I have a client who asked me to shoot an aerial vue of a stable for a project they have. They'll be renting a small plane for this. Problem is, I've never been on a plane like this, don't know what to expect in terms of turbulence, visibility or field of vue (will the plane need to tilt or rotate for me to be able to see anything?). I don't know if I'm all set with just my XL2 with stock 20x lens or if I'll need to rent some special stabilizing gear or longer lenses.

BTW if it matters, the stable is in a city so lots of fairly high buildings around.

Any pointers from people who've done this before?

I have a client who asked me to shoot an aerial vue of a stable for a project they have. They'll be renting a small plane for this. Problem is, I've never been on a plane like this, don't know what to expect in terms of turbulence, visibility or field of vue (will the plane need to tilt or rotate for me to be able to see anything?). I don't know if I'm all set with just my XL2 with stock 20x lens or if I'll need to rent some special stabilizing gear or longer lenses.

BTW if it matters, the stable is in a city so lots of fairly high buildings around.

Any pointers from people who've done this before?

I think this thread should help you.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=67765&highlight=aerial+shoot

David, as a private pilot I can offer some advice. But let me say first, I've only shot still images from a plane, and low quality hand held (consumer) DV from a plane.

First, and possibly the most important is to talk to the pilot about what you need. Particularly if you are over a city and/or near an airport. He has to deal with minimum/maximum altitudes, air traffic restrictions, etc, etc. Knowing what you want and where will help figure out what you can and can't do.

Second, the choice of plane is very important. A low wing plane will limit your FOV a lot, so you want a high wing plane if possible. (But again, if the site requires steep banking to get your shot, the opposite may be true)

Third, the windows on small planes are often very old, made of plastic and therefore optically ugly. If you can get a plane that can open a window, or better still remove a door so you can shoot without anything in the way, you will get better image quality. Have a look at the plane before choosing to see how you will sit and how you will need to hold the camera for the shots you need. It is easier to figure that out when you are not "on the clock".

Depending on when you are doing this, turbulance can be a factor. As mentioned in the other thread, very early morning will probably be best. Overcast and hazy days are the smoothest while clear days the most bumpy. Again, talk to the pilot, he'll know what may be best. If the conditions are good, the pilot should be able to give you a very steady platform.

Good luck, and let us know how it turns out?

Thanks for the replies and thanks for the tips Brendon. Yeah I figure it would indeed probably be best if I was to talk to the pilot. The client wanted to take care of everything as they're getting this plane through a sponsor but I think I will at the very least need to pass on the recommendations.

I didn't even know you could open a window or door in a flying plane! lol I guess I have a lot to learn before I take off. And yes those dirty windows might indeed be a problem.

An other concern was if I'd be fine with the stock zoom lens or if I'll be too high or too low to see anything. Again, I feel like a complete newbie. I have no idea what to expect. The first and last time I flew I was 10yo on a flight to Mexico.

I'd guess that the stock lens will do the job. Opening the window depends on the plane... some have none that can open, others a little "flap" about 4 inches on a side, and then only on the pilots window! Others have a bigger opening. Opening the door, in little planes, usually involves removing the door before takeoff! That is how they get the sky-divers out the plane.

Think of a little 4 seat plane as like a small car that can fly, that will give you a good idea of the space. If there are no other air space restrictions, you could get as low as 500 feet above your target. The pilot should be able to manover to give you what you want. He can "lean" the plane over to give you a good view, probably as much as 45 to 60 degrees, if you are up to the g-forces (which while not very high, can be very uncomfortable if you are not used to them). He can slow down to probably 60 mph or so, depending on the plane. as well as circle, fly past, over parallel, etc.

All in all, you should have some fun!

I'm a commercial pilot (I actually own my own air charter company)and alot of times what we do is go up in a single engine cessna with the door and front seat on the right side removed. Similar to when we have skydivers. Then we strap the photographer in with a safety belt and lanyard and we shoot that way. then we don't have to worry about small windows or anything

may i suggest a helicopter...

David, I have a great deal of experience shooting aerials, but mostly from helicopters. I have only shot once out of a fixed wing.

Brendon gave you some great suggestions and I have a few more. First do talk with the pilot and only do what he/she is comfortable with. I assume you are shooting hand held so the biggest advice is stay wide and let the plane get as close as they can. Zooming in will be of no use. Even explain the limitations to the client before going up. This will prepare them for what kind of footage they are getting.

It sounds like the object is one paticular spot so have the pilot lean in on your side and do a sort of semi-circle around the stable. This will keep you from having to try and pan too much in an unstable plane.

Keep in mind the laws of lighting still apply, sun to your back, you will notice colors pop better and contrast improves as the sun is to your back.

The last thing is don't fight the bumps and movement. The worst thing to do is try and compensate for the bumps. Let your body absorb some and the rest are what they are. With out a mount and gyro, you will have bumps. Just shoot a lot and pick the best sections.

David - Yet another pilot here. I don't know whether you have any choices on aircraft or not, but if you did, I would recommend the Cessna 175, AKA "Cardinal." It's a high-wing craft with the additional advantage for a photographer, of having no wing struts – the braces that run from the bottom of the fuselage to the underside of the wings at about mid-point on the wing, and right about were your camera will be pointing.

You might also ask the local airport/s operator/s if they know of any aircraft with camera ports. Aerial photography used to be quite popular, prior to satellites taking over the job, so you may find someone with one in your location.

Finally, let me reinforce what's been said about turbulence. Fly as early a possible in the morning to avoid it. If there is any cloud cover at all, stay as far below those clouds as you can, while still high enough to get your shots and to avoid picking privet hedge out of your teeth. And be sure to use the Image Stabilizer on the XL2. Let the aircraft make the movements, rather than the camera. A remote monitor for the pilot could help with this.

Thanks for all the replies guys that helps me a lot. I think I'm slowly getting up to speed with this aerial videography stuff. I will definitelly transmit all those pointers to the client and see what kind of choice he has as far as type of plane or even helicopters.

I was wondering if there was any way of successfully using a tripod in a plane like this. Seems to me using a tripod and letting the XL2's OIS take care of the small bumps would provide the more stable footage. Or are the severity of those bumps or the space in the plane preventing me from doing this?

Also, is there any kind of suction effect when flying with an opened door which would mean I'd have to be very carefull about securing all the gear I bring or is it no worse than a fast rolling car?

I was wondering if there was any way of successfully using a tripod in a plane like this. Seems to me using a tripod and letting the XL2's OIS take care of the small bumps would provide the more stable footage. Or are the severity of those bumps or the space in the plane preventing me from doing this?

Not really. For starters, you're going to be shocked how little room there is inside a single engine plane - maybe 42 to 44" inches wide for you, the pilot and your gear. In any event, your body will provide some dampening, whereas a pod will transmit hevery jolt direct to the camera.


Also, is there any kind of suction effect when flying with an opened door which would mean I'd have to be very carefull about securing all the gear I bring or is it no worse than a fast rolling car?

The pilot could fly as SLOW as a fast rolling car, but that's near the point where an airfoil could stall. If the aircraft needs to bank – and if it's going to circle your object on the ground, it will have to bank – then the pilot will want to fly with more power, not less. The problem won't be suction per se, since air pressure will be more or less equal inside and outside the aircraft, but it will be pretty windy and quite noisy, so you may want to film without sound. If you fly with the door removed (best option for clarity), you will want to be strapped to the pilot's seat or something, and you should similiarly secure your XL2. If you stick that big 20x out into the airstream, it's going to really pull at your hands.

Also, is there any kind of suction effect when flying with an opened door which would mean I'd have to be very carefull about securing all the gear I bring or is it no worse than a fast rolling car?

Kind of like a very, very fast car with no door! Depending on what you are doing and the plane, you will probably be in the range of 60mph to 140mph. I'd personally secure my gear, remember as Kelly said, they secure the videographer! Do what you would do in the open bed of a speeding pickup truck.

As far as bumps go, it varies a lot, depending on the weather. On a very turbulent day, you can bump your head on the roof. On the other hand, it can be as smooth as silk. Often it is more of a gentle rocking motion with occasional "potholes" in the sky. Flying low, you can even predict the bumps based on what you are flying over - different color surfaces heat differently and cause columns of rising air. Talk to the pilot about a tripod. If a seat is removed, you may have space, depending on the plane. Perhaps somebody else can comment if a tripod would be good idea or if hand holding would be better for stability - I'm too new at the video game to know.

Thanks Brendon and Jack. Yeah I was asking because I was thinking of bringing a tripod, monitor, and maybe some other stuff but frankly on 2nd thought I think I'm more comfortable with only bringing the camera, even if it meant a bit more movement. I don't want to see something unexpectedly fly out the door and since this is over a city, be charged for manslaughter if it drops on someone's head. ;-)

I think I'll use the K.I.S.S. principle on that one since it's my first time and I'll be nervous enough seeing the gaping hole with no ground to fall on right beside me. I've already talked to the client regarding the advises I got here. Good thing I did too because he had booked a low-wing craft for an end-of-day flight.

David, I'd suggest you find some local flight instructor and ask him to take you up for a short flight prior to the real shoot. It shouldn't be very expensive and will give you a chance to understand the whole small plane thing, shoot some video (with the doors on) to get an idea of motion, etc. I'm not familiar with how the Canadian rules/procedures differ from the US, but the local small airport should have plenty of hungry flight instructors who will be more than happy to take you up for a half hour or so to get a feel for things. I did a quick google and found several introductory flight for $59 offers...

Good idea Brendon, I'll look into it.

Well the client has booked a plane already, apparently it was his only choice given the short notice time frame.

It's a 4-seated Cessna 172. There will be 2 pilots, one to handle communications with Air Traffic Control because we'll be flying in controlled airspace and the other to fly the plane smoothly. We won't be allowed to open a window nor remove a door so through-the-glass view is all I'll be getting unfortunatelly.

We'll apparently be requesting clearance to fly at 1000 feet (is that too high, too low?). Don't know yet if I'll sit in the back or front, apparently this is a decision I can still take after take off.

Not ideal conditions, but the choices were limited and since I'm not the one booking the plane, I don't have much say here. Shooting will be on Monday weather permiting at around 5:00PM. I'll let everybody know if it went well or not.

David, it will help if you remove the mic and the sunshade. Also, make sure the windows are clean. Have fun. Bob

Ok, here’s a little update on the shooting, if it may help anyone in the future.

The shooting got postponed 3 times because of conflicting schedules, weather and plane availability, but it finally got done yesterday. The flight per say went really well. It was quite a fun ride actually. The shooting, different story.

The main problem was the stability or lack of it I should say. I was shooting from the back seat of a 4-place Cessna. We were granted permission to open the windows on both sides, which were in the front. But I had to lean forward to be able to shoot through them and to do this I had to keep the XL2 away from my body and at an angle. Well for those who think the XL2 is poorly balanced when shoulder mounted, just you try this funny little trick. This combined with the unstability of the plane itself made it impossible to get any kind of smooth footage. The best I got is still a little bumpy, news footage like. The worst is like an earthquake of a civilization ending magnitude.

The reasoning behind sitting in the back, which in retrospect appears flawed, is that I wasn't sure about the wind factor and sitting in the front next to the pilot had me positioned in a weird and uncomfortable way for shooting. And since the viewfinder was on the wrong side, I then had to pass the lens of the XL2 through the window and I didn’t think I would have been able to remain steady while fighting all this wind on the lens.

Furthermore, I thought I would get better options, being able to shoot through the windows on both sides, the ones opened as well as the fixed ones. But the problem is, having to lean forward to shoot out the opened windows had me off balance, and the closed windows in the back were just a mess. I can now confirm, there is no way you can get good looking footage out of those cheap, scratched, tinted plastic windows. And that’s too bad really because everything I shot through those is the only footage that was somewhat stable.

To make matters worse, I had to cope with constantly changing light conditions. We were shooting at 6:00PM (had no choice on that one) and the sun would just keep coming in and out of the clouds. So when it was hitting the plastic window directly, it would just amplify all those little scractches and imperfections as well as flare and create a haze that diminished visibility.

The last problem I had was that we were flying too high. To get any chance of success, we probably should have been at about 500ft from the ground, but because we were over a city, we didn’t have permission to go bellow 1000ft. Even that was pushing it because in this area, you normally have to be at least 1000ft above the highest building in a 2000ft radius. So that meant I had to zoom in to shoot our targets and this accentuated the motion even more.

The client can’t really be mad or disapointed as I clearly stated before the shoot that I had no prior experience doing this, the conditions were far from ideal and it could turn out unusable, so I’m not too concerned with his reaction, but I’m just disapointed it turned out that way. I think if he can get the plane a 2nd time I’ll ask about doing an other pass while sitting in the front. Can’t be much worse than it was sitting in the back.

Anyways, I will file this under live and learn, and I had fun if nothing else, so all is not lost.

I’m joining a sample video of a couple shots from the day. They are not the best nor the worse, just an average of what I was able to get. Some are through the opened window, some through the glass, you shouldn’t have much difficulty differenciating the two. It’s nothing fancy, I just threw a bunch of shots on the timeline. I also used a stabilizing plugin (2d3 SteadyMove pro) on one shot, I was curious to see if I could salvage some of the footage that way. I put both the original and stabilized shots in the sample video. This was shot 4:3 and 60i as per the client’s requirements, so I de-interlaced it to minimize artifacts. Obviously it is also heavily compressed to keep it at a Web friendly size. Other than that, I didn’t alter the original footage in any way.

link (20MB file) (www.bicubik.ca/videos/aerial_footage.wmv)

I want to thank you all again for your help. Even though the footage didn’t quite turn out the way I hoped, I think with the pointers I got here and this first experience, I now have a pretty good idea of how to achieve the best results next time around (which will probably imply sitting in front with the side door removed). Plus there are still some shots in there that can be used, just not the amount I was looking for.

David,
I'm a former skydiver with 2500 jumps on my back, 1000 of these as a free fall videophotographer.
I know how hard this can be. To shot good aerial shoots from inside a small Cessna is almost impossible. I must say that your footage was impressive if this was your first time!
My advise to you is that you should try to fly with the door removed. The small Cessna's with the door in front, will be your best choice, sitting beside the pilot, you can communicate better, you should also wear a intercom headset. In that case you can talk to him even in the noicy environment flying a small airplane without a door can be!
The pre-flight breafing is very important. Make sure you and your pilot understand each other perfectly before take-off. Make sure that you planning your flight-route accurate. Shoot your target from several directions. I think the best time for shooting will be early morning, where the horisontal and vertical visibility can be very clear.
Shooting at the wide end of the lense will be your best choice, this mean that you should shoot below 1000 feet, 500 feet would be better, but I know the restrictions!
Make sure you practise your position in the seat with your camera on the ground before take-off. Try different positions. Ask the pilot to practise with the engine started, but still on the ground, so you can feel some of the air-pressure you will experience from the open door.
If this is your first flight sitting in a seat with the door removed just inches from you, you should consider to take a small practise flight just to get used to it. It can be a little scaring the first time you do it!

Wish you good luck and a happy flight!

Hand held aerial work is one of the most difficult things to get right, as you now know. You'll already know about the problems with getting a clear, unrestricted view that's reflection free, judder free and in any way useable.

The best stuff you'll see nowadays is shot using a gyro stabilised mount, generally slung on the underside of the aircraft (normally a chopper) and operated from the inside using a PBIS (pan bar imitator system) or similar system. Not very cheap to hire unfortunately, but if you make some enquiries with the local news broadcaster in your area, there may be some footage in their library that you can 'rent' for your production. I seem to recall seeing some kind of service offered with a remote control model helicopter too ???

I did a chopper job once, where I was sat in a cradle, strapped in at the side door and the camera mounted in a rig which was half in and half out the aircraft. I was tasked with following a new oil rig from it's construction yard, down river to the sea. I think the pilot had just got back from 'Nam' ? What can I say, one of the most important accessories for this kind of work is a pair of 'brown trowsers' !!!

What can I say, one of the most important accessories for this kind of work is a pair of 'brown trowsers' !!!
LOL! remindes me about my first free-fall jump ;-)

Yes I am now convinced I will not bother going back to any of those high altitude jobs unless I can ride alongside the pilot with the door removed. It's the only way I can both be balanced and steady while shooting and have a good clear field of view to look at (still wondering if a tripod would have worked though, there was enough room as far as I can tell and that combined with the lens stabilizer might have been enough to get decent footage out of it).

I'm sure I wouldn't get better results than what I got if I was to re-do it the same way a thousand times simply because it is impossible to hold the camera off balance and try to shoot through a small window while the plane is jumping around and constantly changing its angle. You need to yourself be steady and have a clear field of view to at least have a chance.

I don't know if it would be difficult to have permission to fly lower than 1000ft. Probably impossible in this case.

Anybody has a ballpark idea of how much it could cost to rent a gyro camera mounted plane/helicopter?