Hi everybody

I've been asked to shoot some aerial footage of a country park in England. I've found a pilot with aerial photography experience and his own R22 helicopter.

We plan to go up on a calm sunny morning or evening in the next couple of weeks.

Can you offer some basic advice, please?

I can choose between a Sony NEX-EA50 (with options of 35mm or 14mm fixed, manual lenses), a Panasonic AG-HMC41 or a consumer SD900. I also have a new GoPro.

I can't remove the door but have a window to shoot through. I'm not planning to mount the camera or support it on the floor due to vibration and I don't have access to or budget for a gyro. I need to get the best handheld shots possible.

Which camera would you take?

What format would you shoot in? (50i, 50p, 25p etc.)

What shutter speed will work best for the chosen framerate?

How would you handle white balance?

Should I consider slowing the footage down in post? If so, does this affect the above choices?

Are there any tips for making handheld as steady as possible?

Sorry for the long list of questions. It might be easier if somebody could come and shoot it for me, rather than answer all those questions. I have seen discussions on some of these topics but some aren't conclusive and it will be nice to get the advice in one thread for other novices with a similar list.

I look forward to seeing some suggestions.

Thanks.

Hi Martyn,

That's a tricky one, but filming from any aircraft without the door off can be a nightmare as you can't hang out far enough to get a good ground shot. That means that the helicopter will either have to be quite a way off to do a gentle banked turn to get a decent view, or very low which ATC would probably not allow over a public area like a country park, so you may have a 2000ft height restriction. I would be very inclined to take the Panny 900 which would at least allow you get it through the window and maybe tilt down enough for a good shot and either one of the others incase it works out better than I would expect.

If the owner will allow you to attach the gopro to the underside of the nose, you may get some good angles if you can tilt it down and face it at perhaps 60 degrees to the direction of travel. If the pilot then maintains a turn around the park in that direction, you could get some useable shots. If you have the wifi version, you may be able to monitor it to direct the pilot in the turn.

One of the biggest problems may well be vibration, even hand held, as my experience with helicopters is that they tend vibrate much more than a fixed wing light aircraft and at a lower frequency. I haven't been up in a Robinson though.

Good luck,

Roger

Helicopters vibrate. Using a CMOS camera without a gyro stabilizer in a heli is a good recipe for rolling shutter problems.

Will your heli. operator allow you ride along when he's doing something for someone else just to do some testing? If he could, might help.

I just did this a couple weeks ago. My first time too. Here's what I'd say:

• Choose the sharpest camera you can because you'll need to stabilize later. This means the EA-50.

• I used a 24-105 and it worked great. The lens had stabilization, which I think is a must. I shot between 24mm and 35mm most of the time. Go rent the stabilized EA-50 kit lens or something with image stabilization and a decent range, heli shots are special so make sure you have the right gear. You'll want to run aperture with pretty deep focus - F8 at least - so no worries about needing a fast lens.

• Shoot in 50p. More frames means smoother footage. Slowing this down to 25p makes things look great. Also, shoot with a crazy-high shutter speed like 1/500. I'm really not kidding here. You'll be so high up that motion blur isn't a factor and the footage will look buttery smooth. I shot at 1/250 and wish I had gone higher as it helps immensely in stabilization during post.

• I used the daylight preset so that the golden hour looked golden.

• The less the camera touches the helicopter the better. I used a Fig Rig with a big foam pad (pelican case foam) between it and my lap. It helped.

• The faster the pilot flew, the more CMOS rolling shutter I got. The best shots were at slower speeds. Also, keep your camera inside the chopper or else the wind will buffet you around a LOT.


Are you shooting through glass? Here's what I came up with my first time up, chopper was a Jet Ranger and I had the door off the left side with a harness on. Just rough footage not really color corrected. Shot with C100 and Hyperdeck Shuttle at 30p (an external recorder might help you too...). Stabilized with Lock and Load X, slowed down to 24p. password: olaf

Private Video on Vimeo

Thanks for the great advice so far.

The SD900 is small enough to have in my pocket, Roger, so that's a great idea. And I'll see what he says about the GoPro. Good tip about the 60 degree angle for turning into. But fixing to the outside is a big ask, I think.

Nice footage Nate. I'd be happy with that. I already have the EA50 kit lens. When you wrote "crazy high frame rate of 1/500" is that the same as shutter speed of 1/500?

I can shoot through an open window, according to the pilot, but a 'test' run is not an option, Bruce. I need to read up on 'rolling shutter problems'.

Cheers, guys.

Sorry, meant shutter speed. Post has been edited for clarity.

Obviously there are more professional ways to shoot aerial footage, but for situations like mine and yours, sometimes it's a matter of getting the best footage with the time and resources you have. Good luck!

Just a thought. I wonder how those hand held three-axis gimbals (movi (http://www.freeflysystems.com/products/moviM10.php) and clones like the BeSteady (http://blog.planet5d.com/2013/06/besteady-camera-stabilizer-another-3-axis-gimbal-stabilizer-ready-to-hit-the-market/)) would work in this situation? Might be sufficient that you can avoid stabilizing in post (which can take a lot of time). Might be able to rent a Movi M10, but they might not be available in time, IDK. Just a thought.

Thanks Nate. High shutter speed will dictate wider aperture on the lens, but using the wide end of the zoom and focusing at virtually infinity, this will be OK. I'm assuming no gain is best.

Bruce, my guess is that one of those stabilising rigs will be awesome. Thanks for telling me about them. There sure is a lot of kit hitting the market at the moment.

My problem is the cost. I'm a one man band and pull in just enough work to make a decent living. Last year was REALLY expensive for me, adding a Nikon D800, a Sony NEX EA-50, two new lenses, a GoPro Hero 3, a Rhino Slider and stabiliser, Hague tracking dolly and a small Hague jib. I've put it all into bespoke Packhorse flight cases and my accountant is having a fit. Not to mention my wife.

The rental scene in the UK doesn't seem to be as accessible to small operations like mine, compared to the US, especially the west coast and NYC. My clients like my ability to tell their story and seem less concerned about technically perfect images, as long as I am getting the very best I can with the limited resources I have.

But its vital to know what is out there and what I might be needing next, so I appreciate the info.

I'll go out on a limb here and suggest the Movi and similar technology won't provide sufficient reaction to vibration to be useful in a helicopter. Although the material I've read states it is gyro stabilized, it is pretty light so I don't think the mass is there to provide sufficient rigidity in space like a pair of Ken-Labs gyros with their tungsten masses spinning at high speed. It looks like the Movi is maybe using motors to drive reaction as determined by the accelerometers and the gyros may play some role in the physical reaction or the sensing.

At any rate, enjoy your flight, I'm sure you'll have a blast.

Actually Nate, listing my recent purchases last night reminded me about the D800. The Nikon has the biggest sensor by far and my 24-70mm f2.8 lens is very sharp. I also have a lovely old 35mm f2 manual lens.

Should I be shooting on the DSLR? It doesn't have the optical image stabilisation.

I'll go out on a limb here and suggest the Movi and similar technology won't provide sufficient reaction to vibration to be useful in a helicopter.

Interesting thought. The gyros they use come from RF helicopter drone technology: quad-copters and the like. Such small light drones have a natural frequency well above that of a full size human piloted helicopter. A buzz compared to a thrum. And you're right, I suspect that devices like the Movi just don't have the power to handle the large amplitude low frequency vibration. But.... we won't really know until someone tries it and publishes their results. And in a couple of years, one of these companies will have a device designed for hand holding on full sized helicopters. You know it's coming... ;-)

Actually Nate, listing my recent purchases last night reminded me about the D800. The Nikon has the biggest sensor by far and my 24-70mm f2.8 lens is very sharp. I also have a lovely old 35mm f2 manual lens.

Should I be shooting on the DSLR? It doesn't have the optical image stabilisation.

I'm sure it would gather some wonderful footage. The photographer that was in the front seat on my flight had that same exact D800/24-70 combo. Not sure if the image quality of the D800 bests the image stabilization of the EA50 though.

Highly recommend the KenLabs 4x4. Not that expensive to rent for a week and has been proven to work from most heli's. The guys at KenLabs can recommend mounting options and were very helpful when I needed to shoot from an R-44.

I have thought about the MOVI or Defy systems and the one thing I see as a positive is they both seem to remove the bounce and vibration of walking naturally which is more of a low frequency vibration like the blade thwap and natural motion of the heli being bounced around in the air. I may be giving the Defy a chance when their heavier version meant for DSLR's comes out. Til then...KenLabs!

On a different note...the R-22 is REALLY tight for shooting video. Also, they are much more "squirrely" because they are so light. No chance of your pilot renting an R-44 for the day?

The best advice I can give is keep it simple. Your apparently doing this on a low budget so here is a low budget solute that works well.

Helicopters are extremely effected by weight and balance, the R22 has two bladed main and tail rotors and don't have terribly sophisticated articulating main rotor hubs so if the rotor isn't well balanced you will feel a medium frequency vertical vibration, if it out of alignment you''ll feel a medium frequency lateral vibration. Someone mentioned to not let the camera touch any part of the helicopter, that is good advice. However, if you rest the camera on anything, on some foam on your lap for the example used earlier the camera will still pick up the medium frequency vibration. Your body supplies a little more mass which will slightly dampen the vibration but it will still be there.

A simple inexpensive solution is to take some yarn and wrap it securely around the barrel of your lens as close to the body [center of gravity] as possible, find a bungee cord that has a good amount of stretch with the weight of your camera but doesn't "bottom out," connect the yarn to the bungee and the bungee to the helicopter to support the weight of the camera. If the R22 has sound proofing you'll need to ask the pilot to pull it back, its usually attached with snaps or velcro so its not a big deal, it would be nice, but in an R22 not likely, to have the bungee drop down directly from above you. But the idea is to have the bungee support as much of the weight of the camera as possible so that all you have to do is control where you want to shoot. If you have the right strength bungee it will remove all of any vertical vibration and if you relax and don't apply a "death grip" on the camera you won't add any lateral vibration.

Not sure why the pilot wouldn't remove the door but if you have to shoot out of an open window make sure you don't get the camera into the slip stream, you can ask the pilot to fly slightly out of trim or 'crab' the acft to give you a better shot out of the side. Also safety wire your camera to something inside the helicopter to make sure you don't give someone on the ground a free camera. If you have to shoot out of the 'glass' wear dark clothing to reduce reflections.

Here's a video, kind of long and boring but I used this technique shooting outside of the helicopter, inside shooting out of the door and from the front through the glass. AERIAL on Vimeo

Good luck and have fun.

Since my last post I decided to do a 30-minute test shoot. The pilot agreed to a quick flight at half the hourly rate, giving me the option of a second 30-minute flight if I needed it. I think I need it.

For a week I've been "waiting for a call from my helicopter pilot", which I've really enjoyed saying to people.

It came this morning at 7.30 and we were in the air by 9am.

You all said how difficult it is to hand-hold in a small helicopter. Crikey, you are right. Coming from the world of still photography where a fast shutter speed fixes most motion problems, I got a shock, despite all your well-meaning warnings.

I set the Sony NEX EA-50 to manual and used a shutter speed of 1/425sec. I worked the iris manually. I recorded in PS mode (1080/50p) and used the normal daylight white balance setting. The optical stabilising was set to 'active' and the zoom spent most of its time at the wide end.

The video I've linked to below is typical of the 20 minutes of footage I brought home. It is played back at between 40 and 70 per cent of full speed to try to smooth the bumps.

To be honest, I am disappointed. I thought I could do better than this and I now bow deeper to your experience and knowledge. The movement seems to be a 'rocking' wobble that might come from the movement of the aircraft. Those R22s are very small. There's also a pronounced 'jello' effect over the city centre and when I zoom in on the cathedral, around 1m 30s.

Any advice you can give me to either improve this footage in post (I use Premiere Pro and After Effects CS5 - no Warp Stabilizer) or improve my footage next trip will be most welcome. I also have the option to shoot with Panasonic SD900 or AG HMC-41. The little one does 1080/50p, offers manual shutter speeds and has very good OIS.

I look forward to your comments. Be gentle with me.

Peterborough helicopter test video - YouTube

Any advice you can give me to either improve this footage in post (I use Premiere Pro and After Effects CS5 - no Warp Stabilizer) or improve my footage next trip will be most welcome.

Find someone who has CS6 or above and tryout the warp stabilizer. Or just use the 30 day trial of CC and try it yourself. Might be enough to get you where you want to go. Or not. Only way to know is to try it.

I would imagine that warp stabilizer won't work well with zoom. It might be that you can't zoom under these circumstances. But again, try it and see.

If it makes you feel any better, your footage is better than I was expecting.

I'm curious, did you try the technique I outlined?

I have more than 2000 hours in helicopters and I've shot with a lot of different systems and I prefer the method for shooting aerial footage that I told you about. People use all kinds of stabilized mounts, and some of them are amazing (expensive), but unless your going to be zooming into an ants ass on a window sill that's a couple of miles away those types of stabilizers aren't necessary. All of the footage in the example video was handheld.

If you didn't try the method I mentioned above then I suggest you do. One of the great things about it is that you don't need a helicopter to test it out, a mini van or truck will work just fine, I've even done this shooting off the back of a motorcycle.

If you did try it and that was the result then ask questions, I'm more than happy to answer them. Basically what you need to do is fly the camera inside something that's flying, so you have to isolated all the forces that effect the helicopter from the camera. I'm not familiar with the camera you used but a light weight camera can be harder to use, a slightly heavier camera that you can "create zero buoyancy" with the bungee is better. Also, you need to test how the OIS works in your particular camera or lens, often times its better to turn that off completely. In a similar way that you should turn it off when shooting from a tripod because without inertia the OIS does't know how to respond, in a helicopter it really doesn't know how to react.

If your going to shoot a lot of aerial or theres considerable value in the aerial your shooting you should consider upgrading to AE7(CC), image stabilization for aerial footage is like what sharpening is for RAW still images, anyone who says they don't do it is either a liar or a fool. Having said that your footage has both vertical and horizontal vibrations which usually results in "Jello". You can post stabilize one or the other but not both.

Thanks Bruce. Your closing remark did cheer me up. And I've shown you the worst in that sequence. I have footage of the country park that I think will be usable and I only need a handful of 2-3 second clips.

Chuck, I'm embarrassed to say that I did not try the bungee trick. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude by ignoring your advice but the pilot was squeezing me in before a lesson and his student was already waiting. I only had time to pack and check one camera and decided to try to hand-hold unaided.

You're right, this is a no-budget job. The park is run by a charity and I'm working for next-to-nothing to create films to take to potential sponsors.

If you think that suspending the camera from a bungee will eliminate the R22's rocking motion, I will surely give it a try on my next flight. Aerial footage has never featured in my work before and I don't see it becoming vital to my business (certainly not if I don't improve!). But I am keen to see what is possible on a shoestring, and now an elasticated band.

As a keen motorcyclist (Triumph Speed Triple) I have plenty of bungee cords. But tell me, Chuck, where did you hook it to on a bike, to 'hang' the camera from the cord?

Perhaps you can ask the pilot to fly a bit slower. In my (limited) experience, the stuff I shot when cooking along in the chopper had a lot more rolling shutter "jello" effect than the slower moving or hovering footage.

Also, when I used the stabilization effect included with Final Cut Pro X, the results were horrible. But when I used the 3rd party plugin called Lock & Load X, the footy looked like butter.

I think your camera and settings looked good. I bet you'd have more issues with a lighter camera versus the EA50.

Like the Microsoft XP setup music too... :)

A couple of years ago I was asked to shoot some aerial footage from a helicopter. I only had about an hours notice so had no time to research techniques. I used a Canon XA10, handheld.

It was an extremely windy day and the helicopter was tiny, so it was a bumpy ride. I stuck the camera on auto because I couldn't change my grip on it for fear that it would fly out the door.

When I got the footage back home I was really disappointed with it. Exposure was pretty terrible. But after a bit of playing around in post, I got some usable footage. Not great footage, maybe not even good, but usable.

After Effects Warp Stabiliser Test (aerial footage before & after) - YouTube

Thanks Bruce. Your closing remark did cheer me up. And I've shown you the worst in that sequence. I have footage of the country park that I think will be usable and I only need a handful of 2-3 second clips.

Chuck, I'm embarrassed to say that I did not try the bungee trick. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude by ignoring your advice but the pilot was squeezing me in before a lesson and his student was already waiting. I only had time to pack and check one camera and decided to try to hand-hold unaided.

You're right, this is a no-budget job. The park is run by a charity and I'm working for next-to-nothing to create films to take to potential sponsors.

If you think that suspending the camera from a bungee will eliminate the R22's rocking motion, I will surely give it a try on my next flight. Aerial footage has never featured in my work before and I don't see it becoming vital to my business (certainly not if I don't improve!). But I am keen to see what is possible on a shoestring, and now an elasticated band.

As a keen motorcyclist (Triumph Speed Triple) I have plenty of bungee cords. But tell me, Chuck, where did you hook it to on a bike, to 'hang' the camera from the cord?

Please don't be embarrassed and don't apologize, you weren't rude, I just feel your pain. I know how it is to work on both big budget and low budget aerial shoots and I much prefer the low budget shoots.

I strongly recommend you try what I suggested, not so much because I suggested it but because you won't believe how well it works and after you've practiced a bit you won't believe how easy it is to setup and use. I know this sounds like an informercial but it isn't. Most first time DP's can't believe it when I show up to the helicopter for the shoot and whip out my little purple piece of yarn. It makes me laugh when they finally get the courage to ask me if I'm sure that will work..

Anyway, the best part of this is that you can practice it without the helicopter, once you figure out the right length and strength for the bungee, and as long as you support the bungee in the same way it will work exactly the same whether in a car or helicopter. I have different bungees for different camera and lens configurations, sometimes all I need to "tune" the balance is to add or remove a knot in the bungee. Once you start to get a feel for doing this its surprisingly easy to adjust it. You can take off in the morning shoot some aerial footage and then go up again after lunch without changing anything and it will be different because the density altitude has changed and that will effect the vibrations.

As Jody mentioned talk to the pilot, especially if your using the same pilot. Helicopter pilots are very familiar with the the different types of vibrations and sometimes if it has a vertical putting into a slight banking turn will soften it, if it has a horizontal putting it into a shallow descent can dampen it, each aircraft is different and like I said changes in temperature also make a difference. After you've done this a bit you'll even start to hear when its smoothing out before you feel it. The hardest thing about doing this is figuring out how to rig it. I went to the FBO where the helicopters were being rented and spent a couple of days figuring out ways to rig this. They were a bit reluctant at first but after watching me for about an hour they got into it and helped me. Now I can usually be done rigging before they're done pre-flighting.

A lot of the video of this car moving was shot off the back of a Yamaha FJR1300. I used an old, thick piece of leather that covered the back half of the seat like a saddle that I sat on, it had a 36" rod bolted to it and then a grip head with an additional 24" that the bungee was attached to. I could adjust the hight by changing the angle of the grip head. I tried it with the rod running up the front but it worked better with it running up my back through a strap that kept it standing straight up. I also did it by attaching a single suction cup mount on each saddle bag that attached to the upright rod to form a triangle behind me and then hung the 24" rod over the front. It worked pretty well, however I wasn't able to figure out a way to mount some sort of foot rest and I burnt the crap out of my left leg. If you look at the shots, we never got going that fast, not because of the stability of the camera but because it felt really unsafe.

LAMBORGHINI GALLARDO on Vimeo

Nice film, Chuck. I bet the rig would have the health and safety advocates running for cover!

It obviously works. I should set up something similar to film my 1972 Jaguar XJ6. I'd need somebody to drive it, though. Do you think the woman in the Lambo is available?

I'd also need somebody to ride my bike. I could do that if you and your scary rods are planning a trip to the UK sometime.

Thanks for the helpful posts. You obviously put a lot of time and effort into things, Chuck. I really appreciate it.

It's late to the party, but I just found information about the Kenyon Labs. Gyro Stabilizers (http://www.ken-lab.com/). Aimed right at the OP's application. Attaches to the camera using the tripod mount screw thread.

Posting this just in case someone searching for this needs it. Probably too late for the OP. Sigh...

Those Gyro's are quite expensive and when you add the power supply quite bulky to use, they work well though.

Interestingly one of the pictures on their home page shows someone using a DSLR with one of their gyros attached suspended with two straps. Replace the straps with bungees, lose the gyros and you have what I described without the $4500 gyro.

Interesting that in the picture the guy uses two small suction cups to attach the straps to the outside of the helicopter, not sure I'd do it that way:

Gyro $2500
Camera and lens $4000
Cost of camera falling from 1000 feet and killing someone, priceless.

If you were shooting air-to-air or zoomed into and following from air-to-ground these gyros would certainly improve your chances of getting a great shot but for the occasional aerial landscape you probably don't need the additional expense, weight and bulkiness.

Stabilize the camera
Do not move the camera
The helicopter does the only moving

You ask the pilot to follow the direction lines which you have pre planned out based on what side
of the helicopter the camera has been rigged.

You have pre planned out which wide angle lens you will use based
on the field of view from a helicopter at the height of flight you have predetermined
including what exposure you will use on different types of days.

Hourly rates for helicopters are very high so preplan everything
and just go with your plans

I loved your demo for the park Martyn. I did a stills job from a helicopter about a year and a half ago and just grabbed some footage as a bonus for the company for whom I was then working. The one thing I can tell you about shooting video from and R22 is DON'T use an iPhone!

Sandfire TV Episode 10 - Sandfire Resources NL (http://www.sandfire.com.au/investor/presentations/sandfire-tv-episode-10)

Hi everybody

Thanks again to everybody who posted advice. I'm definitely going to give Chuck's method a try. In the excitement of finishing the film I forgot to come back and thank you all. Although I'm not totally happy with the result, the client is delighted. I can now concentrate on making the next one better. Here's the link:

Nene Park at 25 - YouTube

For using online the aerial footage looked great. [That's not to say that it wouldn't look good on a 50" plasma but that's not how I viewed it].

Good work.

Those Gyro's are quite expensive and when you add the power supply quite bulky to use, they work well though.

Interestingly one of the pictures on their home page shows someone using a DSLR with one of their gyros attached suspended with two straps. Replace the straps with bungees, lose the gyros and you have what I described without the $4500 gyro.

Interesting that in the picture the guy uses two small suction cups to attach the straps to the outside of the helicopter, not sure I'd do it that way:

Gyro $2500
Camera and lens $4000
Cost of camera falling from 1000 feet and killing someone, priceless.

If you were shooting air-to-air or zoomed into and following from air-to-ground these gyros would certainly improve your chances of getting a great shot but for the occasional aerial landscape you probably don't need the additional expense, weight and bulkiness.

The gyros rent for about $300 per week :) And suspending from bungees (mounted on proper points of the heli) they work incredibly well. I've shot on a Cineflex rig in an A-Star and that's like 10 times the hourly rate and I didn't feel the end result was that much better stability or IQ-wise.
BUT I did the gyro thing in an R-44 not the 22. Worlds of difference there.

Chuck, would you mind terribly posting a photo of your bungee set up? I'd like to see what it looks like...
Thanks in advance!

Chuck please post a picture for us!!

A picture, Chuck? Chuck? .... Bueller? Bueller?

BTW Martyn, I really enjoyed watching that video you did. Thinking it would be really neat to be able to drop in there virtually via Google Earth.

Andrew

Hi guys,

regarding pictures of my setup I don't currently have any, but when I get the time I'll go to the airport and shoot some pictures and a video tutorial of how and why I do what I do. The setup won't be the same for different camera's, lenses and helicopters etc., but if you understand how to identify the different types of vibrations you'll see how simple it can be to isolate them and you can figure out the right setup for yourself.

Nice work, Martyn! Thanks for all the helpful info here, Bruce and others, I'm planning a helicopter shoot, and this came in useful.

Well, since my first suggesting the Kenlabs gyro, I've had the chance to use one. Works great if you have a pilot who gives you enough time for the gyro panning to take place. Doesn't happen all the time. Came up with a MUCH better solution….Here's the first test of my rig for shooting from a small heli (Schweitzer 300)
DJI Ronin with C100/Canon 16-35 f4, Zacuto grip relocator and Ninja 2 recorder.
Works pretty darn well. Did some tuning on the Ronin and really need the thumb controller to make it perfect. The entire rig is safety wired to the seat belts of the heli.
And there is no post stabilizing on this footage.
Ronin Test on Vimeo

My buddy Jay Beckman took the photos of the flight.

That's real nice Robert. Do you have to hang it outside in the wind?

Shoot. With all the drone craze going on, I never thought of using a full-size gimbal on a full-size helicopter!

From when I rented it, the Ronin comes with a 4-channel transmitter. Has anyone tried simply securing the ronin to the heli and using the remote from the cozy backseat? Or even just having a second person hold the gimbal without having to worry about operating it?

Very nice indeed, though I noticed a tiny bit of steppy-ness in the smoothness of the motion. Not super crucial, but enough for a picky person like myself to see if I look for that sort of thing.

What shutter speed were you shooting at?

Andrew

Might be the encode…the pro res looks flawless! 1/48 shutter 24p

As for questions..
The Schweitzer has no room to maneuver the rig inside so yes it has to hang outside. For getting from airport to location it is easy to set on my lap.

If you were shooting from a Long Ranger or Huey you'd probably be able to secure the Ronin using 4 bungees and use the remote. This is why I'm anxiously awaiting the thumb controller. Most situations don't have the room to put a second operator in the aircraft. I do plan to build a rig for shooting from a Bonanza A36 or similar plane for higher speed A2A shooting. I do a lot of aviation related shoots.

If my wife will let me get a welder (once hell freezes over) I will be exploring adapting my Glidecam arm onto a plate to hold the Ronin. Theory is the plate could just slide into any aircraft and allow a bit more freedom than the bungees. I already have the adapters to use the Ronin on my Glidecam arm/vest so it shouldn't be too hard.

Poor man's Cineflex is what I want!!
Can't justify $4k/hr to most clients!

What about the bungees in a Huey heli? Where do u guys suggest to place em without having a ronin or a gyro but a camera in a sled/rig?

Well, since my first suggesting the Kenlabs gyro, I've had the chance to use one. Works great if you have a pilot who gives you enough time for the gyro panning to take place.

DJI Ronin with C100/Canon 16-35 f4, Zacuto grip relocator and Ninja 2 recorder.
Works pretty darn well. Did some tuning on the Ronin and really need the thumb controller to make it perfect. The entire rig is safety wired to the seat belts of the heli.

Nice work. The most expensive part of this solution, and the one we have the least control over is the helicopter itself. This discussion also runs the gamut regarding budget. Robert I think this is a great "medium" priced solution. As you may have gathered I'm not a big fan of attaching gyros to a camera.

I would like to make a few points that might help you in future aerial shots and others who are still trying to figure out how to shoot good aerial. Putting a Ronan on the end of a bungee was the next logical step to what I recommended in post #14. Generally this works great, however most gimbals suffer from horizontal drift and there's quite a bit of it in the video that you posted. Adding the thumb controller will make it easier to frame shots but won't help with the Horizon. The other constraint with a gimbal is the balance, you couldn't use a 70-200mm lens for example, of coarse most aerial is going to be shot with wider lens so that might be a non issue. But, if you use the right bungee, match the elasticity with the weight of the camera and lens, you can use longer, heavier lenses and still get similar results without the gimbal.

When talking about gimbals there are quite a few good choices, one that I think is very well suited for this type of shooting is the Gremsy H3: https://www.gremsy.com/product/gremsy-gstabi-h3 This gimbal is much lighter and because of its encoded motors more powerful than the Ronin.

There's so much that goes into capturing good aerial I try to keep things as simple as possible which is why I like using bungees. I agree adding a gimbal can certainly be an improvement as long as I don't have to spend a lot of time balancing and tuning. It might be tempting to add steadicam arms, operating the camera remotely etc., but I think you'll find that will add a layer of complexity beyond the point of diminishing returns.

Again, it depends on the camera, gimbal and access to mounting hardware on the helicopter that will determine that. But I have yet to show up for an aerial shoot that I couldn't figure out how to get good aerial with just a bungee. Having said that, now I never show up for an aerial shoot without my gimbal ; )

What about the bungees in a Huey heli? Where do u guys suggest to place em without having a ronin or a gyro but a camera in a sled/rig?

Depending on the model of Huey there might be some differences. Most UH-1H and newer have soundproofing that is snapped in, generally you can unsnap it near the door you want to shoot out of and you'll see some "cubby holes" with circular holes and the occasional support bar that are easy to attach your bungee too.

Obviously don't just start unsnapping the sound proofing, talk to the pilot, and probably a mechanic, tell them what you want to do and that you've done it before and they will unsnap the sound proofing. The circular holes in the bracing can be a bit abrasive, so wrap your bungee with Gaffers tape where it goes through the hole, it will protect both the bungee and the aircraft, and tie-wrap the join.

Don't attach it too close to the door, give yourself room to be comfortable and it you fly with the doors pinned back you'll have a huge vista without having to be in the slipstream.

Chuck thank u! The link of the gimbal doesn't work!
Now....we are curious to see your aerials:)
Where can we found em?