[Leica] aerial photography

[tedgrant at shaw.ca (Ted Grant)]

Don Dory offered:
Subject: RE: [Leica] aerial photography


> Karen,
> I will add two points to Emmanuels points:
> Set your lens to infinity and leave it there.
> When you are taking the images, do not touch the air frame with your
> arms or hands.  The vibrations from the engine and turbulence will blur
> anything.
>
> Last, if it is a decent day, go ahead and set your shutter speed to
> 1/1000.  It can not hurt.<<<<

Karen,
As Don and Emmanuel have said,, Use high shutter speeds, the higher the
better if the light is good.. IE: not a hazy day as you'll have major
problems if there's ground heat haze. Not to mention lousy pictures. And if
the ground haze is particularly bad....... forget it!

1/1000 is best, lens at infinity, heck to safe guard it stays there while
working on your first aerial shoot use some tape to hold the focus ring at
infinity.

I'd not have a pile of gear as this is your first shoot, it adds to the
confusion of looking at the world from on high. First timers should go with
one camera, one lens and only if they feel very confident in handling gear
while "tied in a chair!" Plane seat belts and harness can be very
restrictive, should they take more than one lens and one on the camera.

If you find this is neat, shooting aerials, and you are successful, after
awhile you'll only want to shoot from helicopters where you sit on the
floor, no door, your legs out the side and click away like yer in a car
driving down the highway! ;-) Awesome shooting in this manner, as there
isn't anything in front of you but the "air to the ground!"  An absolutely
awesome view of the world. :-) Once you shoot in this manner you wont want
to do it in any other plane. :-)

Oh yeah and make sure you have excellent safety harness! ;-)  You see
choppers make for excellent "stay where you are in hover" so you can make
many exposures rather than going around again and again making several
passes in a fixed wing aircraft.

And from personal near death aerial shooting experience ............
absolutely make sure the pilot has done this kind of flying
before!!!!!!!!!!!!

And even if they have! Your last instruction to he or she pilot
is............ "DO NOT LOOK AT WHAT I'M SHOOTING , PERIOD! LOOK AT WHERE THE
PLANE IS GOING!!!!!"

Some of you may think this is silly instructions because the pilot knows
this...... yep and so do car drivers who "glance away from the road, or
pilot from the air before them and they ain't here anymore... neither is the
photographer!!!! :-(

And it's nothing but one great big hell of a mess of body and plane parts to
clean up! :-( And that's from personal experience with one dead crew member,
pilot and plane. Along with two near death experiences myself until I laid
down the law to any pilot before take off.  And yep I ruffled one guys
feathers pretty badly even when I spoke gently and non-demanding.

That was until he said... "you take pictures I fly plane!"  OOPS!! Wrong
thing to say after seeing the remains of a buddy and wreckage of the plane
he was in!

But who cares when you've been too close for comfort and come back with
greenery in the under carriage! That was the scariest one of all for close
encounters with angels by your wing tips!

And when the tops of the branches are slapping the plane because the pilot
made the simple error of looking at the cattle herd I was shooting and not
watching where we were going with the hills rising a head of us! :-)

Truly a case of nearly... "his last pictures were his best!" And yes one
more time when I quite honestly had to change my pants on return!

Karen have fun, don't over load the gear no matter how good you handle it
with feet on the ground. And above all.... it's KISS!:-) Have a good one and
above all please let the gang know how you made out!!
ted