I went to the presentation from Canon. How to take pictures at Airventure.
The first part of the presentation was on the basics of digital photography. Then the tips on aircraft photography came on.
For an airshow, use manual focus.
For prop planes, use about 1/250 sec for 2 blade props. Can use 1/225 for 4 blade props in order to give some blur. Warbirds usually have slower RPMs, so use a slower speed for them.
You many need many, many shots to get the right result.
Air-to-air photography needs a thourough plan before getting in the air. Safety is the much more important than getting the right shot.
For an sirshow, be sure you pan with the plane
Use long lenses
Wait for the plane to get close to you
Shoot to the sides of show center. You won’t be looking straight up as much.
If you have image stabailzation, use it, but only in mode 2 that doesn’t do horizontal stabilization. Otherwise panning by a plane will not look right.
Tele-converters degrade the lens quality up to 12%. It’s better to just crop a photo
If using a polarizing filter, use a circular polarization. It won’t interfere with auto-focus.
How do you handle crowds? Get up early!
Shoot airplane parts up close for interesting shots.
Don’t forget to get a self portrait of yourself in polished parts.
Canon runs a dawn patrol Thu-Sat at 7 AM where an instructor takes a group out on the grounds for photographing.