Go Digital for mere snapshots and 35mm for the good stuff. Except for the really premium digitals, which take interchangeable lenses (maybe $5,000 or more plus the lenses), they will not offer enough magnification to get those really long shots and the pixel count will not match what you can get from good slide or negative film.

The fact is, it takes a good quality long telephoto lens, a solid hold on the camera, and lots of luck to get a genuinely good picture of a fast moving object at a long distance from you. Most of us are neither that wealthy nor that lucky.

I've got a Sigma Autofocus 70-210mm APO, f/2.8 for my 35mm camera and it will suffice for many fairly close up shots and also gives the flexibility for backing off somewhat. Unfortunately, it was expensive.

If you can get an inexpensive 35mm (say a low end Pentax or Minolta, not autofocus) and an after-market 300mm lens to go w/ it, that ought to get the job done most of the time, as long as you use at least 400 speed film. Though 800 would be better for moving targets like planes. I'm assuming that there will be plenty of light available since you'll be doing air shows in daylight. Move the camera w/ the target to reduce blur of the subject, even tho background will be blurred. Obviously, a plane a half a mile off is not likely to blur because of its speed. Up close though - you better pan w/ the plane.

Though you'll lose at least one full f-stop of light, you could also get one of the so-called "doublers" (a/k/a tele-converter) to go between your camera body and the tele lens. You can get them at 1.4x all the way up to 3x. I have a 1.4, which when used w/ my 300mm lens gives me an effective focal length of 420mm. The better the quality and lower magnification of the tele-converter and tele lens, the better the chances of a quality shot.

Also, the higher the magnification, the more likely you are to blur the shot by camera shake. I normally use either a tripod or a monopod when using long lenses.

Re cost of film, etc. - I use slide film almost exclusively and develop it myself. No need for expensive equipment and it is easy to do. Then I have the slides that I like printed. As Babygrass said, most of the shots won't be all that wonderful and you'll save a bundle on prints.

Just be sure to use a lab that uses color-reversal paper so you'll get not worse than a second generation copy. The typical drug store or One Hour photo shop will send your slide film to a lab that will use an internegative. Simply stated, they'll take a picture of your slide and then print it on regular print paper. That means that you'll have a third generation print, with all origiinal defects made worse.

 

I would probably suggest a film 35mm SLR, defintely for the action shots. Digitals still seem to have a slot shutter speed, which would blur really fast motion shots.

I would probably go along with a pentax or a cannon 35mm

However, if you take a lot of pictures, then you might want to look into digital SLRs, Olympus has an E-20N, as well as the older E-10N which, according to reviews, are great cameras, but a bit steep. I think Nikon also has a digital SLR, but i'm not sure about its specs.

 

I have Sony DSC-F707. similar to this DSC-F717 .

It does take great pictures and what I really like about it is I can buy any 58mm filters. They also make zoom lenz that fits and other accessories. if you could spend few hundred more, I recommend this.

 

I was looking at that DSC-F717 and liked what I saw. It will probably end up being what I'll get.

 

BTW, thanks for the feed back