Dawlish Air Show – some Reds plus a bit of Vulcan

[jfb]

Spent an enjoyable afternoon sat on top of “Toggers Hill” – must have been around 1,000 people sat in the rain watching the event!! Ok the rain only lasted a short time, but a grand time was had by all. Just a couple of “happy snaps” I am sure there will be more along later…

1 - Where to start - one Red

2- Add one makes two

3 - Red Trio

4 - enough of that - here is the full set

5 - in context - looking towards Exmouth

6 - some heavy metal came to the party

7 - rock and roll

8 - these were nice

9 - bomb bay open

10 - air brakes on

Happy to add some more if you are interested??

 

[Redspider]

You had a better Vulcan display than us. Nice photos.

 

[jfb]

You had a better Vulcan display than us. Nice photos.

Sitting in the rain was not fun, we had about 3 small showers but they were not at critical times... There were plenty of togs at this one

A couple of togs - there were about 85,000 people down in the town!

We were at the top of a big hill, used by many of the displays

I will add a couple more of the Vulcan - front view

I quite like this one, simple

 

[rich315]

really nice set there! the close ups of the reds are the best imo, although display ones with the vulcan are stunning, very impressive

Where abouts was the event?

 

[mrgas]

excellent set , always good to see Vulcan pics

love the ones with the Vulcan and the red arrows

 

[retired]

much better than my feeble attempt, wrong lens and wrong settings.
Like your Vulcan shots and the first red
bri

 

[Ziploc]

Stunning set. Love the 2nd to last Vulcan shot.

 

[jfb]

Many thanks for all the kind comments - just a couple more...

there was some other stuff around as well...

Sometimes you just have the wrong lens on...

A bit of fun....

 

[Trappe]

They are all good including the crowd shots. it's interesting to see how some people are using their cameras.

The second shot in the second batch is my favourite. (red with air brake on)

 

[Chris_D]

Great shots - numbers 2 and 9 my favourites from the first batch, and I agree with Trappe that the Reds synchro pair shot is fantastic.

 

[andyred]

Some great shots, esp of the Vulcan, looks like it was a good day

 

[markjayne]

A great set, #5 has to be the one for me

Mark

 

[jfb]

Trappe/ChrisD – thanks for your comments – it was a grand day out, I try to find some new angles of the Reds, which of course is impossible – but the fun is trying. I had one body with my 400 f5.6 which worked well as well as a second with my trusty 35-350 which was great for getting lots of crowds and scene shots – these are a couple of over 1k taken – I had plenty of crossovers, I will have another look at the RAWs tonight…

I did try some train spotting as well

 

[pete.rush]

Looks like you had a great day at Dawlish, a good set of images despite the mixed conditions. Always wondered how the 400mm f5.6 would perform as an airshow lens, pretty impressive, I know the wildlife fac loves this lens perhaps it could be a cheaper alternative to the 400mm f4 DO

Anyway off to Bournemouth today and Shoreham tomorrow, hope the weather holds

Peter

 

[jfb]

I know the wildlife fac loves this lens perhaps it could be a cheaper alternative to the 400mm f4 DO

Anyway off to Bournemouth today and Shoreham tomorrow, hope the weather holds
Peter

Peter I was tempted by Bournemouth – looks like a cracking agenda with lots of goodies to keep you busy, good luck, I look forward to seeing some pics!!!

I did look at the DO and even before the recent price hike thought it was a lot of money for an “occasional use amateur” – I did the normal soul searching about the 100-400 or 300 or 400 – almost bought the 300 (IS, close focusing etc) and at the last moment switched to the 400 – logic was better to get the longest I could afford and I must admit I was not prepared for the high quality of images from the 400 f5.6 – it is great at birds but of course you can be use it for anything you can get in the frame and focused – as an all round lightweight, easy to carry lens it cannot really be faulted, my only slight problem is the minimum focus distance which is not great, but can be improved with a converter, I do not even miss the IS – mine is out next week for the Reds at Torquay and I will use it for the ZapfCat racing at Watergate Bay in September… I have even used it with a 2 x converter for dragonflies in flight, now that was a bit of a handful!!

 

[mick123]

Great set enjoyed looking at them , more people should post crowd shots

 

[JonP]

A lovely collection, how have you got the day to look so good, I was there but mine look like a completely different mist-laden event!

 

[jfb]

A lovely collection, how have you got the day to look so good, I was there but mine look like a completely different mist-laden event!

I am not sure, without seeing some of your pics – it was about trying to make the most of the event, having longer lenses can help but they are not crucial. The longest I was using was a 400 f5.6 which on my body (1.3 factor) gave me the equivalent of a 520mm lens. I really like the Red over the Exe Estuary above (number 5), that was taken at around 50mm so you really don’t need massive glass to get great pics. If you are still in the area I will be on the sea wall at Torquay on Wednesday at 18:00 for their Red show – this is quite effective as a venue as you are right on the axis of the display, it will give you a totally different perspective. Good luck...

 

[JonP]

I was on the other side of town, looking at you over on the hill. Unfortunately this year the Arrows chose to cross behind a big pine tree
I was using a 100-400mm on a 40D. No chance of getting to Torquay, I'll still be at work.
I'm still trying to work out how to get images up!

 

[JonP]

Right, I think i've got displaying images sorted!
1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

 

[jfb]

I was on the other side of town, looking at you over on the hill. Unfortunately this year the Arrows chose to cross behind a big pine tree
I was using a 100-400mm on a 40D. No chance of getting to Torquay, I'll still be at work.
I'm still trying to work out how to get images up!

Hi Jon thanks for sharing and pleased you sorted out the vagaries of posting – it does get easier (honest). I was doing a wedding on Saturday and spent Sunday ploughing through 1,000 RAWs – deep joy…

Sorry you can’t make Wednesday – Torquay is a nice display, I just hope the weather sorts itself as it is dark and miserable at the moment. Looking back I must admit that Dawlish turned out to be a very small show, I still do not know what happened to the Battle of Britain flight – it was a shame especially when compared to the enviable and complex flying schedules offered at Bournemouth and Shoreham – even Dartmouth is greatly restricted this year!

Your camera lens combination should be more than capable of delivering the goods, especially adding in the 1.6 factor of your 40D body - making that “white trombone” a handy 160-640 equiv – the only advantage about being up the hill was that you were at cockpit height. The downside was that you are well away from the main axis of the display, which is centred on the town.

Picking up on your images, they do seem a bit “muddy” not sure if it is a problem of the processing or at the taking stage - I have looked at a couple in PS and there is more to be had out of the images, in several they can be improved by using “levels” and “curves” – not sure what level you are with these tools – I also find that in this age of whizzo moniors, it is not quite as simple as it used to be, on my work machine these are not looking great, but possibly on my home machine they would be better. Re taking there is an element of trial and error with these things, I find that with my 1D MKIIN using Evaluative Metering the camera exposure is fine as displayed, with my older MKII I have to dial in between -1/3 and -1/2 stop to nail the picture – I also tend to use ISO 400 most of the time…

I am also relatively new on here and still trying to work out how it all works, I tend to lose things, but I will try to keep an eye out for your next pictures.

 

[JonP]

John, thanks for your words of encouragement. The first shot took me by surprise, they came right over our roof, low and fast. I was using Partial metering on Tv of 1/400 at ISO200. The lens is also new to me. I know my processing leaves something to be desired - more practice there as well!
As for the display, apparently the weather was too bad for the BoB flight and there were some issues with the Spitfire - that's why there was that long gap, from what I've heard the arrows couldn't do there full routine due to the low cloud - but the Vulcan was well worth the wait