Shooting from a light aircraft?

David Gedye

This is my first post, so apologies in advance if I'm posting this in the wrong place...

I'm going on a fantastic trip in a few weeks in a friend's light aircraft. We are leaving from the Bay Area, will fly over Yosemite, then down the Owens Valley, over the White Mountains, and land in Death Valley. With any luck we'll be flying pretty low, so the views from the plane should be spectacular.

I own a Nikon D70 with the kit lens, but I want to get the best possible photos from the plane, and am prepared to rent the right lens or lenses to give myself the best chance.

So -- who has experience shooting from a light aircraft? I know that the vibration means that you need to plan for a high shutter speed, and so a fast lens might be important, but any advice beyond that? Filters? Windex for the windows? Barrel rolls?

Any advice would be much appreciated!
Thanks in advance,
David.

Shay Stephens

Fast lens, polarizing filter, and rubber lens hood. If you can't shoot through an open window or door, the rubber lens hood will allow you to put the lens hood against the window and block out reflections from the glass and get a much cleaner shot.

Figure on doubling the reciprocal of the focal length. So if you are shooting at 200mm then 1/400 at least for the shutter speed to compensate for aircraft vibration and speed.

Figure a bright sunny day and using the kit lens at 105mm (equivalent) and a polarizer. The light levels would be around EV15, you will loose about 1.3 stop to the filter. So at ISO 200 and f/5.6 you could get a shutter speed of 1/400 which would be plenty fast enough.

And just as with outside portraits, don't shoot from 10am to 2pm. The natural light is the worst during these time periods.

Of course you can only rely on hypothetical just so much. Adapt to the situation at hand for best results :-)

David Gedye wrote:

This is my first post, so apologies in advance if I'm posting this in the wrong place...

I'm going on a fantastic trip in a few weeks in a friend's light aircraft. We are leaving from the Bay Area, will fly over Yosemite, then down the Owens Valley, over the White Mountains, and land in Death Valley. With any luck we'll be flying pretty low, so the views from the plane should be spectacular.

I own a Nikon D70 with the kit lens, but I want to get the best possible photos from the plane, and am prepared to rent the right lens or lenses to give myself the best chance.

So -- who has experience shooting from a light aircraft? I know that the vibration means that you need to plan for a high shutter speed, and so a fast lens might be important, but any advice beyond that? Filters? Windex for the windows? Barrel rolls?

Any advice would be much appreciated!
Thanks in advance,
David.

ian408

High or low wing aircraft?

What Shay said plus clean the windows you plan to shoot out
of. Careful what you use to clean them--something like "Plex"
should be fine (Plex is a plastic cleaner made by an aircraft
window supplier).

Ask your friend if you will fly over the White Mountains. They
are near the town of Mammoth Lakes. Very pretty. But I'm
guessing that most of the range will have snow (it did a few
weeks ago).


Ian

wxwax

I had decent luck once, shooting more or less blindly out of a helicopter porthole. Some shots were overexposed, so I'd listen carefully to advice about exposure settings. I found it surprisingly easy to keep the camera properly oriented.

Angelo

VNY
ATIS Tower FSS OfficePhone
(818) 780-4993 (818) 904-6166 (800) 992-7433 (818) 785-8838
Frequency 118.45
119.3 (W)
120.2 (E)
122.35 (Hawthorne)
122.95TPA
'MSL('AGL)Ground Approach DepartureLatLong2,000(1,201) 16R/34L
1,800(1,001) 16L/34R121.7120.4 (N)
135.05 (E of BUR)
124.6 (SE)
134.2(SW)120.4 (N)
124.6(E)
134.2(W)N34-12.59W118-29.40

I'll be waiting at E6 / 34R. Do I need to pack a bag?

joechiu

Ditto the comment on how much more harsh the light can be up there!

It could just be the cheap digital camera that I had at the time, but I found that metering/shooting in the forward direction through the prop gave inconsistent exposure results.

Keep your lenses at a reasonable size -- it's rather small in a light aircraft, and you want to avoid bumping the controls! You'll only have a few inches between your head and the window (unless you sit in the back).

Since, presumably, you're taking landscape pictures, and probably with plenty of light, I think you'll want to focus on smaller apertures?

ashby

I've taken a lot of really bad shots from airplanes so maybe you can learn from my mistakes. FWIW:

1. Shoot from an open window if at all possible. It eliminates the scratched plexiglass problem.

2. Shoot from the lowest safe altitude to minimize haze.

3. Avoid shooting up-sun as it accentuates haze (if any).

4. Use fastest shutter speed you can. Orographic turbulence can be pretty strong over the Sierras this time of year in addition to the airplane vibration.

5. Turn the autofocus off and manually focus to near infinity. Don't forget to reset to auto for the cockpit shots.

6. The polarizer might create some goofy flares if used through plexiglas.

7. Towards sunset, look for some dramatic light, down or up-sun, if you have some low clowds around the mountains.

8. The wildflowers will be in full bloom in the desert.