Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Helicopters sound different when they hover.

I heard a sort-of-helicopter sound, but it sounded wrong. And it didn't change direction (as it does when they circle) or go away. So I finally went upstairs to see what's there to see.

The first thing I noticed is that the horizon is brown. WTF? Then I saw the helicopter (I don't think it's the police this time, but I haven't gotten a good look at the markings yet). It's hovering a couple blocks north and west of my house. And it seems to have been hovering a good long time. It's been explained to me that helicopter pilots Generally Do Not Hover because it uses vastly more fuel than moving forward even slightly does, so I'm wondering what's so important that they're hovering for so long (like, uh, twenty minutes, I think?).

I snapped some helicopter shots with a 300mm lens (actually a 100-300 zoom), which will have the blades frozen because I picked a high shutter speed to compensate for the difficulty of hand-holding a long lens out the window. I'm wondering whether they'll still be there long enough for me to put an even longer lens on one of my screwmount cameras, and whether Yet Another Helicopter Shot is worth loading up another roll of film (the camera I just used already had film in it).

Still not sure about that brown horizon. (Seemed more pronounced over downtown (east of here), but I noticed the tint in other directions as well.)