A Few Hours at Manchester Airport South Side Viewing Park

October 01, 2019

A Few Hours at Manchester Airport South Side Viewing Park

I recently visited the Manchester Airport South Viewing Park and as I'm a member of the National Trust I was able to park at the Oak Mills National Trust site and walk to the viewing area through the grounds to Styal. It's about a 2.5k walk to the viewing area, the viewing area is a raised bank that gives you a clear view over the Airfield boundary fence and you get great views of the aircraft taking off . I've been told that it is best to arrive early and shoot through the morning as the Sun will be in your face during the afternoon, luckily for me there was sufficient cloud cover to mask the effects of the Sun.


Aer Lingus

For this particular session I used my Canon Eos 1d MK111 body attached to a 70-200MM F2.8L IS USM Lens , this combo was perfectly adequate for the session and in fact you could drop to a 24-105 F4L IS USM and still get some great Images.

Air Canada

I like to add motion to my images which is a bit of a challenge as these aircraft are just starting their take off runs and they do not all start in the same place.


SAS

I found that my panning skills improved as the day went on, I was using a shutter speed of 1/25th of a second at F11 and ISO 100 with a focal length of circa 115mm anything slower than that and I could not attain a sharp image.