This year I attended the air show with Mike Downey from Adobe. Both of us were using Canon DSLRs with 70-200 mm f/2.8 IS zooms plus extenders. In past years I used early Canon bodies with the Canon 300 mm f/4 IS lens (the one that Canon really needs to release a new version of - having tripod-capable IS). I found I prefer the 300 to the 200 with extender for this type of shooting; it is shorter and lighter.

Photo 10 is the result of a 5D with the zoom at 200 mm plus a 2X extender at f/7.1 (actual aperture). Max aperture with this combination is f/5.6. I tracked the F-18 coming from the right. At ISO 320 my shutter speed was 1/2000 sec. Note that the jet coming from the left is blurred. This gives us a good idea of what kind of shutter speed is needed for this sort of thing. The 2X extender gets fairly poor performance reviews, perhaps undeservingly. At a bit down from max aperture, it seems to do surprisingly well, at least on the 70-200 at max length.

Photos 7 and 8 show the limits of the frame rate of the Cannon 5D. I snapped photo 7 anticipating the shutter lag on the 5D (short, by DSLR standards), and kept my finger on the trigger. Photo 8 was the next shot in continuous-fire mode. For these shots I didn't track either aircraft, but aimed the camera at the spot where they would be crossing. As a result, neither is acceptably sharp.

Photo 17 is a high speed, low altitude (obviously) pass. I tracked the jet coming from the left. The shutter speed on this shot is 1/3200 second, and the other jet is still pretty blurry. I'm guessing the relative velocity here is about 900 miles/hour.

A few of Mike's shots are here.

A few of my shots from 2005 are here