A Lovely Jubilee Air Show ~ 27May12

Despite the heat and beginning to wilt after three previous sweltering days being outside at Duxford, the first air show of the season for me and I thoroughly enjoyed it for the variety of aircraft and acts that were in it. Everything from 1930’s civilian to post war and modern military hardware. Having watched the Red Bull Matadors practice only bits of their routine a couple of days before at Duxford, it was interesting to see what the full display looked like. And very good it was to. Not a fast jet person myself but I did think the F-16 display was far better than the Typhoon, even though the Typhoon did set of more car alarms, and the first time I’ve caught flares coming off an aircraft. Although it’s very nice to see a Spitfire tail chase, the star item for me was definitely the Meteor T7.

Camera Techie Bit at the End and all photos taken from near Crash Gate A/ARCo compound.

Obligatory arty shot called ‘Bob’s Bottle of Water’ (Bob being one of the DAS flight line walk volunteers for the morning).

Camera Techie Bit at the End
Sony Alpha SLT-A35 + Sony 70-300mm G SSM Lens
I was using what Sony call on the A35 the ‘Tele-Zoom Continuous Advance Priority AE’ Mode.
This is basically shooting continuously at high speed for fast action shots, about 7 frames a second although I only did about 2 or 3 frames at a time, but it’s a 1.4x crop of the centre of the sensor using 8.4MP instead of the full 16.2MP. I had tried it before but being a camera function you were stuck with the settings it gave you. Jpeg, 1/1000sec+ & F5.6. Or so I thought. After a bit of experimenting on the Friday/Saturday and a quick read of the Owners Manual, manual control is possible although a bit restricted and fiddly. A bit more practice needed. According to the camera exif info my 400mm zoom lens, with the sensor crop and 1.4x tele-zoom, had a 35mm equivalent of 840mm and my 300mm zoom an equivalent of 630mm.

Brian