The Holuhraun eruption in Iceland, taken from a helicopter. This remains one of my most rewarding photographic experiences.
So far in this series I have talked about the advantages of aerial photography and about shooting from a helicopter as opposed to shooting from a light plane. I have also talked about the right equipment for this kind of shoot, and about technique and parameter selection. In this final article in the series I want to discuss my experiences from 4 aerial photography sessions, compare them and analyze what I learned from them.
I won`t be presenting any new info, but I think it`s important to do a comparison since I learned a lot from these short sessions, and if you can learn from my experience and mainly from my mistakes, I will have done what I set out to do with this series of articles.
My first `serious´ photography flight was in Namibia, in March of 2014. I flew over Sossusvlei to capture the dunes of the Namib Desert in morning light. It was in a Robinson R44, mentioned earlier as a great helicopter for photography flights, and both doors were taken off. I flew around for 1:15 hours and the hourly rate was about $850, which is quite good. I took one Canon EOS 5D Mark III with a Tamron 24-70mm F2.8 stabilized lens on it, plus a 70-300mm which I never actually used. This was the flight on which I understood the need for 2 bodies, but I really did fine with the 24-70mm as most of the beauty was in the larger-scaled structures, mainly the shapes of the dunes.
About half an hour into the flight the pilot noticed mist between the dunes ahead, and it was an easy decision to carry on flying and shoot the dunes shrouded in mist. Overall the flight was a huge success, and it triggered my love for aerial photography. I highly recommend flying in Sossusvlei. The fact that the pilot was flexible and had enough insight to suggest flying further above the dunes made a huge difference. Where possible, y ...
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