User:Jw4nvc/Aerial photography

Amateur aerial photography, the casual taking of photographs from a moving aircraft, involves challenges that differ from standard ground-based amateur photography. It also obviously provides some unique advantages.

Introduction
The vast majority of aerial photos are taken by amateurs in private aviation small fixed-wing aircraft, or in airliners. This page provides tips and pointers to obtain high-quality pictures in what can be a more difficult, but highly rewarding environment for photography.

The emphasis of these pointers is on candid snapshots from light single-engine aircraft (small planes), in which the camera is subject to wind, strong vibration and other factors not common in professional settings or airliners. Photographic subjects are often chosen spontaneously in amateur aerial photography and exact advance selection of the camera location is all but impossible; while in professional work the subject and location are usually known and planned in advance for fine adjustment and shooting - often from a helicopter.

Most of these pointers also apply to planned aerial photos from small planes, with the added complexity of positioning the plane for the shot. Often photos are a combination of candid and planned. For example an interesting view is noticed during a flight, and a candid snapshot is taken. Sometimes a better photo is desired or spontaneously imagined, so the small plane is maneuvered to capture a planned perspective or different angle or exposure.

Amateur camera equipment is typically more affected by the drawbacks of using small planes as a photographic platform. An important consideration for amateur photography from small aircraft is the ability to open a window, since even new aircraft windows introduce significant blue haze to the photos that is not noticed by the eye during flight. Major advantages to amateur aerial photography from small planes vs. airliners include: lower altitude; slower flight; often the ability to open a window; having some control over camera location and angle by means of maneuvering the aircraft; and discovering subjects, events, lighting or perspectives that could have been impossible to plan in advance.

Safety
A few considerations help to improve the safety of amateur aerial photography.
 * Always use the camera strap to ensure that the camera remains with the aircraft.
 * Do not use any lenses, filters or attachments that could be pulled off by 100mph wind.
 * Keep the camera and attachments inside the aircraft and out of the wind stream.
 * Before takeoff, ensure that all gear is secured and within reach.
 * Ensure that everyone aboard the aircraft understands the dangers of loose gear.
 * Ensure that only the pilot comes in contact with any aircraft controls or equipment.

Comfort

 * Prepare in advance for the possibility of motion sickness.
 * Looking through a viewfinder can increase the effects of motion sickness.
 * Some maneuvers (i.e. "slips") helpful for photography can aggravate motion sickness.
 * Before flight discuss the importance and methods of immediately reporting any indications of motion sickness.

Camera damage

 * Avoid the natural tendency to place the camera in the wind.
 * The sudden and surprising motion can result in impact with the aircraft.
 * Dust blown into the camera optics will mar all future photos.


 * Be prepared for sudden movements in the event of turbulence.

Motion blur
Motion blur typically ruins more aerial photos than any other cause, and can't be fixed later in editing. It can easily be distinguished from focus problems by looking at bright points in the image, because motion blur will create a fuzzy lines rather than blurry points.
 * Use "Program Auto" or setting that favors shutter speed over aperture.
 * Choose a setting for 1/250th sec. shutter or faster (may require higher ISO "film speed" setting).
 * Note: ISO film speed settings are often used on digital cameras that do not use film, or this function might be named "low light" or some other term.


 * Keep the camera inside the aircraft (out of the wind), grip it firmly, and use a strap.
 * Set the camera to "continuous" or "burst" mode for many photos when holding down the button.
 * Snap in bursts of four or more so at least one might be steady between lens oscillations.
 * Often holding the camera so it touches nothing but your hand is better.
 * Sometimes bracing on the aircraft, your face, or elbows on chest is better.
 * Due to random & extreme motion, camera/lens "steady" features seldom help and can hurt results.
 * Favor wide zoom angle for less motion blur and more lens sharpness (see below).

Haze
Haze you don't notice while flying, greatly detracts from the photos later.
 * Always use a UV filter and shoot through an open window, to reduce haze.
 * Never shoot through windows if possible, to reduce blur and/or blue or white haze in photos.
 * Shoot away from the sun to reduce haze.
 * Distance=haze, so nearby or downward subjects have less haze.
 * If enough light use a polarizing filter to reduce haze, turning it for best results on each scene.
 * Subjects where the aircraft's shadow would be if low altitude, often have a haze-like halo effect.

Zoom
Use zoom sparingly, shooting several photos of each scene with different amounts of zoom.
 * More zoom=both amplification of motion; and lower shutter speed (less ability to freeze motion).
 * More zoom=both reduced lens sharpness; and increased lens aberrations.

Focus
Auto-focus sometimes doesn't work due to camera design, motion, and reduced contrast.
 * Manual focus at "infinity" can be helpful, but check focus often in case it gets bumped.
 * Landscape or Sports mode on automatic cameras can help with auto-focus.

Framing
Camera tilt is a problem unless you align with some horizontal or vertical feature.
 * Always align frame to the horizon in long shots or the result is unsettling to non-aviators.
 * On closer subjects a body of water or building with a long roof can give a horizontal cue.
 * Power poles and other vertical man-made objects are usually good cues for camera alignment.

Exposure settings
Manual exposure settings might help reduce camera delay; for bright daylight start with:
 * ISO 200 "film" speed.
 * f-10 lens aperture.
 * 1/400 second shutter speed.

Multiple shots
Always shoot many more photos of each subject than for non-aerial photos.
 * One out of four photos usable at full size is above average, and often only one in ten is good.
 * Use exposure "bracketing" if available on your camera to improve odds of best exposure.
 * Use an "area" or full-frame rather than "spot" metering mode to reduce over/under exposure.
 * Taking your finger off the shutter between bursts can provide auto-exposure variations.
 * Shifting auto-exposure can help get the best results for an area of interest.
 * Frame a lighter/darker subject (e.g. more sky or more dark surface).
 * Press shutter release button halfway and hold in that position.
 * While continuing to hold button halfway, re-frame the shot to the desired subject.
 * Press the shutter all the way down and hold to shoot a burst of photos of the subject.
 * Use a lower than normal file resolution to allow more photos per memory card.
 * Switching cards can be difficult and time-consuming while flying.
 * Great shots can be missed while deleting bad photos or swapping cards.
 * Really sharp aerial photos are so difficult and rare, higher file resolutions are seldom helpful.

Frequent review
Frequently review your shots zoomed to maximum on the camera screen, to monitor results.
 * Light changes dramatically with sun angle relative to both camera and ground subjects.
 * Settings that worked on one scene or at one distance, can change dramatically in moments.

Choosing subjects
Often the most striking aerial photos are those showing things impossible to see from the ground.

Long vistas
The breathtaking long vistas common on most flights, seldom yield impressive photos but are fun to have as reminders of your glorious few minutes aloft.

On the ground
After landing, often the first thing an excited amateur aerial photographer will do is download the images into a computer for viewing on a larger screen. Film buffs will of course add the step of developing the film(s).

Delete or keep?
That is the question. Even very skilled or fortunate photographers with excellent equipment will almost certainly discover some shots spoiled by motion blur or other problems. Some questions to consider in deciding include:
 * Do you have an essentially unlimited disk drive?
 * Can you back them up to archival media like CD or DVD?
 * Is it possible that some portion of a "bad" photo could be used in the future?
 * Can the image be scaled down in size to hide motion blur or other problems?

Edit
Image editing is the aerial photographer's best friend. Good shots are almost always made better with careful digital editing. Bad shots can quite often be saved. Clearly the process of learning to edit photographs on a computer is a daunting process well beyond the scope of this article. Still, there are a few things almost any editing software can do that greatly help aerial photos and can all be done in less than a minute on each photo after you have learned how. You will soon learn how easily a good photo can be made garish by editing too much. Often it can be helpful to view a photo at its final size during editing, to ensure that some tools have not been pushed too far.
 * Here then are a few things you might want to learn first, for editing amateur aerial photos:
 * Rotating can correct the framing angle errors so common in flight.
 * Cropping selects the ideal frame for each photo, which is all but impossible in flight.
 * Scaling can minimize motion blur, and is useful for ensuring the best image for the final use(s) of a photo.
 * Sharpening edges slightly, makes details crisp.
 * Histogram (graphical representation of how often a given color or brightness level is found in an image) trimming improves contrast on hazy photos by making the dark features black rather than gray, and white features bright without losing detail like cloud texture or rooftops.
 * Saturation ("Colorfulness") increase boosts color to compensate for color lost to haze and histogram trimming.
 * Slightly reducing overall blue brightness for the entire image can further reduce haze, but too much will shift the color balance and detract from most landscapes by shifting them artificially toward green and/or red.