I've already posted my Red Arrows pics from the Cosford Airshow, but I took a lot more than just that. As well as the flying display, there was a lot to see on the ground too.

The RAF Museum at Cosford has a lot of historic aircraft, including some unique experimental and development planes. One of the nice features of the Cosford Airshow is that every year the organisers and the Museum wheel some of these planes out of their hanger and onto the flight line so you can imagine them as they were in their heyday.



This is the Avro 707C. If it looks like a miniature Vulcan, that's because it was developed to test the flight characteristics of the Vulcan's delta wing.

( Lots more aircraft! )

Now to sort through the photos of Flying Stuff Other Than The Red Arrows.

Pictures from the Ragley Hall Classic Car Show yesterday (click on photo to go to full album):

This weekend saw the first Jewellery Quarter Festival, organised to mark the transformation of what had been a rather ugly car park between the Rose Villa Tavern and the Big Peg building at the centre of JQ into Golden Square, a much nicer-looking pedestrian plaza and event space. In addition to three days of music, food and craft events at the new square itself, JQ businesses and art centres ran a doors-open weekend. Although the Quarter is, not surprisingly, famous for its concentration of jewellers and allied trades, it's also home to a lot of other decorative and artistic enterprises, many of which even local residents tend not to notice given that a lot are tucked away in converted factories down the JQ's many back streets. Given that Golden Square is about 200 metres from our new house, we've had three days of popping over to see what the latest attraction is and wandering round discovering new things about our neighbourhood.

( Lots of pictures )

The JQ Festival seemed to be very popular, and all the venues we visited were seeing a fair bit of interest. It looks like there's a programme of further events for Golden Square, and with any luck the success of this year's festival may make it an annual event. All in all we're very glad we've ended up living in such an unusual and interesting area, which after this weekend we now know a little bit more about!

Last Christmas I took advantage of a deal that local photo dealer and hire centre Calumet were doing for cheap hire to try out one of Canon's nicer high-end zoom lenses (the L-series 70-300 f/4-5.6. This year Calumet repeated the offer, although on slightly different terms; rather than giving 75% off any hire over the holiday period, they allowed a 14-day hire from 22nd December to 5th January at what would normally be the rate for 2 days. I decided to take advantage of this to try out what's often thought of as Canon's flagship L-series lens: the 70-200 f/2.8 IS II.

By 'flagship' I don't mean that it's the most expensive (not by a long way!) or the 'fastest' in terms of widest aperture, or has the longest zoom range or maximum focal length. But for a short-to-medium telephoto zoom it has a wide maximum aperture of f/2.8, which significantly (and unlike most cheaper zoom lenses) is constant throughout the zoom range. Like all L-series lenses it is robustly built, and is widely regarded has having extremely good image quality. Also, at about £1,700, while expensive it is not out of the reach of most professional (or indeed a fair few amateur) photographers. As a result it's become a widely-used lens for serious photographers - our wedding photographer had one - and a lens a lot of more casual Canon dSLR owners aspire to, or at least dream of.

It's certainly a bit of a beast. When I picked it up it came with its own semi-rigid zipped bag, and the lens body itself is made of metal rather than plastic. It feels very solid and well-engineered. To have an f/2.8 aperture at the 200mm end of its zoom range it needs a large diameter, and combined with its pale cream colour it certainly looks conspicuous on the front of your camera. indeed, on one occasion when I was out taking some test pictures I was approached by some cyclists who turned out to be camera geeks and asked about it. This isn't a lens for discreet snapping.

Based on several trips out with it I certainly agree that the image quality is superb. To show just how sharp it is, here's a comparison of a view frrm our flat of a nearby bit of architecture both via the 2.8L on the left and my usual zoom (Canon 70-300 f/4.5-5.6 IS) on the right. These are 100% crops, although I didn't quite get the two lenses at exactly the same focal length so the scale isn't quite the same; both are at f/8 though, so ought to be around their best.

( Lots of sample images )

I was sorry to hand the lens back, but would I really want to splash out the best part of £2K on one? It is big and bulky - with it attached, I could not get my camera into my smaller camera bag, even after removing the internal dividers. It's not light, either, and I can imagine that after a long photo session even a large person like me could tire of holding it. As I said, it's also conspicuous, and I'd be very mindful of how much it cost. But I can see why people for whom photography is a job, or a hobby serious enough that they want the best tools, so often use one of these.

A common alternative L-series lens has long been the 100-400 f/4.5-5.6L IS. Not as fast in terms of aperture, but rather longer in focal length, it had been on the market for about 16 years and everyone has expecting a replacement for the best part of a decade. Canon has just launched the Mk 2 version, and as I handed the 2.8: back I asked when Calumet was likely to get one for rental. "Oh, we just have - in fact, it came back today. Do you want to have a look before we send it back to the depot?" So I had a quick play (no photos - the shop stuck it on a display Canon dSLR body for me) - also big and heavy, but very nice build feel and based on looking through it the image quality ought to be excellent. I may well end up hiring that for a weekend next time I go to an airshow. In the mean time I'm now sorely tempted by the 2.8L's smaller brother, the 70-200 f/4L IS, which is supposed to have almost the same quality for the sacrifice of only one f-stop in speed, and is about half the weight and price....

Over Christmas I took advantage of a discount offer from Calumet Photographic to hire a very nice Canon 70-300 L-series lens to try out. I posted some comparison and test shots, including a few taken at Edgbaston Reservoir, not far from where we live. Since then I've been meaning to go through some of the others I took, which include rather a lot of pictures of the bane of Birmingham, i.e. our local seagull population. (Actually, I don't mind them at the reservoir; it's the way that they infest the rest of the city that drives us round the bend.)



(While we were there a family turned up with a bag of breadcrumbs, which explains the feeding frenzy in the later pictures.)

More pictures from our Jersey mini-honeymoon to follow, but here's a preview - a panorama from atop Elizabeth Castle, St Helier.



( Hi-res version behind cut - very big! )

For the last six and a half years I have been happily taking photos with my Canon 400D (supplemented, when I don't want to haul a DSLR and assorted lenses around, by a G11). The 400D was a pretty good consumer-level DSLR in its day, and in many ways still is. But I occasionally hanker for something a bit newer, especially as sensor quality and resolution continues to improve. Recently Canon launched the 70D, the latest model in the next band up of camera - the so-called 'prosumer' category - that would be a significant enough improvement over my current camera that I might consider getting it. 

Now, I'm not inclined to buy something like this without seeing it first, so when the local branch of high-end photo retailed Calumet announced an open day with attendance from various brands including Canon I thought I'd pop along. After all, Canon was bound to be showing off its well-reviewed latest model, wasn't it? I was indeed free yesterday morning so I headed over to the Hagley Road and went in. Canon had a table festooned with camera bodies and lots of very nice optics, so I introduced myself. The resulting conversation did not go exactly like this word-for-word, but it's very much the gist of what took place:

Most of my photography has been outdoor work, although I did do a wedding a couple of years ago that included some flash work. However, I've often admired the results you can get with a proper studio lighting setup, so yesterday I took the chance to go on a course aimed at introducing amateur photographers to the basics of studio lighting.

After following directions that took me through a Deptford industrial estate that looked like nothing so much as a location shoot for The Sweeney I found a converted factory unit with a well-equipped studio. Our instructor, Andy, welcomed me - I was the first to arrive - and we had a quick chat about my photo experience and what I wanted to learn. Five other students turned up (two women, three men) and our model, so we set to work.


( Lots of photos in this bit! )

It was a busy day, although we broke for lunch (this unusual diner is just round the corner), and I certainly felt I got my value for money. I now feel happy that I could hire a studio without either wasting most of my time trying to set up the lighting or having no idea what the various bits and pieces do. Commissions gratefully received...

I've been very remiss in sorting through and uploading photos of late (I have dozens from last autumn's US/Canada trip to get through) so here are a couple of unusual interiors from a recent weekend in Oxford:

( (Ex) Prison and Pitt Rivers )

A few shots from Tantallon Castle, on one of those days when the weather was a bit wet but, when it wasn't actually pouring down, made for some amazing photo opportunities.



More here (and more to come later)