Martin
I have never seen a web site or tutorial for airshow photography that I thought was any good.
There's always too much, 'You must use TV' or 'You must use manual metering'....Never of which actually hold water as musts. You can, if you want, but I use Av, and the normal metering mode, without any problems at all. All, I will say is that set your camera on 1/1000th if you like, but then don't wonder why your pictures are badly exposed, from half way down the runway, as the light conditions cannot deliver.
Stick it on av, and a widish aperture if you can and you are unlikely to have that have a similar problem in the UK. Which works well for fast jets.
This being a good example, shutter speed was 1/800th, and F6.3
Props are a different matter, I do use TV then, set the shutter speed as low as you dare, but really apart from take off you need to have it at or quicker than 1/125, but you will get a lot of blurry shots.
This one was taken at 1/125th F11.
Helicopters? again, TV, low as you dare, but rotors don't turn very fast, so on say a Chinook, even down at 1/25th, you will only get a small arc of blur.
This example, isn't a Chinook, it's a merlin, taken at 1/50th
Canon's evaluative metering works fine mostly, so no real need to mess about with exposure compensation, unless the backlighting is savage.
Anyway, then to focusing, and mode settings on a 7d.
Do a search on birds in flight settings and use them as a starting point and tweak as required. obviously your average F16 or Typhoon moves somewhat quicker than a robin or a swallow (European or African for the Monty Python fans!), but they are the nearest thing to a starting point you'll get.
Lastly if you can go and practice. Any airport or airfield will do the trick.
Hope that very quick advice helps.
Bernie
