A Royal Marine
Day 2 of the Air Festival, and despite yesterday's set-back I am able to continue shooting by using my spare super-telephoto; a 300mm f/4. Not my first choice lens for such work but the optics are superb and it takes a tele-converter well, so I am back in business.
I start the day's proceedings at the first event; a simulated beach assault by the Royal Marines, but in contrast to other years there are cutbacks; a theme that prevails over the entire weekend. The display used to feature landing craft; support from both ship and helicopter, as well as the storming of the beach to deal with the bad guys, but this time around there are no landing craft or ship dealing with the "pirates".
Whether or not this has anything to do with world events and men and equipment being deployed elsewhere, but it doesn't have the full drama of previous years. A shame.
On top of that the Red Arrows' second display is one aircraft down. The reasons given over the Tannoy is that one of the pilots has food poisoning, and since there is no spare pilot, today there will be only 8 aircraft instead of the usual 9. Professional as ever, but it just doesn't look right to my eye.
All images: 300mm f/4 AF-S Nikkor with TC-14EII converter.
© 2017
