I truly find this to be the hardest area to get good shots of at EAA Airventure, Oshkosh. The great thing about this airshow is that they are lots of performances going on at all times. The downside it is not always easy to get good shots. Between finding a good place to stand, having bald skies or my favorite the row of brown national guard vehicles. Yep we all have those shots with the vehicles in the background, it’s just part of Oshkosh.
There are a couple of things that you can do to capture better ground to air images. First off, be shooting with a long lens. My personal favorite is the D5 and the 200-400 VR. It’s a good stable platform with a good range depending on whether one plane or multiple planes are flying. The Texas Flying Legends Museum are a perfect example of needing this range because they fly in a six ship and then they break off into dual ship and lastly, single ship formations.
Next use high speed crop if you’re a Nikon shooter. If you’re using the D5 or even the D4 then the file size is large enough that when you switch to the smaller sensor size you will still have a quality image.
Then of course there is the background. If you have bald skies and only one cloud find a spot where you can exploit that one cloud. Sometimes one cloud is all it takes.Lastly, get to the fence line early. If you know there is something that you want to shoot show up a little bit early so that you can get a better position. Keep in mind where show center is because that can make a big difference also. These are just a few basic tips that can hopefully help your shooting.