Tag Archives: aerial photography

6 tips for aerial photography

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Mike Rudd I first met Mike Rudd a few years ago when he was visiting my base airfield to test fly a couple of aircraft. At the time he was  the owner of a flexwing microlight (or trike, or powered hang glider). He was looking for a more conventional, 3-axis aircraft. Luckily for me, a Foxbat was on his shortlist.

Apart from being an experienced pilot, Mike is a video/photographer of some considerable talent and I was soon privileged to count him among Foxbat owners in Australia. More importantly, Mike has made many excellent videos about the Foxbat and taken literally hundreds of photos of them, some of which adorn the Foxbat Australia website – www.foxbat.com.au – and our magazine advertisements.

Mike has his own YouTube channel where you can see his work for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/user/mikerudd1948

Here, he gives a few tips for getting the best out of taking photos and videos from an aircraft:

GoPro1. Choose your photographic equipment carefully. For in-cabin work, the GoPro camera has become ubiquitous but high-end pocket cameras like the Sony RX100 Mk 2 Sony-RX100-IIare as good and in some cases better. For example, pocket cameras have a zoom feature and you can also stop the weird effects of shooting through the propeller without resorting to the neutral density filters needed for the GoPro.

2. Canon 5dFor air-to-air stills (and even video), a full sensor DSLR will give the best results. Mike uses a Canon 5D Mk3 with a stabilised 24-105mm lens. For shooting air-to-ground (where the ground stays fixed, unlike a subject aircraft), you can increase the telephoto lens to a 120-400mm.

3. Use a fairly slow shutter speed to get the propeller blurred but not invisible. By default, this also gives you a smaller aperture which helps with depth of field. If your camera has the facility, use auto-focus and continuous shooting as everything is in motion and some of the photos will inevitably be blurred. Make sure the white balance and ISO are set correctly – make some trial/test shots before the main shoot. If at all possible, shoot in RAW mode, enabling better image manipulation and editing.

4. A thorough briefing between the pilots and the photographer is absolutely essential. If you do not have a formation endorsement, the aircraft must remain at least 100 feet (around 30 metres) apart – about three wing spans for most light aircraft. You need to confirm the desired background, target altitude, and track in relation to the sun – ideally have the sun at ten or two o’clock to the subject aircraft, shining into the front of the cabin. Early morning and late afternoon make for better shadows and show the aircraft lines better.

Only the pilots should talk to each other. The photographer can tell ‘their’ pilot what they want and have it relayed to the subject pilot. Whether the subject aircraft flies straight & level and the photo ship moves around or vice versa doesn’t matter – as long as this is agreed before taking to the air. At all times, at least one of the pilots must be responsible for maintaining visual separation.

Be very very careful when operating high and low-wing aircraft together and absolutely avoid the low-wing aircraft flying above the high-wing aircraft where neither pilot can see the other.

Foxbat photo ship 01_edited-15. Choose your aircraft even more carefully than the photo equipment! High-wing aircraft are much better for aerial photography – particularly for taking pictures of the ground! Pictures will be much clearer through open air, rather than a perspex window, so look for an aircraft where the photographer’s window or door can be opened safely in flight. Or if certified to do so, even remove the door before you start. The aircraft should be safely manoeuvrable across a range of speeds and have plenty of room in the cabin for stowing cameras. The photographer also needs room to move around without interfering with the controls. For obvious reasons, the photographer’s safety belt should remain done up all the time and the camera must be attached to the photographer by a short strap!

6. Finally, back on the ground, you’ll want to edit and refine your pictures. This is where RAW format photos are really needed, as you have far more options for enhancement. Mike uses both Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, aiming for 300dpi full-frame jpegs for printing and 72-96dpi for internet and website use.

A couple of reminders – you need a legal permit from an engineer to attach a camera to the outside of a plane. This applies to all aircraft whether GA, LSA or ultralight. Make sure your aircraft is certified for door-off or door-open operations if you plan this; on some aircraft stall speeds can increase dramatically with a door off or open. Safety is always your first responsibility – it’s better to shoot from a safe distance and crop when you are on the ground.

For a sample of Mike’s air-to-air pictures, have a look at our gallery – bottom right of this blog. And for an amazing video with aerial footage, have a look at this YouTube link: Foxbat landing on a ship at sea

Foxbat as photo ship

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Foxbat 7277 short strip landingWe recently set out to do some air-to-air and air-to-ground photography using my yellow Foxbat demonstrator as the photo ship. By ‘we’ I mean Mike Rudd – veteran professional videographer and photographer – in the right hand passenger seat and myself flying.

Normally, these shoots centre round the subject aircraft, on this occasion a Top Cub by Cubcrafters and another (red) Foxbat, which happened to belong to Mike. And indeed, we got some great pictures – have a look at the photo gallery to the bottom right of this blog to see some samples.

However, on this occasion Mike urged me to write something about one particular short sequence where, quite spontaneously and unplanned, we video’d his red Foxbat doing a very brief touch-and-go on a short, narrow and wet bush airstrip in the middle of nowhere. The video will appear shortly on YouTube (I’ll put up a link when it does) but meanwhile, here’s a preview of what we did.

After the air-to-air shots and some stills of the Top Cub landing and taking off, the pilot of the red Foxbat decided he’d emulate the Cub by landing on the same short strip – this impressed me because the Foxbat pilot was Stephen Buckle, Cubcrafters dealer for Australia. Who once owned a Foxbat of his own before drifting to the dark side….and Stephen’s passenger, Terry Walker, who owns a super little taildragger Kitfox, making them both familiar with the demands of short strips.

Stephen and I executed contra-direction circuits (‘patterns’ for our friends across the Pacific) and began parallel approaches to land. Except that Stephen was lined up on the runway and we were lined up about 50-60 metres to his left over some fairly tall trees. Now the Foxbat typically touches down in the high 30’s knots, so to get the footage, we had to slow down to much the same speed or we’d miss the brief touch and go-around.

Mike was busy with his camera, concentrating on his red Foxbat urging me to go ‘slower’ and ‘faster’, ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ to get the video he wanted. So there I am, sitting in the left seat, subject plane on the right, and lower than me, flying at about 35 knots….watching the tall trees coming up ahead of me.

It was during that sequence that once again it was emphasised to me what a great plane for photography the Foxbat is.

Controllable down to 30+ knots with full flap, I could see the subject plane all the time, even though it was on the opposite side to me, and Mike with his (large) camera in the passenger seat. It has an abundance of power – on the YouTube video you’ll hear the engine noise, not of the subject aircraft but of mine, so you’ll know when the power was on and off.

The only thing I regret is not having had a camera pointing straight out the front so you can see the trees and bush which close right up to the strip. When you think of all the variables and the process of shooting that short piece of video, there aren’t many aircraft short of a helicopter that could have handled it.

Look out for a future post on some thoughts about getting some good photos from your aircraft. And, of course, the link to the YouTube video of Mike’s red Foxbat and that tricky little bush strip.