I have never found this type of article very interesting or useful. My feelings are confirmed by the Transavia article in the November 2005 issue. The story is riddled with useless techical terms and jargon that might be interesting to a flight crew or ATC personnel, but to the layman enthusiast and reader, I found it a complete bore. If AW is trying to hold the reader’s interest, snappy ATC and airline acronyms aren’t going to get the job done. I enjoy the magazine quite alot, but spare us from furture “I was there” musings. Stick to what you are best at, leave the techie stuff to ATW.

Airliner World don’t write these articles themselves. If you look at the article you can see it was written and sent in by an ATC controller, who was invited on a flight. Jump-seat visits are very much a rarity these days, feel lucky that someone has still managed it and then come back to fill us in on their experience (via the magazine).

Any updates on anyone here who has been learning?

I passed this morning 😀 10 hours of lessons, less than 2 months after I turned 17, passed 1st time. On a bit of a high at the moment! Ah the airport visiting possiblities are endless….

Wozza, did you read my post properly? I mentioned the Z10, I’d recommend something like this which allows you to do the things I discussed. This is a digital point-and-shoot. It’s retailing at the moment between £120-150, although expect to pay more if you buy off the net. It might be out of your budget, but you’d be better off saving to buy something a little more expensive. If you go and buy a cheap £50 jobbie it’ll hardly teach you anything, as you’ll most likely only have an auto mode. Something from the Minolta range also has optical zoom, I wouldn’t try anything that only gives you digital zoom.

Look around in electrical shops, like Comet and Currys. They always have good stuff.

I wouldn’t, not unless you know what you want. Otherwise you’ll often come home with something that isn’t what they make it out to be.

I recommend you start with a fairly cheap point-and-shoot camera, but one that allows you to explore a bit on the technical side too. For example, the Minolta Z10 (probably available for about £120 these days). That was my first proper camera, and I was keen from the start to get to know it properly. You can start taking photos on auto mode, and it has a good optical zoom which is what you need for aviation photography. Don’t worry too much about how many millions of pixels it boasts, that doesn’t always tell you much about the quality of the camera. I even managed a good number of shots on airliners.net with my old Z10 before I moved on to a DSLR.

Once you’ve got used to taking aviation photos on auto mode (taking photos of fast moving planes can take a bit of getting used to) you can start to explore the manual side. The Z10 (and most other cameras in the Minolta range for that matter) allow you to control most of the settings quite well, so you can then progress on to learning different shutter speeds, and learning from your mistakes at different apertures, ISO settings, etc. Once you’ve conquered this and move on to a fully manual control, you’ll be producing about the best photos the camera can do. I got to this stage with the Z10 after about a year, and it was then through encouragement and determination that I went for the 350D. I’ve never regretted a moment.

A lot of people seem to think that buying a DSLR to begin with will produce amazing photos. This is a common mistake, it still doesn’t make you a better photographer. You’ll almost force yourself to be a better photographer by starting off with slightly less ideal equipment, and then progressing up as far as your money/ability will allow you.

As with shamrock321, I too enjoy my job. Working as a kitchen associate/chef/whatever you wanna call it in a restaurant, airside at the airport.The kitchen has a great atmosphere, with poeple from Afirca, Portugese, France, Poland, etc (all speaking fluent English). And we’re so unbelievably busy, that the time flies. We get a meal flash up on the screen a couple of times per minute, so the 4 or 5 of us don’t even have chance to think about what the time is.

And on top of that, the pay is atleast £1 per hour more than anyone else my age is earning, even compared to all the other places at the airport.

I work there part-time, then the rest of the week is spent studying Maths, Physics, Economics and Psychology A-levels.

Currently it’s my own shot, which barrythemod posted above.

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/938002/L/

2nd of the day on airliners.net at the mo! 😀

Yes, to create a prop ‘blur’ you need a slower shutter speed. About 1/200th or slower should give you the desired effect. Obviously, the slower your shutter speed the more blurred the props will look. But then you have to take into account that it’ll require better panning, to keep the rest of the aircraft sharp.

As an example, here is one I shot at 1/200th http://www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=552766&showexif=1#exifshow