Stonehenge, Wiltshire, England. 10th July 2024.
The stone circle dates from around 2500 BC. It’s a pretty weird feeling to stand next to the stones and imagine the history of this ancient monument.
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Looks like you can walk to the stones again, didn’t they barricade it off a few years back ?
Last time i went here were kids playing football using the arches as goal posts - bit irreverent 
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No. You are still kept out to about 50-75m from the main stone circle.
Like, you as a kid growing up, I was taken to Stonehenge and, at that time, we could walk or, in the case of a 10 year old boy, run around in the middle of the monument.
Visiting them now is not the same experience. Those stone are just so much bigger and impressive viewed up close.
It is still roped off, which I think is a good thing. Some sections of the circle are approx 15 metres away from the rope, other sections are further away, due to the ditch that surrounds the circle. You can still walk within the stones, but only at dawn and dusk…booked in advance, for a premium price. No surprise there 
Nice precision shot! I spend way too much on HiFi (have my end-game system?? -yup, I said it) Good to see the details in your Macro pic even machine tool marks.
Just bought a Nikon 105mm f3.5 VR Macro / portrait lens … just thinking about getting (a little) into it!?
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@Mike_O_Neill As a 20-year-old we slept in the centre of the stones (motor bike and a good walk) completely open and accessible to all, went back 2023 and its so commercialised with massive remote car park, new education/visitors centre £10 bus ride to stones or 30min-ish walk – you cannot get close to the stones to feel them! A ruined experience (yet understand the need to preserve them) We arrived, parked-up, got the 
vibe and drove off! 
(TBF expectation from the 1980’s)
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I must have visited at least 30 yrs ago, I’ve been here 28 yrs, it was pretty lax as you
I suppose we should be lucky they haven’t been spray painted
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I went there fifty eight years ago, and asked my Grandfather to lift me up on to the top layer. He explained that might be a bit difficult, because if he did it for me he would have to lift all the other children up as well. Apparently the custodian he was talking to suggested to him that i could walk as far as i could up one of the fallen arches. I subsequently did so and got my Grandfather to catch me when i jumped off the end!
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As you pointed out, the stones need preserving, hence the limited access to within the stone circle. I’m guessing you originally visited around 30 - 40 years ago? It’s tough to think of many important sights that have not been commercialised since that era, although there are a few. The visitor centre was an interesting surprise to me. Also very important in passing on the historical information to the youngsters…and tourists.
The bus ride to the stones is free (included in the admission cost) although the walk to the stones is recommended, as the first sight of the stones (from a distance) is truly exhilarating. I should point out that you can still see the stones for free, it’s just that you cannot get as close as the paying punters. Me, personally, I was happy to pay to see one of Britain’s magical places.
p.s We are planning to visit the Castlerigg Stone Circle at the end of September. Baby teeth when compared to StoneHenge, but free 
https://www.keswick.org/explore/not-to-miss/castlerigg-stone-circle
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Yes, these days = need protecting (+yes 40+ years ago). For kids its a great set-up and the centre adds to the experiance. Time moves on … Lost are the days of just rocking-up as touch stones!
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A departure from my usual bird subjects. I went to a charity air and classic car show at a small private airfield near me. It’s a grass field and you get very close to the aircraft so there are often some good photo opportunities.
I find piston engined aircraft to be a technically challenging subject because of the required combination of long lenses and shutter speeds slow enough to get some blur in the propellers.
Spitfire Mk5C:
Hawker Hurricate MkI:
And Again:
Boing Steerman:
Boing B17 ‘Flying Fortress’ - “Sally B”
Edit: All pictures taken with a Canon EOS R5 using an EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 L IS MkII with a EF1.4X MkIII teleconverter at a combined focal length of 560mm. The Spitfire was shot at 1/400th of a second - which is really too fast although I just about get away with it in this picture because the propeller is in a plane orthoganal to the camera plane. The remainder of the pictures were taken at 1/250th of a second exposure time.
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This is still my favourite, Farnborough if I remember correctly
Cheating a bit it was hovering !!
Olympus OM4 Tamron 300 mm 2.8 on Fuji Reala, scanned from neg I recall
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I loved my OM4. To this day I regret selling it as I did in order to finance the purchase of a Canon 300D 
Hovering or not, that’s a great shot!
Of course, in this day and age, photographing jets is just so much easier:
- Auto focus does much of the heavy lifting
- Much higher shutter speeds are achievable because of the availability of ‘exotic’ ISO sensitivities.
It was (and still is) a very different proposition with manual focus film cameras and, practically speaking, being limited to a maximum of 400 ISO (yes I know 1000 and even 1600 ISO film became available in the 80’s and 90’s - but you didn’t want to use it unless you absolutely had to).
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I used Fuji 100 for prints then moved to Reala the colours were better. I very occasionally used 400 but rarely.
For trannies Fujichrome 50 or 100
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