I have to say I COMPLETELY agree with Steve! If I hadn't taken this picture, I would be certain this was a composite. I think you guys know me well enough to know that I am perfectly happy to make composites and always say so, I have nothing to hide as I am fine with people doing whatever if they feel it produces a good picture.
So in this case all i can say is, that's exactly how it is. However, I think there are a coupl of factors that perhaps explain some of the points. The biggest questions is ALWAYS (from me too!) how come the planes are so sharp. What needs to be borne in mind though is that the lighting was not as dark as it appears in this shot. The strength of light behind the Red Arrows was strong enough to allow for a plenty fast enough shutter speed to freeze the planes but of course that made for the sea being very dark indeed.
To show you what I mean, these two shots are 'out of camera' shots from exactly the same time showing how dark the sea became if you shot directly towards the sun (Picture 1) and if the sun was a bit to the side (Picture 2).
Pic 1:
Pic 2:
I had a few minutes of trying and the vast majority ended up in the 'beyond hope' bin. The one that I was able to bring up to this level DID take a lot of fiddling around, trying to bring up different areas at different levels and so forth. Even the sky is very noisy in the darker areas to the sides (which were almost black in the original!) The planes are in the only area of the picture that isn't noisy simply because of (a) the light and (b) the fact I worked on the planes to make them as sharp as possible!
So there you go, what can i say? It happened! Ok, it happened with several hours of PS faffing around to get the final shot! I assure you that if this was a composite I would be more than happy to say so. In fact, aside from the noise aspect, I'd be pretty happy to have achieved that using a composite :o) The only thing I am stating categorically was NOT faked was those planes on that sky. The rest was a lot of work to get a passable image.
Cheers,
Rob