/18 18:00 C1068/08
E)DUE WIP TWY D CLOSED BETWEEN HOLDS D4 AND D5
Andy
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