Tips for shooting hot-air balloons?

Hi everyone,

I'm in Segovia, Spain for the next week (staying with the in-laws and getting away from the brutal Madrid heat) and realised this morning that next week there's a hot-air balloon festival, the first ever held here. I went on a trip in one in spring last year (christmas gift) and enjoyed it very much but this time I will be staying on the ground but hopefully attending to shoot the event.

I'm sorted for digital gear, I have here most of my more modern Pentax gear - K3, all DA limiteds, Sigma 17-50mm & 70-200/2.8, 16-85mm so I'll choose from that, probably focusing on the wider end and telephoto. I think the DA 15mm, 16-85mm and 70-200mm will be the most useful but I wanted to ask for opinions from anyone who's attended such events. I have a decent 2x Kenko teleconverter which I need to check with the Sigma to see how image quality is.

I will also be shooting some film but unfortunately I'm more limited there. I have my 645 but only the 75mm lens. On 35mm the widest lens I have here is the K 28mm f/3.5. I was on the point of grabbing the 19-35mm as I left the flat yesterday but decided against it, so I'm kicking myself about that now - it would have been very useful and stopped down the image quality is fine.

I'll be there early (morning flights start at 7.30am) with charged batteries and empty memory cards and was thinking for later driving to the other side of town where there are great views of the city - if the balloons pass over then it could be really nice. There are also evening flights at 6.30pm.

Here's a link to the website (in Spanish) if anyone is interested: https://www.siempreenlasnubes.com/festival-globos-segovia/

Any other advice?

Many thanks

I went to the Bristol Balloon Fiesta last year. I think I only used my DA* 16-50 f2.8. Having a zoom was very useful. I wish I'd had a little bit more reach though. I'd advice using the HD 16-85. I didn't have the aperture wider than f5.6. In fact, I may have not used any other aperture setting. This was because the resolution of that lens is highest at f5.6 and I was looking for the sharpest images I could get.

If I still owned a second body I'd have put the 50-135 on the other.

My gallery of the morning's shooting:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/honourabletyr/albums/72157663715364498

PS. No tengo ningún problema con un sitio de red en español.

Looks awesome!