feenej said:
Does anybody here photograph air-shows? I need a Minolta lens for the EAA Fly-In in OshKosh, Wisconsin this summer. I don't know if I should get a 200 or a 300 mm lens. I was thinking of getting pictures of the stunt airplanes in the sky. Canon Camera provides platforms at the flight line for photographers to use. I assume I can bring Minolta gear on the platforms, haha.
I went to my first air show last year, and I learned a lot.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wigwam/sets/72157600948952895/
I had a 70~200 zoom on my Pentax *ist DS, and I believe it was not long enough. I will be returning this year - I'm taking a 300mm lens. I'm currently testing an old M42 300mm prime and an old used Tamron 90~300 AF zoom. I'll take whichever one works best at the longer focal lengths.
What I also learned - some guys bring tripods - and don't use them. Most everyone shoots hand-held. A few will use monopods.
Being near the flightline is great for takeoffs, landings, and touch-and-goes, but a lot of great shots happen more or less straight up - so wherever you are, if you can look up, you're good.
Change ends of the runway to match the sun's position so you don't shoot contre jour and get silhouettes (unless that's what you want).
Bring water - the day gets long and the stuff they sell at the air shows costs a bunch.
Bring a folding chair. There are never enough seats, sitting on the ground kind of sucks, and the day gets long.
Polarizing filter.
Lots o' batteries and memory cards if you're shooting digital. Hard to review shots for sharpness while things are going on. I reverted to 'pray and spray' and in this case, it seemed to be a fairly good idea. I routinely filled up my memory buffer, so I loved my fast cards and cursed my slow ones.
I am not entirely sure if I prefer AF or MF for these events. I may try both this year and see which works better. My lens did hunt from time to time, and refused to lock on, or focused on the wrong point - but some newer dSLRs have better AF than mine. Very frustrating when you miss a shot due to the stupid camera refusing to take the photo when you press the button. An argument for MF, I guess.
If you can do it - and some people can - keep both eyes open while you peer at the sky, especially when there are more than two planes that cross paths. You need to anticipate where they will cross each other - if you see them both in your viewfinder, you will not be getting that shot - too late. You have to lead them like shooting ducks.
Also practice your panning techniques. It helps.
Look for crowd reaction shots if you like that kind of thing. Zooms are good if you can rack in and get more wide-angle kinds of things in between the exciting stuff in the air.
I guess there are some other things, but that's all that leaps to mind at the moment. I'm no expert - last time was the first time for me - but I made mental notes about what I did wrong, what equipment I needed and didn't have, and how I'd do it differently next time.
Good luck - have fun - airshows are great!
