Falling film techniques are widely used in various chemical industrial devices because of their high heat and mass transfer coefficients. Since the coverage of a liquid film plays an important role in the heat and mass transfer, the liquid film coverage on different surfaces, including hydrophilic, ribbed, and untreated plates, had been investigated experimentally in this paper. Air flowed over the liquid surface, perpendicular to the direction of the liquid flow. The film coverage and flow patterns were analyzed through the infrared photo capture by an infrared camera. The effects of the mass flow rate, inlet air velocity, and heat flux were discussed. According to the experimental results, the specific water flow rate plays the most important role, while the inlet air velocity has little effect on the film coverage. When heated, the ribbed plate performs better because the ribs can stop the dry patches from spreading further. Moreover, the empirical correlation of the local water film coverage in the fully developed region and the nominal film coverage of the entire plate was developed.