Taking interesting pictures at an airshow doesn't require expensive equipment (although it helps). Last weekend (June 30-July 1, 2007) I attended my second airshow ever. I already had some experience from last year. This helped me a lot in preparing, but of course every time something new comes up. I'd like to share with you what I learned so far.

All photos were taken with a Canon PowerShot A640, and I'm describing my experiences specific to this model. Your mileage may vary.

First of all, I suggest that you spend some time preparing for the event.

Most airshows happen during the summer, so be prepared for a whole day in hot weather. Wear a hat and apply sunblocker on exposed skin. I didn't do the latter and now I'm healing from an itching sunburn on my forearms. Also, be sure to drink a lot of water to prevent dehydration.

Have spare batteries and a large memory card for your camera. You will need them; I took over 1300 photos in a single day and I'm pretty sure that wasn't extreme. Last but not least, get to know your camera well if you haven't done so already.

I found these features useful:

- Manual focus: Most things happen pretty far from you, so you can safely set focus to infinity and just shoot away without the delay needed by autofocus.

- Custom settings memory: Some cameras will allow you to remember your favorite settings. Before the show, I programmed the camera to: zoom at maximum, manual focus set at infinity (see above), and continuous drive mode.

- Optical viewfinder: It will allow you to follow the planes even when the LCD goes blank or still when the picture is taken. (Careful about parallax though, see below.)

Of course, Murphy's law likes to kick in when you least expect it, and it will. My camera had two nasty surprises for me that I didn't discover immediately:

The photos on the right show the first problem: When you start shooting a sequence with continuous drive, some cameras will lock the exposure at the time you take the first shot. As you pan around after the airplane, the photos may gradually become under- or overexposed.

The second problem was that the optical viewfinder of the A640 had fixed parallax set at about 2m (6-7ft). I was aiming for the airplanes in the center but in many pictures they came out closer to the bottom.

And now for some more general ideas:

- Get closer to your subject: While you can't fly, you can still find a good spot where interesting things happen. The picture on the left was taken in a place few people watched. All other pictures in this tabblo were taken near the end of the runway, far from the paid-for area.

- Be careful: Even if the airfield security is fine with you being just outside the fence, you may still run into problems. I'm pretty sure someone had dust in their cameras (or even worse, eyes) after the scene shown below.

And finally, experiment. I used wide angle for the photo below; the plane wasn't important, the smoke trail and vastness of the sky were. The photos on the right were shot in vertical format to emphasize the depth of the dive (sometimes you can crop, of course). And the audience's reaction (far below) was as interesting as the show in the sky :)

Curious where it all happened? See it in a satellite photo.