It's EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) time here in Wisconsin. My husband and I have tickets to go on Saturday. I need help with what settings to use for the night air show. I have a Canon 20D with a 18-250 mm Tamron lens. This is my best shot from last year.
Try a higher ISO and maybe shoot in Aperture priority mode so you can specify to keep the lens as wide open as you can to allow more light. You'll just have to keep an eye on the shutter speed. Ideally you want it to be at least as fast as your focal length, so if you are zoomed all the way in at 250mm, you'll want to try to shoot at 1/250 sec.
your aperture was at 5.6 for this photo. That is probably as wide as it can go with your lens. For better shots at night you will need a 2.8 aperture to allow more light in. That is where the money comes in. Fast zoom lens are not cheap.
If you have Lightroom or another post software you can shoot at 1/250 sec and 5.6 with a high ISO and overexpose by 1.0. Then add fill light and sharpen afterwards.
If you just have the telephoto lens, I bet you could try to resist the temptation of zooming in and cropping the image later. Many of the telephotos have a variable f-stop that will close up as you increase your focal length. I see the photo you had set to 119MM which likely forced the f-stop to 5.6. If you back it out a bit, you may be able to get an f-stop to 4.0. It's not 2.8 but probably a bit better.
If you have any prime lenses around, like a 50mm, take a look at them and see what the f-stops are on them. If it's 2.8 or better, then take it along and try it out. You lose the flexiablity of zooming, but you gain more light and a quicker shutter speed. You can always crop the image to get the zoom you want for small prints.
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If you have Lightroom or another post software you can shoot at 1/250 sec and 5.6 with a high ISO and overexpose by 1.0. Then add fill light and sharpen afterwards.
If you have any prime lenses around, like a 50mm, take a look at them and see what the f-stops are on them. If it's 2.8 or better, then take it along and try it out. You lose the flexiablity of zooming, but you gain more light and a quicker shutter speed. You can always crop the image to get the zoom you want for small prints.