I carry my camera to the field at every outing. It is amazing some of the photos I have gotten, especially mangled up aircraft after they plummet to the ground at about 70+ mph. Usually when I am tired or sitting for a while I can grab my cam and shoot some shots.

I also have some great shots of the few helis we have at our field. I was able to make the blades sort of blur and the helis can appear stopped and then a slightly blurred background (I think that is called Bokeh or something like that). I am not a professional, just "Joe Homeowner with a camera The heli scenes looks so fascinating when you can catch that moment in time!

My current gear is the Sony Alpha A300 with a 300MM lens and a standard lens. Something around 200 to 300mm should be good for a lens and you need as quick focus as possible. If you go manual like in the old days you just got to get yourself thinking ahead of the aircraft. If you practive you will get really good in time and can sort of plan those special shots. I have some truly fantastic in flight shots. I even got some when several planes were flying patterns and attempting to fly extremely close to each other.

Another neat thing I have done is go home and print out selected photos and give them to club members. I have an Epson 1800 wide format inkjet and Photoshop and the combination can really produce some great prints for being sort of entry level.

The Sony Alpha is simply a great package and bang for the buck. The photos come out sometimes ranking as good as the high end stuff. I am constantly amazed by this camera at about 1/4 of the price of the high end gear it is hard to beat.