Great TN Air Show photography

The Great Tennessee Air Show was this past week-end at Smyrna Regional Airport (south of Nashville). I wasn't able to attend on Saturday, but went Sunday. My preparation for this event included renting a Canon EF 300mm f4 IS lens from www.lensrentals.com (more about this great service in a future blog). I wanted to see if shooting with a prime telephoto would produce more photos within my acceptance level than my previous air show experience with a telephoto zoom. Also, knowing the f4 was significantly less weight than a f2.8 lens was another appealing factor. The weather Saturday was partly cloudy with some good wind, but overall warm enough to be comfortable outside. I'd taken our foreign exchange student to the Nashville airport to catch her flight to New York and then went to observation area on off Vultee Blvd to practice with the 300mm lens. The lens performed satisfactorily, and I also included using a 1.4 teleconverter. I'd planned on using this combination (300mm with 1.4 teleconverter) at the air show on Sunday.

A serious cold front moved thru Tennessee on Saturday night and it was in the low 40's when I left for the air show at about 8:30p. The late news weather has forecasted this downturn in temperatures so I was prepared. The newspaper had reported 40,000 spectators at the show on Saturday, but I wasn't sure how many would show up on Sunday due to the cold and forecasted rain. We got to the air show at about 9:30a and staked out our spot to the left of center and I photographed some of the static displays waiting for the flying to start. The flying started right on time at 11:30a and though it was a cold wind, it never rained to any significant degree during the day. The complete overcast meant the light was flat and I didn't have to worry about light & shadow sides of the planes during their maneuvers. However, the sky was so flat and gray that lot of my images looked like they were shot in front of an off-white curtain. Later in the day I did find myself tracking the planes and trying to get most of my shots with them in front of the darker clouds. The wind did help clear out the smoke that the planes put out during their show. The crowd did thin out during the mid-afternoon and everyone left in a hurry as soon as the Blue Angels landed at the end of their show.

Overall, it was a fun day of photography and I enjoyed spending time with my son, James. He's really into airplanes and seems to enjoy himself so much at these types of events. I shot about 2400 images and after the first look am hoping for 30-40 "good" ones to make a web album. Don't think I got anything that is super dramatic, but who knows. I'm usually overly critical of my photos upon first viewing them. Sometimes, when I wait a couple of weeks to start editing, I'll surprise myself with what I can come up with a little adjustment in Photoshop.

As for the 300mm, it performed adequately, but I did miss the zoom for close up shots. Enough to warrant messing with a zoom at the next air show? Probably not, as I like eliminating one thing I have to worry about when I'm trying to photograph a 500 mph jet flying by. I was disappointed in the 300mm focusing when using the 1.4 teleconverter. It did a lot of "searching" when I was trying to focus on a far off plane. I found that by switching to all focus points worked best. I normally shoot using a single auto focus point. The few times I shot some frames with my 70-200mm f2.8 (with out a teleconverter) I was pleasantly surprised by the "fast" autofocusing.