Spitfires employed in the reconaissance role employed special camouflage. High altitude aircraft were painted a dark shade of blue overall (known as PRU Blue). Low level aircraft were often painted pink (known as PRU Pink), this unusual colour proved very good at hiding the aircraft against a background of low cloud.
Yes I remember saw the pink Spitfires in a old Aerospace publishing magazine, I will search some pictures.
A model of one
The darker patches on each wing (8 in total) would be the tape that was put over the machine guns muzzles, of armed Spits, to prevent mud entering on take off. That is why the wings of Spits returning to base always seem to have torn parts on them.
The later varients of combat Spits, armed with cannon, had condoms over their muzzles for the same purpose.
Here is a PRU blue owned by the USAF museum.
The recce flights had no armour or armanments for their planes, all were removed to increase endurance. Likewise, the high altitude flights tended to be very cold as the heat from the engines were rerouted away from the pilot to the cameras to keep them warm.
No one plane was assigned to one pilot, pilots would often fly a different Recce Spit each time they took off.
It was about now that “Gremlins” became quite common. From a book on Spitfires.
WW II aircrew were telling stories about them as early as the 1940’s, and Ronald Dahl, an ex-RAF-pilot, wrote “The Gremlins,” a fairy tale about the hazards of combat flying, in 1942. The book was published by Walt Disney and serialized in Cosmopolitan. Disney wanted to do a movie on the book that even Eleanor Roosevelt read to her grandchildren, but could not figure out how to make creatures who destroyed Allied aircraft lovable.
A Poem from WWII known to some English PRU pilots who first encountered the Gremlins that caused many problems for flight crews in the war. Gremlins were alleged to be mischievous, elf-like beings that were the “real” cause of engine trouble and other mechanical difficulties.
[quote]This is the tale of the Gremlins
As told by the PRU
At Benson and Wick and St Eval-
And believe me, you slobs, it’s true.When you’re seven miles up in the heavens,
(That’s a hell of a lonely spot)
And it’s fifty degrees below zero,
Which isn’t exactly hot.When you’re frozen blue like your Spitfire,
And your scared a Mosquito pink.
When you’re thousands of miles from nowhere,
And there’s nothing below but the drink.It’s then that you’ll see the Gremlins,
Green and gamboge and gold,
Male and female and neuter,
Gremlins both young and old.It’s no good trying to dodge them,
The lessons you learnt on the Link
Won’t help you evade a Gremlin,
Though you boost and you dive and you jink.White ones will wiggle your wing tips,
Male ones will muddle your maps,
Green ones will guzzle your glycol,
Females will flutter your flaps.Pink ones will perch on your perspex,
And dance pirouettes on your prop,
There’s a spherical middle-aged Gremlin,
Who’ll spin on your stick like a top.They’ll freeze up your camera shutters,
They’ll bite through your aileron wires,
They’ll bend and they’ll break and they’ll batter,
They’ll insert toasting forks into your tyres.And that is the tale of the Gremlins,
As told by the PRU,
(P)retty (R)uddy (U)nlikely to many,
But a fact, none the less, to the few.
Certainly a British manifestation, the first gremlins were allegedly encountered by photoreconnaisance units (PRUs), whilst flying at very high altitudes, the above RAF ditty says it all.
A 1943 Looney Tunes Cartoon introduced Americans to the Gremlin. Bugs Bunny’s “Falling Hare” cartoon stars Bugs and a Gremlin in an epic struggle to prevent the sabotaging of Bug’s aircraft. For some reason or another the aircraft is coloured pink, like the low level PRU aircraft.
More here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gremlin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falling_Hare
Source for above matierial
Close up to the gun feeder of a Mark IX from the polish Sqn 303, The hispano Mk-II cannon used a 20x110mm cartrigdes. 120 rounds per gun wree carried in the Spifire.
Setting the gun convergence in a mark IX of the Czech 310 sqn, the usual collimation range was 275 yads, but it migh vary according to the pilot tastes.
From what I have heard or read, it would depend on which phase of the war one is asking about. My current area of interest, for a museum newletter that I am publishing, is differences between the Mark V and the Mark IX, when faced with the appearance of the Focke-Wulf 190. With that and the beneficial effect the difference the Mark IX had on ensuing dogfights, I could only say that the Mark IX is the best.
Favourite variant is any of the contraprop variants, though I really really like the looks of JK535, a Spitfire VIII contraprop.
For the poll, MK IX, in 1942/43, Mk XIV in 1944.
(Incidently, despite the very different engine sound, if ever anyone has heard the Spitfire
or Mustang in a very low pass, the instant reaction, even IF you’re mentally prepared for it, is :“Holy F**K!!!” – I know, because I have been standing right next to the public barrier when each has passed at very low alititude – Spitfire, Hurricane, Mustang, at a couple of airshows I attended.)
Regards, Uyraell.
I’ll have to go with the Spitfire Mk IX, as it could tackle the FW-190 when it first came out, and it was able to carry bombs. However, I find the Spitfire Mk Vb the most beautifull version of the Spitfire. The Mk XIV was also very nise,…
Cheers,
Joppe
You’re right, `tis simply the looks of the contraprops that intrigue my eyes.
To me, they have a panache above the other Spitfire variants.
Regards, Uyraell.
There were two variants of recce Spitfires that were armed, the PR Type1G and the PR.XIII
I would have to go with the Mark IXe with 2x 20mm cannon and 2 x .50 cal MG
But I almost went for the Mk VIII, which really belongs on the poll, as the third most produced Spitfire after the Mk V and Mk IX.
The Mk VIII was supposed to be the best Spitfire to fly, according to most pilots. It probably doesn’t get the recognition it deserves because almost all Mk VIIIs were used in the Pacific/Asian theaters.
I was up in RAF Coningsby working in the BBMF Hanger when they had one of these in for a re-build (they were going to sell one of the other aircraft to pay for it at the time)
Spitfire Ltd Supermarine Spitfire LF.XVIe G-OXVI - Duxford
Mk 22!
Absolutely Beautiful, Clave ! 
Have you ever done the contraprop Spitfires?
I’m thinking of JK535 and others of a year or so later.
Gorgeous-looking Spitfires.
The other “oddity” is EN530, a Mk VB Captured and re-engined with a DB605 for test purposes.
Those would make for highly unsual and extremely interesting pictures.
Cheers, and Thanks for a beautiful piece of art.
Kind Regards, Uyraell.
Hmmm, powerful variant, but the Griffon potrudes too much, its lacks the elegance of Merlin spitfires.
I agree the Griffon_Spitfires are less elegant, though to my eyes, they show a design maturity the Merlin_Spitfires do not.
However, Panzerknacker, you do raise an interesting point, with mentioning elegance.
One reason I like the contraprop Spitfires is that (to my eyes, at least) the 5-bladed prop variants always looked significantly less elegant than the three, four, or 6-bladed (ie. contraprop). Five blades seemed to make the aircraft “chunky” and “boilerplate” -looking. :mrgreen:
Warm Regards, Uyraell.
Photography is a mirror of its time and the genuine historical document that must influence future impressions of a period that can never be repeated. Periods tend to be remembered by the people who were active in them, and we are fortunate in having a number of pictorial relics connected with personalities and material artifacts – some famous, some simply notorious, but all dearly remembered – who gave the significant impact upon one epoch as well as an distinctive flavor of great times of yore.
Instead of just another incomplete treatise about a true masterpiece of the art of mechanical design and creator of history that even today captures our fascination, instead of making an additional and unavoidably repetitious discourse about the object that symbolizes something greater than its mere form or function, let us commence with an highly individual snapshot coupled with the object of our devotion:
Connie Edwards with MK IXs and Mk XIVs at Debden in 1969. Photo taken by Mr. David James.
As you know, the making of the “The Battle of Britain” probably was the greatest single factor in turning the tide on the almost total extinction of airworthy Spitfires. By the beginning of 1968, 27 (about two squadrons) of Spitfires were brought together for active filming, 12 of which were in flyable condition.
Wilson Connell “Connie” Edwards was one of four pilots of the Confederate Air Force (a living museum in Texas dedicated to preserving WW II aircrafts) to fly some of the Bouchons used in “The Battle of Britain” film. However, he was pictured against the Spitfires, with a snapshot that does raise some pleasant memories about an airplane which represents not only the final stage of a marvelous technical development that had started in thirties, but also the apotheosis of the spirit and everlasting human values deeply embedded into early 1940s.
And for the poll - Mk XIV, an astonishing and truly inspiring combination of power, mobility, agility and sturdiness. 
If a gang of thugs were to press me against the wall and demand of me my favorite Mark of Spitfire, I would have to say… all of them!! I absolutely drool over Spitfires… they are one of my top fighter planes, ever!! Long live Reggie Mitchell’s creation!!