Day 262 - Reluctant Messiah

on the up

I've been wanting to get a shot of this chap for ages, and this evening I just about managed it!

I didn't get home until gone 6pm, despite having left just after 7.30 this morning, and I was tired and distracted.  But as I bimbled about saying hello to Anna and the Cats (great band name - it would be worth starting a band just to call it that!), I realised I could hear in the background, like a bee somewhere in the undergrowth, the steady drone of a little prop plane.

Just as I realised he was up there, several things happened.

Firstly, I realised I'd been vaguely on my way to change out of work clothes, and consequently I was climbing the stairs and taking my trousers off at the same time.

Then I realised that the camera had the wrong lens on, and the right lens was packed away in the accessories bag somewhere.

As these thoughts jumbled around my head, I heard the distinctive increase in pitch of the plane's engine, to an angry whine, followed by a disturbing silence...and then a few seconds later, a hack and a cough as the engine sputtered back to life...it's the aerobatics guy!!

Quickly changing (but with no time to do my trousers up), I rushed to grab the DSLR and hastily swapped lenses, before dashing out into the bright, sunlit evening.

Scanning the skies, I saw him above and ahead, circling around for another go at the loop the loop, and barrel-rolling as he went.

It's really hard to focus on something small in the sky a long way away...if you're not close, focus wise, you can't see the subject at all, and so can't aim precisely at it to focus on it.   

Catch-22!

Once you find the plane, and manage to both zoom in and focus (best done in stages), your troubles aren't over...when you take a photo, the camera tries to auto-focus - if you're not pointing the centre of the viewfinder directly at the tiny (and moving!) plane as you hit the button, the camera will zoom out wildly trying to focus on nothing...and then you've lost sight of the plane and have to start all over again... 

It's quite frustrating!

I must have looked quite a sight, stumbling around the garden with my trousers falling off, wildly pointing my camera with the full-on perv lens on at the sky!

Good job I'm too old to be bothered about that!  ;-)

Anyway, I got 3 photo's before he wandered off into the sun...here's one of him the right way up:

on the level

It's good to see him back, I haven't seen him for a while...and actually, I'm not sure if it's the usual guy, as it's a different plane...maybe he's got a new one?

Maybe he's Donald Shimoda, The Reluctant Messiah, (which is a great book that you should all make the effort to read at some point)....that would be so cool! 

In any case, it looks as though he's having fun...

Wouldn't mind a go at that myself!

B-)