Seriously watch your wallet. I bought the XTi body for about $600 in 2006 when it came out, and $700 for the 10-22 and $250 for the 430EX. I thought that was it, as I could re-used my various Canon EF lenses gathering dust in the closet.

How wrong I was. No only had I upgraded the body to the 40D, all the lenses I'm using are new purchase (new or used). 17-55, 70-200/4LIS, 50/1.4, 28/1.8, 85/1.8, Kenko 1.4x; and I still have the Tokina 11-16 and Kenko extension tubes on their way.

And that's not including other accessories like my total of 44GB of CF cards, flash diffuser, batteries, sensor cleaning kits and so on. You do the maths.

Whenever my Dad would go away for training they would usually end up near an airbase and do some military plane spotting. Eventually the MP's would show up and check him and shoo him or let him stay. I've wondered if doing civil plane spotting would cause the police to come check you out in this day and age.

Yes and no. Some airport authorities are more welcoming than others from what I've read. I got my info for my attempt at PHL tomorrow from Wings over Philadelphia, the local spotting club. It depends. Basically, don't look suspicious and don't park in a no parking area...those no parking areas under approaches can be a pain. When I worked at ACY, the Presidential aircraft liked to come by and do touch and go's, but the best spot to take pictures of it was in a restricted area.

I just uploaded some pics to my flickr page
They include some surf shots from the last 2 years and a Maldives Air Taxi
pics

Very cool.

rolov, any Maldives hotel recommendations?

The swoosh was a reference to US' new livery and their over-use of the swooshy lines. Which is just about all you'll see at PHL.

Northern Jersey (Sandy Hook) affords some excellent plane spotting if the JFK approach is from the South, which it generally is during the international arrivals bank.

And in other, other news, I drag-raced the SQ a340-5 yesterday. It on final into EWR, and I was on the Turnpike. :D So much more exciting than the CO 737's. ;)

Just checked out rolov's Argentina Adventure pics. ROFL. Why, exactly, were the cops chaining themselves to the bridge? Also, the photo of the river taken "after our boat's engine died..." priceless :D

I have been there 2 times and always stay on a surf boat, however last year after the surf trip I went from MLE to SYD for a week and had a 1 day stopover in MLE on the return .
So i looked into hotels and found the Club Med Kani for 1 night at a low rate compared to other resorts. ( I could not go anywhere that required sea plane since SQ arrives at night )
It was a nice hotel , they take you by boat from the airport and it was all inclusive , Drinks/Food/Activities/Boat Transfers.
You even get a late check out and a dinner if your departing flight is late in the evening ( SQ/MH)

I'm no fan of US, and I'd rather my first time trying this be at a place where the pics aren't something I'm necessarily motivated to produce keepers from. I love when airlines that are nearly broke feel the need to spend ungodly amounts of money on paint.

sdm1130 and I had an interesting experience spotting at HNL. We were in a parking lot that is for the private/civilian aviation section of the airport and there were tons of people sitting in cars watching the big jets takeoff and land. There were a few hanging out by the fences.

We had a security guard drive by (inside the fence) and tell us we had to talk to HNL airport relations to take pictures, so we stopped photographing and just watched.

About five minutes later a Honolulu Sheriff pulls up and asks us if we had been taking pictures, we told them 'Yes' and explained that we had stopped. They told us we could watch from our car but not near the fence :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Both of us were leaving HNL that day and didn't feel like getting in an argument with the officers but I think they could have handled the situation a lot better and tried not to BS us. There had been people up and down that fence all day long.

The cops had been asking for a pay increase. From what I heard , they get paid very low wages . The Gov has been ignoring them for weeks and they had temporary closures of the bridge before that day. But the deadline expired and they decided to shut it down completely.

Best Buy just sent out cancellation emails to those who've ordered the $200 Canon L lens. Best part is that it says the customer cancelled it. Haha... :rolleyes:

Sounds like you ran across a security guy who was having a bad day. Meh.

"Best Buy" is possibly the most ironically named company in this country.