So it appears that I will be doing event photography for a major RC gathering that my club is sponsoring. Event activities will be during daylight hours, 8AM to 7PM or so and outdoors. We do have a covered area, but it is still open on two sides. Lighting may range from heavy overcast to full Texas sun. The subjects will be people and planes ranging from around 30" wingspan up to 120"+, both static and in flight. My plan is to have two, possibly three camera bodies, all Nikon. Current, the bodies are going to be a D70s and D300, so all DX sensors. It's what I have ready access to.
Shooting will be mostly quick, as they happen type shots. Very similar to sports in that regard. Probably no tripod, though I'm thinking I'll put a mono-pod on one of the bodies. I have a couple of shooting positions that are 400-600 feet out, right at the end of the safety fence. From there I can get a close to "straight on" shot for landings and take offs. There is a better spot, but it is almost 1000 feet away. Everything else will be a variety of distances and situations.
Right now, I'm looking at a Nikon AF-S 18-200 f/3.5-5.6 DX VR II for one body and probably a Nikon AF-S VR II 70-200mm f/2.8G with a 1.7x tele-converter on the other body. The latter setup, on a DX body will give effectively 180-500mm. Yeah, it's big and heavy and a bit overkill on a DX body, but for what I will be shooting, and for safeties sake, I don't think it will be a bad setup.
Any thoughts? The 18-200 will cover most of my needs, I think.
--SS