Bats!

I want to make a longer post, including some pics, about this in the future but wanted to share while these ideas are still fresh. I used my 18-200 lens to give me maximum options for zoom (and traveling light for the trip) but it's a f3.5-f5.6 lens.

I had the opportunity to shoot from a helicopter on a tour from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon a couple of weeks ago. Here are some thoughts about shooting from a helicopter:

1) Vibration (I heard about this as an issue ahead of time.) Avoid contact with the outer frame of the helicopter as much as possible (perch on your seat as much as possible.) And of course try to shoot at fast shutter speeds - more on this later.

2) Reflections - I was basically shooting from inside of a fish bowl. A lot of my shots have reflections of either me or other passengers (the pilot's white shirt was a problem.)

3) Fast changing angles and opportunities - I considered using a polarizing filter but angles and framing changed too fast for me to have time to be readjusting the filter for each shot. The changing angles meant I didn't have time to chimp the histograms much either. I planned for this and I used exposure bracketing (3 frames, 0EV, +2EV, -2EV) and used continuous (burst) mode and fired bursts of 3 frames at a time. In retrospect, I think 0, +1, -1 might have been better, but I'm definitely glad I bracketed as the 0 EV was often over-exposed.

4) Darkness - this was a sunset flight to the canyon with a flight down the strip on the way back. The Strip flight was dark and even the -2 EV shot was only choosing 1/50s at ISO 64K wide-open. In retrospect I wish I had gone manual, wide-open and seen how fast I could make the shutter speed and still get a shot. I think the matrix metering was still trying to expose for grey. I was definitely glad I manually cranked ISO to the max on the strip (and I was incrementing it on the flight back.) I used ISO auto for most of the trip but it only goes up to 1600 and I needed the higher values after sunset.

5) Tinted glass. In retrospect, I'm pretty sure the windows were tinted. I wouldn't have expected this to be a problem in the desert. But we happened to take our tour one of the few overcast days in Vegas!. It was actually dark enough that we were worried about whether or not we'd fly. My initial shots in Vegas were around 1/640 at f/5, ISO 500. I wish I had gotten 1/1000 without having to crank ISO too much.

6) Surprisingly confined space. I was definitely being creative in the way I held the camera to keep from bumping my lens hood against glass when shooting to the side or behind me. Also because I was strapped in so I couldn't turn too much.

I wanted to share these in case others get the chance to shoot from a helicopter in the future.

Oh wow this is amazingly beautiful!

For landscapes I have a CPL and 9 stop neutral density filter, what do you think I should be adding next to the arsenal? Some hard and soft GND filters?

FWIW my guide on these tours (pro landscape photographer) just carries around a polarizer, 10 stops of solid ND, and maybe one other kind of filter. He doesn't like graduated density.

GND more or less a waste of money in my opinion. I can maybe see getting just the filter and hand-holding it for exposures less than 40 seconds or so, but honestly there isn't any photo that you can get with a filter than you can't get with photoshop. Just bracket exposures on a tripod (i'm assuming anyone who is going the distance and using GNDs is also using a tripod) and then apply a gradient mask to the two layers in photoshop. same result, no impact on image quality and much more control. and anyone who takes this stuff seriously is spending a lot of time in post, so nobody give me the 'i'm a naturalist! no photoshop!' bs

plus a lot of GNDs have color casts. +1 to what suzzer said. if i had to buy one filter to rule them all and bind them, it would be the singh-ray vari-n-duo.

http://www.singh-ray.com/varinduo.html

I really wish I had gotten the 10 stop instead of the 9. I keep finding myself really wishing for that one extra stop! Also where in Glacier did you go for you phototour? I'm heading there in 2 weeks so hopefully I can bring back some winners.

At first I thought the same thing, but I always see some of the really good landscape photographers in the canon forums raving about their newest singh-ray or Lee filters, so I'm kinda like I feel like I'm missing out on something.

We went all over. A lot of my good pics are from St. Mary Lake or just outside the park on that side. Here is the TR I wrote up about it: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/79...s-pics-898317/

The only pic I really changed a lot since that write up is the dead trees pic, which is becoming one of my favorite that I've ever taken (I sharpened the treees and the undergrowth on the horizon a bunch, and made the some of the primary undergrowth a lot redder):

Yea I really like that TR, I might have to look into one of those phototours in the future. Did you guys do any backcountry stuff or did you just venture off during the day and make it back to hotels/campgrounds at night? What did you use to protect your gear from the elements? Are you finding yourself using a tripod more since you wrote the TR? Also can yo give me anymore info on cloud tracking stuff? I never knew stuff like that existed.

why do you need that many stops for landscape on an ND? slow shutter? is this why my photos look like crap?

Yea its used for long exposures. You can get some cool effects with moving things like the clouds and water. Although not using one probably isn't why your photos look like crap

Although there are way better examples out there, here is a picture of pier shot during the afternoon using my 9 stop ND filter to get the water to look flat and silky looking. [IMG] Into the sea by Adam Liss Photography, on Flickr[/IMG]

Can anyone give me tips on photographing the stars at night? How long of an exposure do you need to get star trails?

10+ minutes to see a trail.

The more common thing to do it take a **** ton of <30sec exposures and use a program to turn them into star trails (startrails.de IIRC)

well it depends if you want strar trails or not...
if you want star trails, just find a nice background, like a house, or hill, etc... otherwise it can be a boring composition.

second, make sure the moon won't get in your way. third, use the lcd viewfinder to focus manually.

fourth, since exposure time dosn't matter, stop down to the sharpest spot on your lens.

then do an automatic shutter release so that you minimize movement, though for long exposure this is not as important.

i would disagree about 10min. for star trails.. I guess in theory, you get star trails at any exposire time b/c stars are always moving ldo... but, when I am trying to capture the night sky w/o trails (trying to presrve the star's shape) I see trails at 50mm after about 8-10 seconds. These are faint, and don't really screw my image up. But I can't take photos that are 30sec+ b/c the trails are too great.

Furthermore, the farther you zoom in, the fast the trails appear. so at 14mm, you can get away w/ say 20seconds and the trails are not noticeable. But at 400mm, you literally only have a few seconds.

But.. you will need way longer exposure times than 30 sec., or you will need software, in order to achieve the awesome looking start trails.

ITS THE END OF TIMES@!!! by mike kelley / mpkelley.com, on Flickr

Nice! That is pretty rad that absolutely no cars are driving the other way. I take it that this LA?

Looks like LA to me. I like the idea and it's a cool shot. I take it each side is (at least) 1 separate image)?

Very dramatic Mike. Almost filmic. Is the sky cloned in from another photo?

Yep, LA. You guys are close - it was actually 6 or 7 images. I just had to take a bunch of images until each section of the road was clear, then combine them in photoshop. And yeah, the sky was brought in from another photo

Here's one of the unedited images:


1DM39912 by mike kelley / mpkelley.com, on Flickr

We did backcountry a couple nights, just had a backpack with rain cover thing to protect the camera equipment if it rained.

I really hate using a tripod. But I know I have to get over that. I just learned w/o a tripod so I feel like it messes with my rhythm and I don't have the same sense of composition with one. But obviously you need it a lot. I have a backpacking one that's super small and light, but has 4 sections to unscrew, which is one reason I tend to avoid using it. Also it only comes up to my neck. I'm planning to get a bigger one that comes up to my eye height for day trips, that hopefully won't be as high-maintenance to use.

I don't know what program our guide uses, it's on android.

i sorta love this picture. took it tonight. it's a composite, i took about 200 photos over the course of two hours at sunset and then combined the best parts from the relevant photos, sorta how i work on all my stuff though, most of you know that, hah. but i think this is the best thing i've ever squeezed out of photoshop.


Walt Disney Concert Hall by mike kelley / mpkelley.com, on Flickr

moar


1 by mike kelley / mpkelley.com, on Flickr


2 by mike kelley / mpkelley.com, on Flickr


3 by mike kelley / mpkelley.com, on Flickr


4 by mike kelley / mpkelley.com, on Flickr


5 by mike kelley / mpkelley.com, on Flickr

Looky at what popped into my Google Reader
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2011/09...peedlight.html