Following on from the cancellation of the original date of the SWAM nightshoot, I was skeptical that it would still be on, seeing the snow on the ground and fog in the air driving down to St Athan. I was very surprised to see the first blue skies of 2024, allowing the sun to cast its rays over the aircraft on the pan as I made my way up the road leading up to the museum.

It was my first time at South Wales Aviation Museum, one that I'd been meaning to tick off for a while. This was also my first nightshoot and organized event, with my only nighttime experience being shooting the B-1s at Fairford basking in the floodlights in 2023. While there was still enough light, we were invited round the back of the museum to view the 10 or so abandoned RAF Grob Vigilants and the boneyard. There were a fair few ex-RAF aircraft out the back including a Canberra, which I made sure to record all the serials of as I probably wouldn't be back for a long while. To my annoyance, the Vigilants are not in the serial book.

As the sun approached the horizon, a couple of my nice shots were the RAF100 Tornado and the Raspberry Ripple Tornado, which I think was a favorite of many others as well judging by the size of the crowds that formed before last light. My final golden hour shot of the night was of a Sea King inside the museum, of the golden rays entering the semi-closed hangar doors and reflecting off the gloss door of the helicopter. Check out my Instagram to see the shot.

In the time between last light and total darkness, I took a look around the inside of the museum, which housed the nicest livery Provost - XP672. It was great to be able to sit inside the Super Guppy cockpit as well!

After the sun had completely set, it was time to whip out the tripod. I started off with 5-second exposures but then quickly changed to the full 30 seconds which yielded a much more impressive result. I kept ISO at 100 throughout and I think aperture at f5. I used manual focus as there would be no chance that AF would stand a chance in pitch black. My technique was to use live view mode on the LCD screen, then digitally zoom in using the camera buttons and manually focus so the incredibly noisy image looked as sharp as it could on an LCD preview. Zoom back out digitally and you have an in-focus shot.

Highlights for me overall were the Desert Buccaneer and the Jaguar with its wingtip lights on. I thought it was quite atmospheric to have the Jag positioned on the road with a 20mph sign in the background, owing to its past of using dispersed runways.

Overall, it was a very good evening which produced some of my favorite shots to date.