Eastbourne Air Show (Airbourne)

[GrahamL]

Hi Mike,

I like your Red Arrows shot.

Walking round the crowd it certainly gave a flavour of the size of the UK market for big tele's, certainly made my 70-300mm Tamron look somewhat of a minnow. One pair of photographers leaving had a canvas 4-wheeled collapsible trolley with a mass of photo bags on board looking most concerned that they might fall down the slope, I guess there were a number of pro's there from the quantity of quality equipment some had.

In general it was a bit crowded on the choicest bits of headland, Rose's choice of position was a good one. My feeling is that a good long lens, like Rose's Canon with 1.4x extender, is vital for if you want to catch the longer distance happenings. The height of the position at the top of Beachy Head made some great perspectives possible. While most people picked a position looking towards the show at Eastbourne you could move a short distance to the other side of the headland looking over the lighthouse. This gave some good shots over the cliffs and some reasonably good, fleeting, close-ups as they flew by. You just had to take care not to get in the way when moving about or simply wait for a gap in the programme.

To overcome the distance away from the main display I did try using a 2x extender coupled with an ancient 300mm Tamron SP on my D7100 (half-frame), giving an effective 900mm focal length. But on getting back the resultant images are too poor in quality in almost all cases. The 300mm shots with the modern stabilised Tamron 70-300mm and D810 (full frame) were much more effective, Rose's advice on overexposure and shutter speed settings helped a lot mind.

There's a good video of the Vulcan display on the web that shows a number of the views possible from Beachy Head, some of the video footage must have been shot just above where I took my better Vulcan shots. See: http://theaviationist.com/2015/08/16/xh558-display-beachy-head-cliffs/.

Cheers, Graham

[Mike Farley]

I like your Red Arrows shot.

Thanks, Graham.

I was shooting my Canon 7D with a Canon 300 f/4L and 1.4 extender, giving a FF equivalent length of 672 mm. Sometimes it was a bit too long, but more often than not I could have done with a bit more.

This shot is full frame and the plane was almost too close.

Vulcan - closest view

Vulcan - Closest.jpg (104.81 KiB) Viewed 2347 times

This is another full frame shot, this time taken from below.

Vulcan - underside

Vulcan - Underside.jpg (118.25 KiB) Viewed 2347 times

In this cropped image, the bomb bay doors are open. The next shot in the sequence shows them closing.

Vulcan bombaby doors open

Vulcan - Bomb Bay Doors Open.jpg (137.19 KiB) Viewed 2347 times

Finally, this is a heavily cropped image from the only sequence I have showing the profile of the plane from above.

Vulcan - profile

Vulcan - Profile.jpg (138.53 KiB) Viewed 2347 times

[Mike Farley]

There's a good video of the Vulcan display on the web that shows a number of the views possible from Beachy Head, some of the video footage must have been shot just above where I took my better Vulcan shots. See: http://theaviationist.com/2015/08/16/xh558-display-beachy-head-cliffs/.

Good video. I have only seen the Vulcan fly once previously several years ago at Biggin Hill and the ground shook. On this occasion, it seemed quieter possibly either as it was mostly flying side on or was further away. The video gives a good impression of the noise generated by the engines.

[Rose]

Great pics Mike - especially the first one.

Last time the Vulcan flew at Biggin Hill it blew a hole in the runway right before the Red Arrows were due to take off for their closing display...

[Mike Farley]

Great pics Mike - especially the first one.

Thanks, Rose. That first shot is not how I would present it, of course. This a modified version with the Canvas extended in Photoshop and Content Aware Fill used to complete the blank space. After bringing it back into Lightroom, I applied some moderate vignetting using Colour Priority.

Vulcan in level flight

Vulcan - Level Flight.jpg (99.18 KiB) Viewed 2344 times

Last time the Vulcan flew at Biggin Hill it blew a hole in the runway right before the Red Arrows were due to take off for their closing display...

Acrobatics on the ground.