Top Aces F-16s

Luke AFB has some contractor operated jets that we were hoping to get a chance to shoot.  The ATAC Mirage F1s did launch while we were there but, despite waiting for quite some time, they never returned.  However, Top Aces launched their F-16A aircraft and we were more lucky with these guys.  They did do as requested and recovered before we left.  Contractor operations are usually with old jets of previous generations so it is hard for me to accept that early model F-16s are now sufficiently old to fit that model.  How can that be?  These ex-Israeli aircraft are still in their desert colors and it was nice to get a chance to shoot them.

Kitsap Fast Ferry

This Kitsap ferry left Seattle shortly after we had departed on the ferry to Bainbridge Island.  We did see the same ferry later as part of our return journey.  What caught my eye was its name.  It is called Solano which was a location in Northern California.  Turns out this boat used to provide services across San Francisco Bay and, when Kitsap County bought it, they didn’t decide to change its name.  Consequently, it is quite different to the other ferries in the region that have local names.

Canso Details

For the benefit of my Canadian friends, I will get this out of the way first.  Despite what the operators say and what is written on their signage, this plane is a Canso, not a PBY Catalina.  Okay, with that out of the way, the plane came to the Olympic Air Show in Olympia.  It looked excellent in its dark grey painting and had plenty of people around it on the ramp before it flew its display.  As with many planes of its vintage, it has lots of lumps and bumps.  I decided to spend a little time looking at some of the details rather than the whole plane.

Of course, you have to get some larger shots of the plane.  You can’t just stare at the rivets.  Also, I knew it would be flying and I would aim to get some shots of it then but that can be another post at some point.  For this, the bulbous curves of the nose area and the details of the bits that make it a flying boat were the focus.

Are You a Wren?

Walking through Juanita Bay Park with mum, we saw and heard a small bird nearby.  When we got a clear look at it, mum asked what it was.  Now, I am not a bird specialist, but I do have two things on my side.  One, I can get a photo of it and two, I have a very big book of North American birds at home so we can look it up afterwards.  Mum thought it looked like a wren based on the shape and angle of the tail and I thought she had a good point.  Sure enough, get to the book at home and it was indeed a marsh wren.  Cute little thing.

The Kingfisher is Flying but not a Demo Yet

The introduction of the Kingfisher to Canadian Air Force service has been a bit drawn out and is not yet complete.  This version of the Airbus C295 has some customization which has yet to be fully worked out.  However, there are a number of the aircraft delivered including at Comox AFB on Vancouver Island.  For the air show, there was one on the ramp and another was up and flying in the morning.  It was not performing a demo, but it flew a lot of patterns before the show got underway.  Therefore, I had my first exposure to a flying Kingfisher.  They should be a more regular sight in the Pacific Northwest in due course.

Initial Impressions of the RF 200-800

When Canon announced the RF 200-800 lens, I was mildly interested but not too bothered by it.  However, in an example of how easily a weak mind can be influenced, when I watched some reviews by those that had used the lens, I started to be more curious.  The focal length range was always of interest, but the aperture range had initially put me off.  The reviewers suggested that the excellent ISO performance of modern mirrorless cameras meant this wasn’t an issue.  Also, while not in anyway cheap, the lens was very well priced for the range it offered.

I went to my local shop and placed a deposit for one of the lenses.  This was many months ago.  After that, things got very quiet.  I was beginning to think that I would never see an actual lens.  Then I saw something on a Canon rumor site that said August was likely to be a time when a lot of lenses got delivered.  Whatever the blockage had been, there seemed to be some relief.  The last Tuesday of July (stuff seems to get delivered to stores on Tuesday I guess), I get a phone call telling me that my lens has arrived.  Hurrah!

After work, I headed down to pick it up.  I then headed down to the water in Kenmore – a short distance from the store – to give it a quick go.  I didn’t have a lot of time, but I got a quick feel for some of its quirks.  Initially I was a little unsettled.  The stabilization seemed very effective, but it did make tracking things that were moving slowly a bit jerky as if the stabilization didn’t believe that I actually wanted to be moving.  I worried that this would be an issue.  However, the images seemed to be rather sharp so maybe it knew what it was doing.

When I got home, I did spend a little time looking at the hummingbirds on the bushes.  The light was very low, which should be a problem for a lens with smaller apertures, but it seemed to work very well and the images were surprisingly sharp and clean.  I then took it to its first airshow.  Again, results were really very pleasing.  The 800mm reach was so helpful since the show line was quite distant and I was veery happy with the framing I could get.  The jumpiness in the viewfinder is still something I find rather distracting but it doesn’t seem to be an issue for the images, so I guess the stabilization knows what it is doing.  I also shot some video at 800mm handheld and, while there was initial wobbling, there comes a moment when it seems to get what is going on and then it is rock steady.  Quite bizarre.  I think this lens could be a key part of my shooting going forward.  We shall see as my experience grows with it.

Practicing Angles Before the Westwind Arrives

A previous post covered a recent Westwind arrival at SEA one weekend.  As I mentioned in that post, I was shooting from a new location for me.  Having not shot there before, I didn’t want to make the Westwind the first thing I photographed.  I used some of the preceding airliners to try a couple of spots to see what the angles were like and how much the surrounding trees obscured things.  These shots are from the experimenting.

Hydroplane Qualifying

Seafair is mainly about the airshow for me.  However, there is a lot more to it than that and the hydroplane races have long been a key part of proceedings.  I didn’t worry too much about the races as I was only planning on getting to the lake in time for the flying.  I did have an easy journey and got to the lakeshore earlier than expected and there appeared to be some qualifying underway on the water.  I was not well positioned to see the course, but I could still see them as they ran around the southern part of the track.  Consequently, I got a few shots and here are some pretty serious look hydroplanes.

Canadian Air Force 100th Anniversary Hornet

The Comox AFB air show was the first public display of the special anniversary painted CF-188A Hornet for the Canadian Air Force’s 100th birthday.  There had been some photo sorties undertaken in the weeks before the show to support some upcoming appearances, but this was its first public outing.  They pulled the jet out to the center of the crowd line for crewing and start up and it returned there after its display was complete.

The paint scheme is really impressive, and I hope the aging jet can stay serviceable throughout the season, so air show attendees get to see it in the air.  It does look very good.  The RCAF does seem to have a good history of painting demo jets really well and they must be very pleased with this one.  The light was a bit variable while it flew but I was happy with some of the shots I got of it.  One the ground it also looked great, particularly close up.

Can the Osprey Keep It’s Catch?

In a previous post, I had a heron that was being challenged for its meal by an eagle.  That was not the only battle underway for food I saw recently.  An osprey came flying towards us while carrying a fish.  I was disappointed that I hadn’t seen it make the catch, but the bay is large, and it had been off in the distance when it made the take.  It was flying at us with the fish hanging down in its talons.  We were not the only ones to spot it, though.

A bald eagle also had noticed what it was carrying and started to make a play for the meal.  There ensued a bit of aerial jousting as the eagle swooped at the osprey and the smaller bird turned hard to evade its pursuer.  It was able to keep away, but it wasn’t ever getting any separation and, I presume, it decided this was going to keep going until it was worn out unless it dropped the fish.  The fish fell to the water, and I didn’t see the eagle find it so maybe it sank (unless the fish was still alive, in which case maybe it swam off).