Wednesday 14 May 2014

Looking back...


One of the minor problems I've found since getting the new camera, is that it does rather eat through memory cards. That 18mp sensor is lovely, but particularly when shooting RAW files, rather than jpeg (and as I do a fair amount of the time now) it only takes a few hundred shots to have my previous stalwart 8GB cards showing "full". There's no way around it, this beast really needs feeding on 16GB cards at the least.

My previous methodology has been get home from a trip out with the camera, shove the memory card into the reader and download to the laptop or PC, and then once I've processed the pics, delete the shots from the card retaining those that have been deemed as "worth keeping" as a second backup. As and when a further "hard" backup gets done, then the cards can be cleared, but not until then. A new way of working is having to happen now though, or all my disposable income will be going on small plastic squares of memory! As a result I've knuckled down to check on my hard backups, and clearing down some cards as I've been going along - I've managed to clear 64GB of memory so far - which should at least see me through our upcoming Hebrides trip. One of the plus points of this is that every now and again you find some shots you forgot you had - last night it was a whole load of bits from a trip to the Eastbourne Airshow "Airbourne" in 2010...

The one that first caught my eye was this:



The Breitling wingwalkers - apparently the world's only formation wingwalking team! Always good to watch, with their Stearman bi-planes trailing smoke - and that orange colourscheme looks so good against a nice blue sky, too!

Next up the Gnat Display Team...



Local favourites to us, these, as you might remember from my recent post. They're based at North Weald Airfield and this was the first time I'd seen them displaying, as opposed to just flying about the local area, I believe.

Next up, another firm favourite...


The Blades are one of the most accomplished and professional display teams out there - since they first took to the skies at displays in 2006 they've flown over 4,000 displays with their Extra 300 planes and their team of ex RAF Red Arrows pilots. I particularly liked this blue paintscheme as well - it was great to photograph as it really jumped out against a sunny sky.

From one of the newer display teams on the circuit, let's jump to some of the grand old ladies - the planes of the RAF Battle Of Britain Memorial Flight...


There is something particularly poignant about seeing these beauties flying around the white cliffs that fringe this part of the English coast - it does rather make you think.

Sticking with an RAF theme then, but rather newer, and indeed LOUDER...

 Yep - it's a Typhoon - or the Eurofighter Typhoon to give it it's "proper" name. Whereas the Americans like to give their planes numbers, and use those first and foremost, we do like a good name over here - hence the new Joint Strike Fighter - technically the F35B - is mostly going to be referred to in these lands as the Lightning II. Anyway, back to the 'Phoon - this is one of my favourite pics of that particular beat - I love the "spluff" or water vapour over the top of the wings. Seafront airshows tend to be good for that, and it does make for a nice picture.

Finally, and possibly the shot I was most pleased to find, as I had absolutely NO recollection of having taken it - this is another North Weald resident, albeit I've only seen it fly a couple of times out of there and on neither occasion have conditions been right for photos...


She's a 1952 De Havilland Vampire - believed to be the only airworthy example of her type left in the Northern Hemisphere. Much as I'm pleased to have the photo above, it's not her most flattering angle - the sleek bullet-like lines can be seen far better when she shows a bit of topside. I'm hoping to get a chance to get some more shots of her soon - either at North Weald, or during this years display season.

As I go through the old stuff, and the backups, I'll see what else I find - I suspect there's a blog post or two to come yet, though!

Robyn

1 comment:

Scarlet said...

What fabulous photos to discover!