Over the years I have attended and photographed many air shows. Of all the subjects I have ever shot, without a doubt, air shows are the toughest to capture. Just a couple of days before the Dayton Air Show was scheduled to run I decided to find out when it was scheduled and take my wife to the event. I went online and discovered that the coming weekend was the date of the show, so, I had no prep time. I had no opportunity to request a press pass. I had no time to scout the location and pick a good vantage point. If I could pick my location I'd take a spot at one end of the runway. Well, no chance of that happening. I had to go general admission and make the best of it. Armed with my Manfrotto tripod and a "ProMaster" panning head, a Pentax *ist digital body, a Sigma 135-400 APO DG lens, and my wife in tow, I made for the air show (July 29th). The sky was cloudy early, hazy later, and the sun baked several people to the point of black-out. My challenge lay before me. Surrounded by people, I had to plan for swinging my tripod every which way and shoot as fast as possible as aircraft blew by me at speeds between 200 and 600 miles per hour. I set my camera to "program mode" and figured that I'd try both auto-focus and manual focus to capture as many shots as possible. The more shots I took, the better my chances of getting some good pictures. I wanted to shoot as long a focal length as possible and not have to crop images to get pleasing results. Did this tactic work? Here are a few samples:

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The left image is a classic formation. I wanted to show the vapor trails against a blue sky and this shot is textbook. Every air show photographer needs a few of these.

The middle shot is a close-up shot taken while panning the camera. It is hard to catch this sort of shot because the focal length is 400mm at this point and I am swinging the camera fast to keep up.

The right-hand shot was another of those 400mm, fast panning shots in a hazy sky.This one does show the vapor trail and I really wanted that. With such high-speed passes and narrow field-of-view I did not expect to get as much of the aircraft framed this well. A shot like this is won by attrition, seriously. You'll need to shoot a lot, shoot fast, and have lady luck in your favor.

I know from past experience that the Blue Angels, the highlight of this show, do certain "classic" maneuvers. To capture those, I had to shorten my focal length. This next shot is one such maneuver. I wanted to show the group in formation, the vapor trail, and the path they were taking, so, this one had to be shot with more sky around the group.

You can see what I mean about this type of shot needing more sky. To tell the story, to actually give someone an idea of what the jets are doing, you have to show the vapor trail, the climb, the subsequent dive. Without those elements, the shot would not properly tell the story of what I was watching.

Of course, the Blue Angels were not the only performers. There were stunt flyers and parachute jumpers, a demonstration of the Marine corps Harrier, a so-called "heritage flight" that featured a WWII era P38 along with a modern F16 fighter jet. Here are a couple of shots from the other performances:

I took lots of shots, 251 to be exact. Many of them were duplicates, so, I deleted the non-essentials. Naturally, I had a few high-speed passes that were not framed exactly as I wanted them and deleted those, too. Then there was the occasional mishap of high-speed panning and clicking the shutter just in time to catch the speaker tower blocking the aircraft I hoped to capture... delete. That's why you need to shoot a lot and plan carefully.

There are lots of things happening at air shows, but, for me, the highlights of the day are aerial maneuvers and high-speed passes over the crowd. It's the sound of after-burners, the gleaming birds zooming heaven-bound, and the G-forces those pilots are taking when they turn and bank at 600 miles per hour. Still, some of your best opportunities will be photographs of aircraft on the runway. You should look around and capture pilots in the cockpit before take-off. Parachute jumpers are also excellent, colorful subjects.

Since I can only give a small sample in the article, click this link to see a Windows Media Video file of the show's highlights. This is a 10 MB file, so, if you don't have a broadband connection to the internet, you might not want to download it. If you insist, you'll be waiting a while for your download. I warned you :o)

Air shows are a challenge to shoot, but, if you're like me, you'll have a great time whether you get some great pictures or not. This one could have been planned better. The day was scorching hot and several people were overcome by it. There was no place to find shade except under the wings of a few larger aircraft or inside the C-5 Galaxy. My wife retreated to shade but was sun-burned pretty badly. I weathered the sun and kept on clicking. At some angles the sky looked blue, at others it was washed out or gray and dreary. You can expect similar results at every air show. Don't worry about it. Your main focus is catching the action, and you can't always find the best vantage point. In this show, I made the most of it and got some great shots.

If you get a chance to catch an air show in your area, I hope you get some shots worth framing. Wear sun-screen, have fun, drink lots of water, and don't shoot straight at the sun.