Spitfire blue

A quickie post - again!

I was down at Whitstable yesterday, visiting my parents for  a very pleasant Sunday lunch, and the afternoon ritual of a walk with Small Dog around Long Rock, the shingle bank and open ground at Swalecliffe.

It was Whitstable Regatta weekend last weekend, and there's often a visit from aircraft which entertain the crowds on Tankerton slopes, looping and rolling out over the sea with fewer restrictions as to what they can do, especially height-wise. I picked up my gear as, although we we not going up to Tankerton, we might see something worth a picture from Swalecliffe.

As we left for the walk, a Spitfire arrived and displayed and I thought that was that, I'd missed it. However, as we were walking around Long Rock, both my dad and I realised we could hear a big aero-engine running, and I spotted a small but distinctive speck which looked like another Spitfire, orbiting overhead.

I grabbed out the works D7000, adding my TC20E3 and 70-200 f2.8, which gives an angle of view like a 600mm. It's best to try to keep some "spin" in the propellor blades, so I set 1/250 sec, VR on, +0.7 of a stop and fingers crossed. We still weren't sure if he was going to actually display, but he orbited back over land and we saw and heard him begin a shallow diving turn from the east.

And he went pretty much right overhead, which gave me the best picture - and certainly the closest - of the 10 minutes display.  I shot about 160 frames, and there's an awful lot that are lost because of trying to handhold an effective 600mm at 1/250th, even with VR, and there's a few dodgy framing, focus and exposure ones. But I've got five that I'm happy with, including one where I can read the registration, which allowed me to ID the 'plane and pilot for posterity.

But the best one was still from the sequence where he went right overhead to start his display...

Peter Teichman takes his Supermarine Spitfire PRXI, PL965, overhead to begin his display at Whitstable Regatta,
on Sunday 14th August 2011. This aircraft, a photo-reconnaissance version of the Spitfire, was built in 1944 and
is currently flown by Teichman from the former Battle of Britain RAF airfield at North Weald, Essex.
The image is uncropped: Nikon D7000, 70-200 f2.8 + TC20E3, 1/250th @ f11,
giving the angle of view of a 600mm.

I've deliberately left this uncropped, so you can see just how close I could get - there are two closer images; but in one the hint of blue sky has gone (damn!) and the other there's enough motion blur from dodgy panning that I haven't selected them as "top" versions. If I was to crop it I'd take a little from the left and bottom sides.