The Aviation Photographer #5

p h o t o g r a p h e r

E-Magazine

A viation

The

issue Nr. 5 2018

SAA B 10 5

still going strong

L FA 7 - Ma ch Lo op

L o w l e v e l i n wa l e s

by P e t e r B r a u n s

s w e d is h a ir fo rc e special transport unit

To p Shots

from around the world

T ut o ria l

e d i 1t i n g , pa r t 1 - t h e b o r i n g s t u f f

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THIS ISSUE E D i t o r i a l : i t ' s t h at t i m e o f t h e y e a r . . .

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T U T O R I A L : e d i t i n g , pa r t 1 - t h e b o r i n g s t u f f

4-11

saab 105 - still going strong

12-21

To p s h o t s

22-25

s w e d i s h a i r fo r c e - s p e c i a l t r a n s p o r t u n i t

26-33

top shots

33-35

r e v i e w - m a c h lo o p by P e t e r b r a u n s

36-47

top shots

48-51

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EDITORIAL

It's that time of the year...

We are starting to see the light in a long and dark tunnel (and no, it’s not the train coming) as winter is slowly giving in to spring, with its sun and warmer weather, and we can look forward to those lovely, warm and sunny spring days when nature comes to life and we start seeing an increase in activity around airfields again.

We can’t wait for those days when you arrive to an airfield early in the morning, sun is just starting to come up and there is still mist in the area from all the dew. The air is crisp, your feet get wet from the dew in the grass and you are full of anticipation of what the day might bring.

This is also the time where you seem to have forgotten how it really is, when you arrive at an airfield and the rain is pouring down, sideways, it’s foggy and it’s not just your feet that are get wet and it sure isn’t just from the dew in the grass.

What’s not to love about that?

It’s time to start getting ready for the aviation photography season 2018, a season that has some truly promising events to look forward to.

The RAF, Polish Air Force and Finnish Air Force all have their centennial anniversaries this year and it seems as they are going all in to celebrate in style, giving all of us the opportunity to increase our library of aviation photographs.

So, charge your camera batteries, clean your sensors, clear you memory cards, make room on your hard-drive, polish you lenses and let’s get ready for the 2018 season!

Peter Eliasson www.e-pic.se

Jörgen Nilsson www.jn-photo.se 3

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tutorial editing, part 1 - the boring stuff When Peter and I decided to create The Aviation Photography, one of our primary objectives was to try and share our experience in aviation photography and editing, simply because we got a lot of questions about it. As always, we thought “how hard can it be?”.

It seems we never learn that it’s usually ”a bit” harder than what we first thought.

As we started to plan for this tutorial, and started to write, it dawned on us that we had to split this topic up in three parts, to make it manageable and to make it understandable.

Thus, this tutorial will be divided in to three parts, in two different issues: • Part 1 (this issue): Downloading, sorting, organizing, tagging and meta data. (the boring but practical stuff) • Part 2 (Issue #6): Fundamental editing in Adobe Lightroom (this is where the fun starts) • Part 3 (Issue #6): The detailing and fine touches (where creativity really sets in) We suspect that these are the tutorials that most of you have been looking forward to, the part where we show you how the magic is done, and where we show you all our editing secrets… Or not.

Because there aren’t any secrets and there is no magic involved.

What it mostly is, is processes and procedures with a touch of feeling added to it.

So, prepare for some tedious reading for a while as we have to go through some boring stuff before we get to the fun part.

We strongly recommend that you use Adobe Lightroom (LR) as your editing tool and yes, we know it cost money, but believe us when we say it is well worth the money. Lightroom can be a bit tricky to get started with as it requires that you work in a structured way, but there are a lot of tutorial videos online and once you get to grips with the program, you will have no problems with it. Note that the process that we describe here, is based on working in Adobe Lightroom, with the free NIK Collection plug-in installed.

Also, note that this is NOT a Lightroom tutorial, as we expect that you do have a fundamental knowledge of how LR works.

The first part of the editing process can be divided in to the following four steps: • Downloading from camera and re-naming the RAW image files • Meta tagging and weeding • Rating and organizing • Additional meta tagging, rating and weeding When we’ve been “on assignment”, at an airshow, we usually come home with somewhere between 3000 – 4000 pictures after a day of photography. Five or six air shows later or even after a three-day air show, we have a lot of pictures on our hard drives and we need to make sure that we can identify them and find them easaly, thus we need to organize them. This is where the editing process starts.

Downloading Before you download the RAW files to your hard drive, create a folder that allows you to quickly identify when and where the pictures were taken. Something like “shooting-date”_”event” should be enough. This way you’ll get the folders in a chronological order and it becomes easier to find the pictures. Now you transfer the RAW files from your memory card to the newly created folder on your hard-drive.

Renaming After downloading the RAW pictures from the camera memory card, on to your hard drive, in to the newly created folder, you want to rename the RAW files to give them unique names, so you know when they were taken and where they were taken. You can even add your own name in the filename, if you want to be able to identify who the picture was taken by.

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tutorial

The folder with the downloaded RAW files have been imported to LR and the folder shows up in the Folders list in the left side panel of LR. Note that in the sample above, the RAW files have already been re-named.

We prefer to rename the RAW files in Lightroom, as it has has a good “rename files” feature that is easy to use.

So, we start by importing the folder where you have downloaded the RAW files in to Lightroom. It should then show up in the Folders-list in the left side panel of Lightroom.

Since you now have all the RAW files in one and the same folder, it’s easy to do a batch-rename of all the files in one go, thus limiting the risk of getting duplicate file names.

First, make sure you sort all the RAW files by “Capture Time” so that you get the files in a chronological order.

This is done by selecting all the files in the folder and then select ”Capture Time” in the Sort feature at the bottom of LR. If you have followed our advice from the previous issue of the Aviation Photographer and synchronized the clocks on your cameras, you’ll get all pictures sorted in to the right order when doing this, even if the pictures comes from different cameras.

Now to renaming the RAW files. (Note that we are in the Library module of Lightroom when we do this!)

Make sure that you select all the RAW files in the new folder that you imported in to Lightroom and then you press F2 or you click on ”Library” in the upper horizontal menu to open the Library drop-down menu and then you select ”Rename Photos...”.

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tutorial

Lightroom has a very good tool for renaming files that allows you customize the name to your own liking.

One method is to name them as follows: “date taken”_”Event”_”Your Initials”_”number”.”fileformat” This gives you a file name that could look like this: 2017-07-15_RIAT_JN_0123.CR2 (for Canon photographers). Note that we use a four digit number, so that we don’t get duplicate numbers, as the system starts from 000 again, when you reach 999 if you use only three digits. Increase to five digits if you think you’ll take more than 9999 pictures in a day.

At this point of the process, you can transform your RAW files from the original forma (i.e. CR2 for Canon and NEF for Nikon etc.) the universal DNG format. This transformation has no impact on the quality of the RAW file, it simply makes it easier to work with the files regardless of what camera brand you use. As this is a transformation that takes time, we recommend you do this overnight.

Metadata Once all the downloaded RAW files have been re-named, it’s time to enter generic metadata for the files.

Meta data is basically information about the file, such as who’s taken it, if it’s copyrighted, who the owner of the picture is, GPS coordinates and information that makes the picture searchable, like event, aircraft, model, registration number etc. etc. It also includes the so called EXIF data of the file, like aperture, camera and lens used, shutter speed, i.e. information that we photo geeks are interested in knowing.

This EXIF information is also useful if you want to start using the Manual program on your camera instead of using the AV or TV program, as you can go back and see what combination of shutter speed and aperture works best.

And yes, this is boring work and it is very easy to skip this part, but get used to doing this step in the process, as it will be very helpful to you when you start having large number of pictures over a long period of time and you want to search for a picture on your hard drives.

Even with a limited amount of pictures like I have, about 7 TB in total, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find the older pictures, the ones I didn’t Meta-tag, back in beginning of my aviation photo ”career”.

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tutorial

In the example above, I’ve only selected one RAW file and then I have entered some key words for the picture. If I had selected all RAW files, they would all have gotten the same Key words.

Some generic Meta data is the same for all/most pictures that you’ve taken during a day so we can speed up the process a bit by adding this data to all RAW files in one go. The generic data are things like: • • • •

Creator Owner Copyright GPS location (if you stood at the same spot the whole day) • Event name You need to find the level of details in this information that suits you and your needs, and you’ll find this level out by experience. The data mentioned above is a good start and then you adapt it from there.

The more Metadata you add, the better, for future use.

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tutorial You have now uniquely named all the RAW files and you have given them generic Key Words and Metadata and you are ready for the next step in the process: Adding GPS coordinates.

The Map function in LR is a practical tool for adding GPS coordinates to your pictures.

Just Right-click on the map where you took the picture(s) and the GPS coordinates are added to your selected pictures.

So, what’s the point in having the GPS coordinates in your pictures?

By doing this you can easily check where you were standing when you took a particular picture, if you want to go back to the same spot again and some social media sites, like FB, use it when you ”check in” when posting your pictures.

This concludes the generic part of adding Metadata to all your pictures in one go. Finish the process by making sure that the data is saved, so that you don’t have to re-do it.

If all generic Metadata has been saved, it will say so in the ”Metadata Status” field. (see below) Weeding The next step is to do a quick run-through of the RAW files and delete those files that you won’t ever edit.

How do I know which pictures I can/will edit and which I should delete?

In this step of the process, we are looking for the obviously bad pictures, those who are out of focus, only has the back third of the aircraft in it and so on. The ones you see immediately, at a first glance, that you know you’ll never edit.

There is a learning curve here, as a picture with only a third of an aircraft isn’t always an automatic delete, because there might be details in the picture that makes it worth saving for future editing.

It can even be fun to edit those really bad ones sometimes, just for a laugh.

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tutorial

As you do this, you can also use the “rating tool”, where you assign a star rating to the pictures based on how good you think they are.

• • • • •

Five stars means that it’s an awesome picture and an absolute edit Four starts mean it’s good and should be edited Three stars means it might be worth editing Any picture with a rating of two stars or less, is an automatic delete Pictures marked as discarded will be deleted immediately.

You can then sort out all pictures that are marked for deletion, by using ”Attributes filtering”, and delete them in one go.

By using this method, we are weeding out those pictures that we don’t want to spend any more time on and files that would just be a waste of hard drive space. I personally know how difficult it can be to delete image files, as I seem to have a dominant hamster gene that don’t want to delete anything, but at some point in time you have to let go and just let your better judgement take over.

Have you fallen asleep yet?

We want to give you fair warning, that it’s about to get even more boring, so grabbing a cup of coffee might be a good idea.

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tutorial Organizing Next step in our process is to sort the pictures based on what’s in them, i.e. we sort them by Manufacturer and type, one folder for each manufacturer and subfolders for different types/models. Tedious work, yes, but this will save you a lot of time when you want to find/edit these pictures later on. Each hour that you invest in these steps, saves you three times as much time later on, when you try to find them again.

Lightroom has some good and simple tools for creating folders and moving pictures to those folders and a folder structure can look something like this.

Once the pictures have been sorted according to manufacturer and model, you can add meta data that is specific to the aircraft, such as model, registration number, markings etc. Again, a tedious job but as this data, like the ”Title” and ”Caption” text, is embedded in to the image file, most image uploading sites like Flickr and 500px uses this information so you don’t have to enter it manually after uploading a picture. So, you see, adding these meta data saves you time. And since you have sorted the pictures in to different folders, in most cases you add this meta data in batches, sub folder by sub folder.

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tutorial Sorting the pictures in to aircraft manufacturer and model, as described in this tutorial has the added benefit that we can utilize this when using a feature in Lightroom called ”Collections”, where we can create virtual folders that contain all pictures of a particular make/model thus having them all gathered in one place.

This makes it a bit easier to get an overview of all pictures you have of an aircraft model and you don’t have to spend a lot of time looking through your hard drives.

You now have a bunch of meta-tagged, sorted and rated pictures on your hard drive that are almost ready to be edited.

Our last recommendation for this part of the editing process is that you go through the remaining, rated, pictures that you have and do a second round of weeding. The purpose of this is to be a bit more efficient once you start with the actual editing, in the regard that you can then focus on the pictures you think are good enough to be processed.

You can do this in Lightroom, but there are tools that can help speed up this process a bit.

One of these tools is called FastRawViewer (https://www.fastrawviewer.com/) and that’s just what it is, a tool that allows you to quickly browse through your RAW files and rate them. It’s not a tool that you must have, but at €16.99:- it’s well worth the money. You can download and try this tool out for 30 days, free of charge, if you want.

If you use an external program to rate your RAW files, you need to synchronize the LR folder where the rated pictures are located, as LR needs to read the files again, to update the ratings.

How many of you did we manage to put to sleep?

A bunch probably.

As we have stated a couple of times already, these steps are not necessary to do, and the level of detail you use when entering meta data and Keywords is all up to you and your needs. If you don’t have the patience to do this work you can jump straight in to the editing of your pictures, but we speak from experience when we say that the time you invest in doing this work will save you time in the long run.

And when the work is done, you can focus all your energy and creativity on the fun part of editing.

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SAAB 105

st i l l goin g s t r o n g, after 5 0 year s

SAAB 105 jet trainer (SK 60) - Photographer: Jörgen Nilsson - jn-photo.se (Canon EOS 5D Mark IV - Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS + 1.4x - 700.0 mm - ISO 500 - f/5.6 - 1/500)

SAAB 105, also know as SAAB 105 Florette, is a Swedish two-engine jet aircraft manufactured by SAAB, with Swedish Air Force designation Sk 60 and Austrian Air Force designation SAAB 105 OE. The aircraft main purpose in the Swedish Air Force is as a jet trainer, used to train future jetfighter pilots, but it’s also been used as a liaison/transport aircraft, a reconnaissance aircraft and light attack aircraft. The plane first flew in 1963 and it started its career in the Swedish Air Force in 1967 and it’s still in service. The most common configuration of the cockpit is a 2 seat, side-by-side configuration (Sk 60B) but there are also a 4 seat version (Sk 60D and E), where the two ejection seats have been replaced by four fixed seats. The difference between the D and E version is instrumentation, where the D version has Swedish military metric instrumentation while the E version has civilian instrumentation graded in feet/knot.

Sk 60B was equipped to serve as a light attack aircraft and it could be armed with 2 x 30 mm canon pods, 2 x 6 pcs 13,5 attack rockets or 2 x Rb 05 Attack missile. As an attack aircraft, the planes would operate by low level flying to the designated target, gain altitude for the attack and then escape using low level flight. To get an idea of how low they would fly, there’s been reports of pilots almost colliding with moose on clear-felled areas in the northern parts of Sweden.

The Sk 60C version was modified to work as a reconnaissance aircraft where the nose of the aircraft was extended, to house a number of cameras.

Sk 60W are upgraded Sk 60A, B and C with more powerful Williams Rolls FJ44 turbo fan engines.

The version that was exported to Austria was designated 105Ö (or OE) equipped with two General Electric J85 engines and compared to the A - W models, it flies like a bat out of hell .

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saab 105

SAAB 105 jet trainer (SK 60) - Photographer: Jörgen Nilsson - jn-photo.se (Canon EOS 5D Mark III - Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4x - 700.0 mm - ISO 250 - f/5.6 - 1/1600)

Swedish Air Force display team ” Team 60” - Photographer: Jörgen Nilsson - jn-photo.se (Canon EOS 5D Mark IV - Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS - 500.0 mm - ISO 100 - f/4.5 - 1/1000) 13

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saab 105

SAAB 105 jet trainer (SK 60) - Photographer: Jรถrgen Nilsson - jn-photo.se (Canon EOS 5D Mark III - Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4x - 700.0 mm - ISO 200 - f/5.6 - 1/1600)

SAAB 105 jet trainer (SK 60) - Photographer: Jรถrgen Nilsson - jn-photo.se (Canon EOS 5D Mark III - Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS + 1.4x - 700.0 mm - ISO 160 - f/5.6 - 1/400) 14

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saab 105

SwAFHF ’s SAAB 105 - Photographer: Peter Eliasson - e-pic.se (Canon EOS 70D - Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4x - 700 mm - ISO 200 - f/6.3 - 1/1000)

SAAB 105 is also the aircraft used by the Swedish Air Force Display Team ”Team 60” and when the aircraft are not used for displays, they are used in the daily service of the Air Force pilot school in Linköping, Sweden and the pilots switch from being display pilots to being instructor pilots.

Versions Sk 60A Sk 60B Sk 60C

Technical data SAAB 105 Width: 9,4 m Length: 10,5 m Height: Max. take off weight: Max speed: Thrust: Engine:

2,7 m 4024 kg 770 km/h (Sk 60B) 2 x 742 hp (Sk 60B) 2 x RM9B (Sk 60B)

Sk 60D Sk 60E Sk 60W Sk 60OE

More SAAB 105 pictures can be found here: • http://www.jn-photo.se/Browse-my-images/By-Type/SAAB/SAAB-105/ • http://www.e-pic.se/Aircraft/Aircraft-sorted-by-type/SAAB/Saab-105-SK-60 15

Role Two seater jet trainer Two seater light attack Two seater attack and reconnaissance Four seater transport Four seater transport with civilian instrumentation Upgraded A, B and C models Austrian version

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saab 105

Swedish Air Force SAAB 105 - Photographer: Jรถrgen Nilsson - jn-photo.se (Canon EOS 5D Mark III - Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS + 1.4x - 700.0 mm - ISO 200 - f/5.6 - 1/1600)

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saab 105

Swedish Air Force SAAB 105 - Photographer: Jรถrgen Nilsson - jn-photo.se (Canon EOS 5D Mark III - Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS + 1.4x - 700.0 mm - ISO 250 - f/6.3 - 1/320)

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saab 105

A ustrian Air Force SAAB 105 - Photographer: Jรถrgen Nilsson - jn-photo.se (Canon EOS 5D Mark III - Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS + 1.4x - 700.0 mm - ISO 250 - f/6.3 - 1/1600)

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top shot

Swedish Air Force Historic Flight's Noorduyn Har vard AT-16II B Photographer: Jรถrgen Nilsson - jn-photo.se (Canon EOS 5D Mark III - Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM - 300.0 mm - ISO 125 - f/6.3 - 1/200)

Royal Australian Air Force E-7A Wedgetail - Photographer: Jรถrgen Nilsson - jn-photo.se (Canon EOS 5D Mark III - Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM - 188 mm - ISO 100 - f/14 - 1/100) 22

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To p s h o t

Turkish Airlines Boeing 737-8F2 - Photographer: Jรถrgen Nilsson - jn-photo.se (Canon EOS 5D Mark III - Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM - 500.0 mm - ISO 100 - f/6.3 - 1/400)

Romanian Air Force MiG 21MF-75 Lancer C - Photographer: Peter Eliasson - e-pic.se (Canon EOS 5D Mark III - Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS + 2x - 1000.0 mm - ISO 400 - f/8 - 1/1250) 23

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To p s h o t

Tupolev Tu-134A - Photographer: Peter Eliasson - e-pic.se (Canon EOS 5D Mark III - Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS + 1.4x - 700.0 mm - ISO 100 - f/7.1 - 1/640)

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s w e d i s h a i r fo r c e sp ec i al tr a n s po r t un it

Swedish Air Force S 102 B - Gulfstream G4 S - Photographer: Peter Eliasson - e-pic.se (Canon EOS 5D Mark IV - Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM + 2x - 1200 mm - ISO 160 - f/8 - 1/400)

A part of the Swedish Air Force Airlift Sqn at the F7 Såtenäs Wing, operates what’s called the Special Transport Unit and they are responsible for VIP- and personnel transport, like Government officials and members of the Royal family and surveillance and airborne radar systems. This is one of those units that you don’t hear much about as they usually try to keep a low profile due to the nature of their missions.

They have a mixed fleet of aircraft that ranges from Sabreliner 40A (TP 86) to Gulfstream G550 with some SAAB 340 in different configurations thrown in to the mix. The Special Transport Unit has a key role in watching Swedish and international air space over the Baltic Sea area, using aircraft nicknamed “Huginn” and “Muninn”. For those of you who know your Viking Norse Mythology, Huginn and Mininn were a pair of ravens who flew all over the world, bringing information to the God Odin. That should give you a pretty good idea of what these aircrafts are doing.

The unit is divided amongst a couple of different Air Force Flotillas / airports in Sweden.

Sweden is also participating in the European Air Flotilla Heavy Airlift Wing, stationed in Hungary, where we co-share three C-17 Globemaster transport aircrafts together with USA, Finland and ten NATO countries. After USA, Sweden has the most flight hours of all participants.

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Aircrafts used by the Special Transport unit Gulstream G550 (TP 102) 3 SAAB 340 (S100D/ASC890) 2 Gulfstream G4S (S 102 B) SAAB 340 (TP 100A/C) S a b rel i n er 4 0 A (T P 8 6 ) Boeing C-17 Globemaster

2 2 1 3 (co-shared)

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s w e d i s h a i r fo r c e

Heav y Airlift Wing ’s Boeing C-17 Globemaster - Photographer: Jörgen Nilsson - jn-photo.se (Canon EOS 5D Mark III - Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4x - 700 mm - ISO 125 - f/5.6 - 1/640)

Swedish Air Force SAAB 340 (TP 100C) - Photographer: Jörgen Nilsson - jn-photo.se (Canon EOS 5D Mark III - Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM - 200.0 mm - ISO 100 - f/7.1 - 1/80)

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s w e d i s h a i r fo r c e

Swedish Air Force S 102 B - Gulfstream G4 S - Photographer: Jรถrgen Nilsson - jn-photo.se (Canon EOS 5D Mark III - Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4x - 700 mm - ISO 800 - f/5.6 - 1/400)

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s w e d i s h a i r fo r c e

Swedish Air Force S-100B Argus - Photographer: Jรถrgen Nilsson - jn-photo.se (Canon EOS 70D - Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM - 124 mm - ISO 100 - f/14 - 1/100)

Swedish Air Force S100D/ASC890 (SAAB 340) - Photographer: Jรถrgen Nilsson - jn-photo.se (Canon EOS 5D Mark III - Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS + 1.4x - 700 mm - ISO 200 - f/5.6 - 1/125) 30

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s w e d i s h a i r fo r c e

Swedish Air Force Saab 340B/Plus (TP 100C) - Photographer: Peter Eliasson - e-pic.se (Canon EOS 5D Mark III - Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM - 310 mm - ISO 100 - f/13 - 1/80)

Swedish Air Force S 102 B - Gulfstream G4 S - Photographer: Jรถrgen Nilsson - jn-photo.se (Canon EOS 5D Mark III - Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4x - 700 mm - ISO 800 - f/5.6 - 1/400) 31

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s w e d i s h a i r fo r c e

Swedish Air Force Gulfstream IV - Photographer: Jรถrgen Nilsson - jn-photo.se (Canon EOS 5D Mark III - Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4x - 700 mm - ISO 100 - f/14 - 1/250)

Swedish Air Force Rockwell International Sabreliner 40A (TP 86) Photographer: Jรถrgen Nilsson - jn-photo.se (Canon EOS 5D Mark III - Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS + 1.4x - 700 mm - ISO 250 - f/5.6 - 1/1600) 32

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top shot

Dutch AH-64D Apache Solo Display Team - Photographer: Jรถrgen Nilsson - jn-photo.se (Canon EOS 5D Mark III - Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4x - 700.0 mm - ISO 100 - f/7.1 - 1/160)

Boeing CH-47 Chinook HC.2 - Photographer: Jรถrgen Nilsson - jn-photo.se (Canon EOS 5D Mark III - Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4x - 700.0 mm - ISO 100 - f/14 - 1/160) 33

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To p s h o t

RAF / BeA EF-2000 Typhoon FGR .4 - Photographer: Jรถrgen Nilsson - jn-photo.se (Canon EOS 5D Mark III - Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS + 1.4x - 700,0 MM - ISO 320 - f/6,3 - 1/1600) 34

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m a c h lo o p

lfa 7 - low le v el in wales My name is Peter Brauns, I am a Swedish aviation photographer with a severe addiction to the Mach loop.

I am by no means an expert, but I have some 30 days of shooting in total, over a period of four years, in Mach loop.

If you have any interest in aviation or aviation photography you should add a visit to “The Loop� on your bucket list! The Mach loop is a series of valleys located in northern Wales, where mainly the Royal Air Force and US Air Force practice low level flying on a regular basis. The surrounding hills give you the opportunity to photograph the jets from the same level or higher than the jets altitude while flying through the valley. Shooting from a hill some 100 meters away from the action makes for some very challenging and rewarding aviation photography.

This guide will walk you through the basics of shooting jets in the loop and briefly describe the different photo locations and the possibilities that they offer.

Map courtesy of http://machloop.co.uk/

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m a c h lo o p How to get there The Mach Loop area is situated about 160km (90miles) south‐west of Manchester, which is a good starting point if you, like us, come in from abroad. If your are flying in from outside Europe, London might be the place where you enter the UK and it’s possible to drive from London but Manchester is definetly closer. Rent a car and head towards the town of Dolgellau, the town nearest to ”the Loop”.

To save you some embarrassment, don´t try to pronounce that name in front of the locals, as they will only give you a funny look. Just say ” Yeah I´m staying in Doll” and you’ll be fine.

Dolgellau is a charming little town with plenty of old houses, pubs and accommodation options available and the prices are reasonable.

The roads in Wales are very narrow and twisty so take your time driving there and in the area, and as you know the Britt’s drive on the wrong side of the road, so caution is advised.

DO NOT park your car in such a way that you block access to gates and roads for the local farmers in the area. We are guests in the area and we don’t want to cause any problems that will eventualy lead to us aviation photographers being banned from the area.

It’s highly recommended that you wisit www.machloop.co.uk and read up on the latest information from the area and what the local ”code of conduct” is. This site also has a lot of usefull information as to what equipment to bring, to climb up and down the hills in the area.

Photo locations Bwlch The Bwlch, or “Bulk” as it pronounced, is a good location to start a photo tour in “The Loop”. This is where the aircraft most often enter the loop, coming in from your right and the distance when you first spot the aircraft is quite far, maybe the farthest in the loop, so you have plenty of time to spot them coming.

This location is good for head on shots of F15´s, often with vapor trails from the wings.

If you take a right when you have climbed the Bwlch, you end up at the ”exit” were the aircraft bank left, towards Cad. The light here is good during most part of the day except maybe very early in the morning.

On the Bwlch there are three shelves and the climb up to the top shelf takes about 45 minutes and can be an effort, but with normal fitness you will be fine. The path is rocky and very slippery if wet so be careful. Both cameras, lenses and bones have been broken on this path.

The two lower shelves are perfect if you have shorter focal length. For the top, I recommend 400‐500mm of focal length on a full frame body.

The Car park takes about 18 cars if I remember correctly and can sometimes be full by 07:30am.

The picture on the next page is taken from the top shelf at Bwlch and it’s only slightly cropped from the original image size. This was one of the first pictures I took at my first visit to Mach Loop back in 2014, only one hour after arriving to the photo location.

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m a c h lo o p

USAF F15C Eagle - Picture taken from Blwch.

Photographer: Peter Brauns - w w w.peterbrauns.photoshelter.com (Canon EOS 5DMk3 - Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM - ISO 160 - f/5.0 - 1/1250) 38

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m a c h lo o p Cad West Cad West, or ” flip flop hill” as it is also called, is the easiest and probably the most popular location in the Loop. Very easy to access and plenty of parking space. It’s best describes as a ”grassy hill” and you just follow the path up from the car park towards the photo location.

The Jets come in from your left, in a hard right-hand banking turn, giving you a very nice top side photo opportunity. The light at this photo locationis also good all day.

This is where you get really close to the action and you will do fine with a 300mm lens, or even less, if you are on a crop body. The more focal length you have, the further up the hill you go.

A problem on Cad west in the summertime is the tics, as the hills are home to a lot of sheep. Full cover clothing is not a bad idea if you want to avoid leaving with some unwanted guests.

RAF Typhoon FGR4 - Picture taken from Cad West Photographer: Peter Brauns - w w w.peterbrauns.photoshelter.com (Canon EOS 5DMk3 - Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM - ISO 200 - f/4.0 - 1/1600)

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m a c h lo o p Cad East Cad East is on the opposite side of west and the only spot you can drive your car almost all the way to the photo spot.

You can also walk up from Cad west car park, but it is a very steep climb.

You will also find the ”Snake pit” and ”The pulpit” here if you want some different angles. Good for head on and belly shots, light is good till noon, after that I recommend that you relocate.

Seeing a C‐130 or even an Airbus A‐400 twisting it´s way through the narrow pass at Cad is really something else

RAF C-130J Hercules C5 (L-382) - Picture taken from Cad East Photographer: Peter Brauns - w w w.peterbrauns.photoshelter.com (Canon EOS 5DMk3 -Canon EF 100-400Mk2 @153 mm - ISO - 160 - f/5 - 1/320)

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m a c h lo o p Corris Corner This is maybe the most scenic location with beautiful lake Tal�y�llyn as a back drop.

The walk up is quite steep but not so bad, gravel road and then a grass path.

As you are facing south, direct sunlight can be a problem. Plenty time to get your auto focus to snap on to the aircraft. You will have almost a 180 degrees topside bank as they fly around Corris.

USAF F-35A Lightning II hitting the loop for the first time, May 2nd 2017 - Picture taken from Corris C orner P hotographer: Peter Brauns - w w w.peterbrauns.photoshelter.com (Canon EOS 1DxMk2 - Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM - ISO160 - f/4.0- 1/1250)

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m a c h lo o p Camera gear and what settings I recommend you use Aviation photography in the Mach Loop doesn’t differ much from aviation photography at airshows, so the camera settings we covered in the second issue of the Aviation Photography will work nicely there.

The most noticeable difference between taking pictures at an air show and in Mach Loop is the speed of the aircraft and the time you have to find the aircraft in your view finder and get your auto focus to hook on to the aircraft. At this location, you will really benefit from a high burst rate and a big buffer camera as you have a short period of time to get as many pictures as possible.

My personal ”Go to” settings for the loop on a not too dull day is manual mode. Shutter speed set to 1250th/sec. Aperture F4 or 5,6 if I have the extender attached to my lens, ISO in auto mode, but limited to 400.

That works fine on a normal day. When you feel comfortable with your results you can start lowering your shutter speed even for fast jets, as this will give you a blurred background and your jet will look like it´s going a million miles per hour.

This panning technique takes a lot of practice, and you feel really good about yourself when you get it right. If your left arm is made of concrete, 1/50th a second is no problem.

For propeller driven aircraft like the C‐130, try something like 1/250, that will give you a reasonable chance for a sharp fuselage with some nice blur on the props.

Maybe the most difficult aircraft to shoot in the loop is the OV‐22 Osprey, those rotor blades are really really slow. I´d go for 1/100th sec and hope for the best. A sharp Osprey with frozen rotors goes in the bin!

BEA Hawk shot from Corris corner with long shutter speed (1/200th sec). I took about 30 pictures of this pass and only two were sharp P hotographer: Peter Brauns - w w w.peterbrauns.photoshelter.com (Canon EOS 1DxMk2 - Canon EF 100-400mm f/4-5,6L IS USM- ISO200-- f/4.0- 1/200)

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m a c h lo o p General Advice Arrive early: On some days the car parks are full by 07:30, if the weather is good they ARE full.

Weather: The area is notorious for its shifting weather conditions. Check the weather report before going up the hills!

Get acquainted: The regulars most often have radios and listen in to the radio traffic from the jets, they usually know in advance if something is on route to go low level. And they are very friendly so you’ll have no problems making friends here.

Don´t litter: This one should be really easy for most people to follow, but not all it seems. Don´t leave anything but your foot prints in the hills!

Don´t block the gates: There are gates on Bwlch, Cad East and Corris, don´t block them with your car. Shut the gates behind you. This land is owned by farmers and they need access to their animals at all times.

Food: Bring plenty of food and water for the whole day. It’s a long climb down if you need to get food or water from the car.

Ok then, but will I see any jets? There are NO guaranties that you will see anything, besides birds and butterflies, flying in the loop! There are NO time tables and no flying on bank holidays or weekends.

Did I say check the weather report?

Mach Loop lingo Office shot: a tight crop or close up of the cockpit, (often practiced when you´re missing a wing or the tail of the aircraft in your shot.)

Car parked: being overflown by an aircraft whilst still in the car park or on your way up or down Flip flop hill: Cad west, due to the easy walk up.

Land locked: A picture is considered more pleasing if you have the opposite mountain side or land as a background.

Tiffy: Eurofighter Typhoon Tonka: Panavia Tornado Regulars / Loopers: Photographers who visit the loop on a regular basis. Get acquainted with them, they are a really nice and helpful bunch and have a wealth of knowledge.

Long sheep shot: There are plenty of sheep in the valleys and they are often a part of the background. If you shoot with a really long shutter speed (1/40th) the sheep become very long and funny looking.

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m a c h lo o p What you might, or might not see, flying through the Loop • Panavia Tornado Gr4 • F15 eagle • British aerospace Hawk T2 or rarely T1 • C‐130 Hercules • Airbus A400M • OV22 Osprey • Eurofighter Typhoon • Boeing CH‐47 Chinook • Boeing AH‐64 Apache • Boeing C‐17 Globemaster III • The Tucano T1 On rare occasions the loop is visited by foreign air forces and you can see Belgian F16`s, US air force F35´s (has only looped once) and F22 Raptors.

Now that´s all fine, but this is really what the loop is all about!

Happy loopers on 2:nd of May 2017 after a day with more than 40 passes

More images from ”the Loop” can be found on my website: www.peterbrauns.photoshelter.com You can also follow me on instagram: peter_brauns_aviation

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m a c h lo o p RAF Tornado - Picture taken from Corris Corner.

Photographer: Peter Brauns - w w w.peterbrauns.photoshelter.com (Canon EOS 1DxMk 2 - Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM - ISO160 - f/4.0- 1/1250)

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top shots

Scandinavian Airlines System - Airbus A319-131 - Photographer: Jรถrgen Nilsson - jn-photo.se (Canon EOS 5D Mark III - Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS - 500,0 MM - ISO 100 - f/6.3 - 1/400

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top shots

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Lockheed Martin F-16AM Fighting Falcon, Belgium - Photographer: Peter Eliasson - e-pic.se (Canon EOS 5D Mark III - Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM + 2x - 1200 MM - ISO 100 - f/14 - 1/1250) 51

Polish Air Force Sukhoi Su-22M4 Fitter - Photographer: Peter Eliasson - e-pic.se Canon EOS 5D Mark III - Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS + 1.4x - 700.0 mm - f/5.6 - 1/1250 - ISO 320

Fa s t & Lo w A c t i o n P h o t o g r a py S w e d e n H B Publishers:

Jörgen Nilsson Peter Eliasson

E-mail: 52E - m a i l :

jnproduction@bredband.net peter.eliasson@e-pic.se

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