Sensational Shuttleworth

[LN Strike Eagle]

Quite strange to have that much dust moving that much in between shots. Not sure what you managed to get in there like that but a good dry or even wet clean should sort it out anyway.

I cleaned it on Saturday night.

[Jakub.Zurek]

Whilst I think some of your images do show that you have some sensor dust, I think the rest are due to bits of grass flying around behind AND in front of the aircraft.

I had a wide angle shot from Sunday, at 100mm, and when pixel peeping, you could tell from the perspective that some bits of grass were floating around quite close, and others were further away. This was especially visible in ground shots. In comparison, aircraft that climbed high from take off, had no spots at all (apart from one sensor spot that shows up on all of my images). When walking to Uni today, I noticed a huge number of pollen and grass flying around when it was backlit. Genuinely, I haven't seen anything like it before.

So I think it is nothing to worry about, apart from having to spend extra time in post processing.

[Tbolt]

Quite strange to have that much dust moving that much in between shots. Not sure what you managed to get in there like that but a good dry or even wet clean should sort it out anyway.

I cleaned it on Saturday night.

I know you said you cleaned it but sometimes I've ended up with a bit of dust not long after a clean and some how you've sucked something in there. Just do a test shot now to see what it's like.

[Vixen1]

I had a similar problem with many of my images. I don't think it is anything to do with dust spots. On mine they are like small - signs. That implies they are dots but become dashes due to panning. I suspect these are insects, I've had it happen at grass fields before.

[Hatstand]

Beautiful photos!

Hope you solve the Dust Spot Mystery...

About your "hit rate", I heard if you just buy a more expensive camera and lens, that works? ;-D
Keep buying new gear, until your keeper rate is where you want it :-D

[Ian G]

Superb and crystal clear shots Dan. I have to say I have been experimenting over the last few years with shooting at low speeds both with aviation and motorsport. Sometimes it's been quite excessive, even down to 1/50th in some circumstances, I did get a Flickr explore on PS915 at Shuttleworth on 1/125th a few years ago. However, this weekend I probably spent most of the time shooting at either 1/250th or 1/320th. I envy some of the pin sharp images on here with full discs and I guess that's what I'm trying to emulate, but I think I only really do it if the conditions and composition are right.

I will try to get taxying shots at a low shutter speed as I find that easier than in the air. I will also like to try and do it if there's something in the background that will really show the motion and feel of speed - you will obviously get a better feel with background blur from trees etc than you would with a plain blue sky. I would probably find I might get 3/4 keepers out of a burst of 20, say, at lower than 1/250th. It's personal preference of course, and with something like the Lancaster flypast over Ladybower next week, it'd be great to get a shot will full discs or as close as, but as it's one of those occasions, I don't really want to mess the shot up so would rather err on the side of caution.......famous last words......

A lot comes down to panning technique as well; I can't remember who it was, whether it was Nigel Blake or Meirion who told me about 'swinging from the hips' on a visit to the loop years ago, thus ensuing a load of blokes doing what can only be described as a bad version of The Twist up the Bwlch. I find standing head on and turning left or right, rather than facing the aircraft helps. I was having a look around on Sunday and noticed again a lot of gimbal heads on tripods. How easy is it to pan and shoot with those? I watched one chap who was contorting up, down, left, right; it seemed an awful lot of effort.

I don't think it is grass on those images, definitely something on the sensor or glass. Grass/debris particles like that would be some distance inbetween the camera and aircraft and wouldn't show up that big/out of focus in the shots, it's something definitely in the foreground ie. dust - if it was grass, you would have noticed it as it would have probably been the size of something out of 'Honey I shrunk the kids'!!

[Weather Watcher]

Some great images. With regard to the dust I had a simillar issue but thought it was down to not cleaning my sensor before the show and a poor choice of settings. I need to find time to take shots of a plain wall and check the sensor before the next outing.

[Wrexham Mackem]

It's personal preference of course, and with something like the Lancaster flypast over Ladybower next week, it'd be great to get a shot will full discs or as close as, but as it's one of those occasions, I don't really want to mess the shot up so would rather err on the side of caution.

That's an interesting point - if your shutter speed was slow enough to get prop discs the landscape would be so motion blurred it may not be recognisable as the Derwent Reservoir at all. Its all a compromise.

[GeorgeP]

Thanks for posting the example images to illustrate your problem.

I should clarify - I'm well aware of cleaning procedures and how the aperture affects the visibility of dust spots; I've been using a DSLR for years now. ......

Apologies if anything in my initial response implied that you were not aware of the cleaning procedures.

A question re. the example images that you posted : Are the pairs of images IMG_3297 / 3298 and IMG_3817 / 3818 uncropped images? If they're not, perhaps the aircraft is masking some of the dust bunnies that were visible in the earlier image plus some spots may have been 'lost' as a result of the cropping.

My experience with dust bunnies is that they almost always appear as circles (large, lighter ones at long FL and small, dark ones at short FL) and don't look anything like the horizontal thingies on IMG_3297 and 3298. IMO, the horizontal thingies are outside your lens, probably flying through the air.

Hope all this helps and that you eventually manage to solve the riddle because your images from this event are OUTSTANDING. Happy to be corrected by anyone who may know more than I do about about this subject.

[LN Strike Eagle]

That's a good point. The samples I posted were all uncropped. They're resized and equalised to show the dust, but nothing else has been done to them.

[Ian G]

It's personal preference of course, and with something like the Lancaster flypast over Ladybower next week, it'd be great to get a shot will full discs or as close as, but as it's one of those occasions, I don't really want to mess the shot up so would rather err on the side of caution.

That's an interesting point - if your shutter speed was slow enough to get prop discs the landscape would be so motion blurred it may not be recognisable as the Derwent Reservoir at all. Its all a compromise.

I suppose I should have said that I've been in a position where you're head on with the reservoir and aircraft come towards you rather than past you.....it's a dam sight easier then.....