This year the Royal Air Force (RAF) airshow at Leuchars airbase was celebrating the 70th aniversity of the battle of britain, for those that dont know this was hitlers campaign to gain air superiority over the english channel to allow an invasion of britain during WW2. Obviously the RAF won and prevented any attempt at invasion but at great cost in lives on both sides. It however was not just britain and germany fighting, many other nationals were involved including volunteers from the united states, and many of europes nations, who flew under the command of the RAF despite the US being officially neutral at this stage. Anyway history lesson asside the theme of the show the defence of the realm, past, present and future.

Sadly I missed the display of the Spitfire, Tornado and the Typhoon all flying together as the traffic was horrendous getting to the show, took 2 hours to travel the last 5 miles =/

but i did capture some nice images, the first was as i was walking into the shows just after the security checks and i saw the parachute display team coming down - was something of a hurried shot scrambling to get my camera out of my bag etc so...........


After getting into the show and making my way to the flight line and setting up my camera and tripod, the first display i saw, was the F-86 Sabre jet, here i messed up, normally i have my camera set for center focus point and when trying to track fast jets thats somewhat difficult, and i was shotting away and wasn't until i checked the images that i realised what a nubins i'd been so none of the sabre are worth showing - i've kept them since some are so so and at low res are ok so after setting my camera to auto autofocus selection the first up was the the
De Havilland Vampire





YAY!! some good images finally

Next into the air was a frence air force alpha jet - didn't really get anything to exciting here personally i just think the plane is abit ugly from alot of angles lol. So onward with the
Avro Vulcan Bomber





After the Vulcan was back on the ground Next up was the
RAF display Team - The Red Arrows

[cdurfor]

I'm off to shoot my 1st Airshow this weekend (Blue Angels etc @ VA Beach, VA). I'd love to know a little more about your set up. F-stop, ISO, Polarizing Lens... etc....

Many thanks for the humbling images!

C. Durfor

[stormcloud]

ok cant say i'm any sort of expert having shot precisely 2 airshows but afew things i have worked out

-autofocus continious
-automatic focus point selection
-high speed continious shooting mode

i tended to shoot at about iso 400 but all depends on light conditions just to get shutter speeds where you need them for fast moving targets - could shoot in either shutter or aperture priority - tended to shoot in aperture priority since wanted reasonble dof at long focal lengths but without sacrificng image quality by going to small - so was shooting in and arround f8

if the lighting wasn't changing from one second to the next with clouds and stuff you could take a reading off the grass or something and then shoot in manual to get the aircraft correctly exposed - otherwise dial in some exposure conpensation to help counter the bright skies

and always shoot in raw since you almost certainly going to get the exposure wrong some of the time and raw can save them

since i was mosly using my sigma 150-500mm i wasn't using any filters as its a pretty big filter size - but not sure its really needed anyway no reflections etc that need to be removed and certainly dont need nd filters

hope that help - but dont take that as gospel i'm no expert and you might find better ways to get shots - if you do let me know so i know for next time

[krandle]

Absolutely breathtaking and more than a motivator!!

Thanks for sharing!!

[pickles]

More sensational aircraft shots......what camera, lenses * settings were used....all very interesting for an "oldie" like me, who knows very little about digital.
However, I do like WW11 aircraft.....I know a bit more about them. than I do about digital photography.
I visited Duxford when I was in the UK around 10 yrs ago, & also went to an air show at Biggin Hill when that Cobra crashed.
Cheers, Pickles.

[MRRiley]

A bunch of very fine shots! The one of the Avro Vulcan coming in banked is spectacular as is the second one of the Red Arrows where the formation is coming in against those storm clouds. Well done.

Mike

[goddo31]

Many of these shots are awesome, very well done!
I love seeing the Lanc and the Vulcan is fantastic too as Mike mentions.

[akanarya]

great posts, thanks for sharing.
vulcan is incredibble.

[Dan]

Great shots. By the way, the De Havilland Vampire in the first two shots carries the roundel of the Royal Norwegian Air Force (Luftforsvaret). The show seems to have an international flavor, which is appropriate given the setting and the occasion. The air show is a fitting reminder of the contributions of the airmen of the RAF during the Battle of Britain. Perhaps a few words from the Prime Minister are in order:

"The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."

- Winston Churchill

[Nowhere Matt]

Yes that Vulcan shot is majestic indeed. Many of the images are really remarkable as well.

[jheu02]

The F-16 looks Dutch to me (Orange) -

Yep. The giveaway is the insignia on the wings. Looks like a Griffon is painted on the jet. Usually their "Tiger" squadrons have some colorfully painted jets as well.

Very nice shots.