Some Tips on Aerial Photography
Most enthusiasts who go to a gathering of airplanes take a camera with them. For those who use more sophisticated film cameras and have opportunities to take photos of airplanes from the air, we have put together this article.
The material was gleaned from e-mail exchanges we had a couple of years ago with professional photographer Jesse H. Moore V. of Seattle. Even though digital cameras have taken over from film cameras to a great extent, much of the advice is still relevant.
We suggest using a manual focus camera for best results, rather than an automatic camera. Often you only get one chance for a shot, and windows can throw off the auto-focus on many cameras. The camera focuses on the window -- or tries to -- rather than the plane you're shooting.
LENS
Use the 80-200mm zoom lens. At 200mm, you'll fill about ½ to ¾ of the frame with a small aircraft flying as close as safely possible to your chase plane.
The longest lens I would use to shoot single aircraft in the air would be about 300mm. The problem you get there is, the longer the lens, the greater danger of camera shake, which defeats your whole purpose. I feel comfortable with a 300mm, but it's too long for most shooters. (See below on my rule of thumb about shutter speed to overcome camera shake.)
If you're shooting several aircraft, you can pull back the zoom to 80mm and you ought to be able to get the whole gang in the frame. Just in case, for group shots, take the 28-85mm zoom up with you.
FILM
Use ISO 100 color print film (not slide film -- it's not as sharp and it's less forgiving of exposure mistakes). In bright sunlight, ISO 100 should give you about 1/400th or 1/500th second at f/8.
APERTURE (F-NUMBER)
I'd surmise that your lens is sharpest at f/8 (most lenses are sharpest around 2 or 3 stops smaller than the largest aperture -- i.e., around the mid-range between largest and smallest apertures). At f/8, you'll throw the ground below you out of focus, which is what you want. [This is a point of contention. Some photographers, Bill Larkins for example, want the ground to be in sharp focus].
On the ground, where you can hold the camera better (or brace against a post, or use a tripod) aperture rules. At 40 or 50 feet from a private aircraft, f/11 or f/16 will give you enough depth of field to get the whole plane -- nearest to farthest -- in acceptable focus.
SHUTTER SPEED
In aerial shooting, forced to make a choice between shutter speeds and aperture, the shutter speed must rule. No slower than 1/400th, or you'll get camera shake. No faster than 1/800th, or you won't get sufficient prop blur.
At 1/400th or 1/500th second shutter speed, you'll overcome camera shake. The rule of thumb is, the longest acceptable shutter speed is 1/n, where n is the length of the lens in millimeters. I.e., for 200mm, 1/200th is the absolute slowest shutter speed you should use, hand-held. I much prefer to cut that speed in half, to 1/400th or 1/500th.
FILTER
If you have a UV filter, use it. In fact, if you don't have one, buy one for each lens. I'd rather clean a filter, which I can replace cheaply, than clean the coating on the front element of a lens time and time again. Be sure the filter, and the lens, are spotless. Don't forget to clean the back element of the lens. Blow out the camera ... get the dust out. Careful: Don't blow hard against the focal-plane shutter and for sure don't blow hard against the mirror.
If you have a polarizer, and you know how to use it, all the better. In that case, use ISO 200 film to make up for the light loss coming through the polarizer.
OTHER CONSIDERATIONS
A word on focus and camera shake: The guy who prints your pictures can make a lot of adjustments for under- and over-exposure. He can blow up a too-small image (within limits). But no one can fix a blurry picture. Your subject must be sharply focused, and your camera must not shake.
Exposure: It gets tricky up there. If you're using auto-exposure, set it for center-weighted if you can. That way, it will be "reading" the exposure on your subject aircraft, which we assume is in the center of the frame.
You can always double-check your camera, or -- for that matter -- set your exposure without an exposure meter. The rule of thumb is very simple: In bright sunlight, if set your lens aperture is f/16, your shutter will be 1/x, where x is the ISO rating of the film. Example: You're using ISO 100 film. You're in bright sunlight. At f/16, the shutter speed should be 1/100th of a second. You can bank on that. And it's easy enough to convert from 1/100th at f/16 to other combinations which give the same exposure to the film: 1/200th at f/11, 1/400th at f/8, 1/800th at f/5.6, etc. It's all the same exposure. This little rule of thumb will save your life when something has gone awry.
More on this: If your automatic camera isn't giving you back an exposure that falls pretty close to the rule of thumb discussed above, something is wrong.
If you're using an auto-exposure camera, and you see it giving you back an exposure of, say, something like 1/500th at f/16 with ISO 100 film, you need to second-guess the camera. It's probably reading the sky and exposing for that. Re-arrange yourself and the subject aircraft to get some earth behind him, and see if the camera settles back to around 1/100th or 1/200th at f/16 ... which is the same as 1/400th or 1/800th at f/8.
Advice from another expert
Which brings up the best advice I ever heard was from a National Geographic photographer who said, "Always compose for the background." At f/11 or f/16, the background will definitely intrude in on-the-ground shots. Either use a large aperture (as wide open as you can afford, to throw the background way out of focus), or move the subject, or move yourself. The background makes or breaks almost every shot -- for that matter, on the ground or in the air. And nobody ever pays any attention to the background until after the prints come back from the processor. ("Gosh, I didn't notice that telephone pole growing right out of Aunt Bessie's hat.")
Use a lens hood, to avoid reflections in the lens.
Don't let the camera touch any part of the chase plane. The vibration will go right into the camera and shake your pictures. Try not to press your hand, or wrist, or any body part holding the camera, against any part of the plane.
I can't tell you how many times I've seen passengers on commercial aircraft, pressing the end of their lens or lens hood against the window to "steady" their camera. The aircraft is vibrating like heck, and the vibration is going right into the camera.
Don't try to shoot through a window. Even if it doesn't have scratches, reflections will bounce from inside the plane right into your picture. You need an open window.
You want the prop to blur, but not too much. That's why I suggest not using an extremely high shutter speed. Example: Say, the plane's prop turns 2500 rpm. That's 41.67 rotations per second. (2500/60). Say, you shoot at 1/500th of a second. 41.67/500 is .0833 ... so, you'll get 1/500th of 41.67 rotations, or .0833 of a full rotation. In degrees, that's .0833 x 360, which is 30 degrees. That's a nice amount of blur.
If you shoot at a very slow shutter speed, for example, on the ground with the engine running on the subject plane, the prop could make a complete rotation while the shutter is open. Your possible result: A picture of a plane with no prop.
If you simply can't resist shooting through the windshield of your chase plane, remember that if it's a single-engine plane, you're probably shooting right through your own prop. Blurrrrrrr.
A high-winger will let you shoot sideways and down ... if you want some underside shots, you have to be in a low-wing plane, so you can shoot up.
I prefer shooting out the door of a plane, with the door completely removed. (Strapped in a harness, of course.) Then you can do any angle you want. (If you wear glasses, don't make the mistake I made on my very first aerial assignment about 30-odd years ago: I was all strapped in the harness, leaned out into the slip stream, and watched my glasses fly off at 3,000 feet.)
Where does the sun need to be? (I had a hard time getting my chase pilot in Seattle to keep us aligned correctly.) If the subject plane is on your left, you want the sun on your right, perhaps a bit in front of right. I.e., if we lay the clock down flat, your subject plane is around 9 o'clock and the sun is somewhere between 1 o'clock and 3 o'clock. I.e., if your subject plane is on your left, in the morning fly more or less north, in the afternoon fly more or less south. Reverse that if you're shooting out the right-hand side of the plane.
Don't waste your film shooting if the side of your subject plane, toward you, is in shadow (i.e., sun behind it), because you'll hate the results. You can break this rule for special effects, of course, as when there is a gorgeous sunrise behind that plane. But then, the subject is the sunrise, not the plane, right?
Shooting a plane with clouds behind is tricky. If the sun is definitely lighting the plane brightly, it will work. Otherwise, the bright clouds behind will outshine the plane, and you'll get a chunk of coal against a snow bank.
To additionally overcome movement blurring: If the subject plane is flying past you (faster than you are), pan your camera (just like a movie camera, following a race car) and fire the shutter while panning at the same speed as the subject aircraft. Then, the relative speed of your lens and the subject is zero. (Reverse the pan if your aircraft is out-flying the subject.)
Fire the shutter like you fire a pistol: Let your breath out, hold, then press -- don't punch -- the shutter button.
Now, the BIGGEST MISTAKE everybody makes when shooting in the air ...
Pilots have acute eyesight. A pilot sees, a half-mile away, a Cessna 150 with two people on board. A camera sees a dark dot surrounded by miles of blue sky. And the film records what the camera sees.
You must discipline yourself not to fire the shutter unless your subject fills at least half the frame in your camera. If it fills ¾ of the frame, far better. (Remember that most viewfinders only show 90 - 96% of the image, so compose tightly.) Both your chase pilot and your subject pilot will wonder why in the world you want them to fly so close together. Trust what your eyeball sees in the viewfinder not what your pilot's eyeball sees unaided. Fill that frame with airplane, not blank acreage.
Repeat: The plane you see is never as big as you think it is.
And my last piece of advice: The cheapest thing in photography is film. I don't care if I shoot 400 pictures, as long as I get one that I want to blow up, frame, and hang on the wall. That one print will cost more than all the film I shot ... but if it's a good picture that I can hang on my wall and enjoy for years, then it's worth every penny. (And that one picture may have been the last frame on the last roll ... if I'd shot 399 pictures, I'd never have gotten it.)
Moreover, you get one chance in this lifetime to be at some place, at some time, with a camera in your hand. If you don't shoot the film when you have that one chance, you will never have the chance to capture that memory again.
Jesse (Jess) H. Moore V
A summary of the above notes for use on my trips to the Porterville Fly-ins
I have a Nikon F3 with a good selection of lenses, but I also pack around a little old Nikon Sure-shot on trips to the Porterville fly-ins. Here is a set of notes I distilled for myself from Jesse’s detailed article above.
Use the 80-200 mm zoom. Just in case, for group shots, take the 28-85mm zoom.
Use ISO 100 color print film. In bright sunlight, ISO 100 should give about 1/400th or 1/500th second at f/8. The lens is sharpest at f/8. At f/8, it'll throw the ground below out of focus.
A shutter setting of 1/400th or 1/500th second shutter speed will overcome camera shake. The rule of thumb is, the longest acceptable shutter speed is 1/n, where n is the length of the lens in millimeters. So, for 200mm, 1/200th is the absolute slowest shutter speed you should use, hand-held. It is preferable to double that speed, to 1/400th or 1/500th.
The rule of thumb is very simple: In bright sunlight, if your lens aperture is f/16, your shutter will be 1/x, where x is the ISO rating of the film. Example: You're using ISO 100 film. You're in bright sunlight. At f/16, the shutter speed should be 1/100th of a second = 1/200th at f/11, 1/400th at f/8, 1/800th at f/5.6, etc.
Summarizing again, with a 200mm lens, on a bright sunny day, with ISO 100 film, I would want to set my shutter speed at around 1/400th or 1/500th, and expect the camera exposure meter to give back an aperture around f/8.
In aerial shooting, forced to make a choice between shutter speeds and aperture, the shutter speed must rule. No slower than 1/400th, or you'll get camera shake. No faster than 1/800th, or you won't get sufficient prop blur.
On the ground, at 40 or 50 feet from a private aircraft, f/11 or f/16 will give you enough depth of field to get the whole plane -- nearest to farthest -- in acceptable focus. Always compose for the background. The background makes or breaks almost every shot.
Don't let the camera touch any part of the chase plane. You want the prop to blur, but not too much. Don’t use an extremely high shutter speed. Shoot at 1/500th of a second so you'll get .0833 of a full rotation which is 30 degrees. That's a nice amount of blur.
Fire the shutter like you fire a pistol: Let your breath out, hold, then press -- don't punch -- the shutter button.
To avoid reflections and distortion, use a lens hood and put the lens as close to the window as possible without touching it. Try to have the lens "square-on" to the window, so the glass/plastic of the window is "seen" as a flat sheet, rather than as a prism.
And don’t forget to clean the outside of the aircraft window before you leave the ground!
30 April, 2003
