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LarryT

Well Known Member
I tried searching for tips but came up short. I either need links to previous threads, advice or both.

Yesterday was a beautiful day to fly. I tried to take some photos from the cockpit and they were worse than underwhelming to say the least.

So many of you take wonderful photos from the cockpit. How do you do it?

Larry Tompkins
544WB -6A
W52 Battle Ground, ,WA
 
LarryT said:
I tried searching for tips but came up short. I either need links to previous threads, advice or both.

Yesterday was a beautiful day to fly. I tried to take some photos from the cockpit and they were worse than underwhelming to say the least.

So many of you take wonderful photos from the cockpit. How do you do it?

Larry Tompkins
544WB -6A
W52 Battle Ground, ,WA
Click to expand...
I have found that the biggest and easiest thing for making better pictures is post-processing in Google's free photo editor, Picassa. You can download it from Google.com here: Picassa Download

Your two best friends will be the "Crop" button and the "I'm Feeling Lucky" buttons, with "Auto Color" coming in a close third. The neat thing about I'm Feeling Lucky is that it will do a pretty good job of removing haze, although at times it can over do the correction. You can do it yourself to some degree using the 'Shadows' and 'Fill Light' sliders.

Also note that you can use it to decrease image sizes so you don't blast out the sides of the forum windows with a 3,200x1980 image. You do this with the Export button.
 
Editing the photos is the easy part. The way to get the best pictures is to get the lens as close to the canopy as possible. Depending on the type of lens, you can find a rubber hood that will allow you to push the lens tight to keep out reflections and not scratch it. If you have a point and shoot, I think it just turns into a luck deal keeping reflections out.

http://www.adorama.com/NKHR1.html?gclid=CJ_4_-jF6LYCFTBxQgodglkAVg
 
i use software like DX0 to remove reflections from the canopy.
there was an article someplace of a guy flying a -6 who used a large black velvet "tonneau" cover inside the plane with a hole cut for the camera and his head. it was attached with velcro so apparently was easy to remove.
I didnt see any pics of the setup and dont have any futher details.
 
Take pictures during the Golden Hour, the hour after sunrise and the hour before sunset when possible.

If you use a DSLR (digital single lens reflex- interchangeable lenses) shoot at a mid f stop. For example you have a lens that is f2.8 to f22 shoot at f8 to f11. Lenses are often sharpest at mid f stop ranges. Buy the best "glass" you can afford. You will change camera bodies much more often than lenses if you have good lenses.

Use a good UV filter if not using a polarizing filter. Use a circular polarizing for digital cameras and turn the filter for the effect you want. Polarizing filters work best 90 degrees from sun. The UV filter will cut through and diminish some of the blue haze we often see in aerial photos. Try not to stack filters, using both at the same time.

When possible shoot pictures with the sun behind you.
Use a lens hood to cut down on reflections and keep the sun off the lens to avoid glare.

Shoot at the lowest ISO that will allow a fast shutter speed. I try to shoot at 1/250 of a second or faster. I try to stay at ISO of 100 to 400 with my Canon DSLR. The lower ISO settings will usually be sharper.

I always under expose my photographs by about 1 f stop. If you loose the highlights, pure white in the picture, they are lost and no amount of Photoshop will correct for the over exposure. You can always lighten an under exposure in a photo imaging software .

Either fly the airplane or take the pictures. Don't try to do both at the same time with out an autopilot. Clean the canopy well. Lenses also.

Take a lot of pictures, I mean a lot of pictures. You often find the best pictures are not the one you think are the best when taking them.

Practice, practice, practice.

These are general guideline and not hard fast rules. Do what ever it takes to get the photo as long as you do it safely.
 
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Thank you all

Sounds like I should be taking my Canon Rebel XTi EOS and not the point and shoot. The good camera has a 28 -135 zoom lens. For most photos, do I want to be at the telephoto end or the wide angle end of the zoom range?

I will get a polarizer and hood for the lens. Thanks again for all the helpful advice.

Now I need to figure out if the tach cable broke or the tach went TU and get that fixed so I can get back in the air again.

Larry
 
here is a DIY solution you might consider ...
ku-xlarge.jpg

(Before and After)
d-03.jpg

http://www.michaelcourier.com/flect/
​
... don't try this while piloting.
 
GoPro

I've been taking pictures using a GoPro with good success. I'm not a photographer (my wife is). So, instead of spending time getting the right focus, f-stop, exposure, etc... I just set it to auto and take LOTS of pictures. Some of them turn out pretty good by a stroke of luck, but most of them do not.

But, I like the wide-angle lense. It gets annoying with over-use, but it is fun and can produce some very dramatic images.

Here's an unprocessed picture I took of a sunrise on the way to work a while back.
http://www.thelostnet.net/3pm/morningflight/GOPR3715.JPG
 
First piece of advice is... Let the passenger take the photos. :)

Definitely try for dark colours in the cockpit. I can't tell you how many planes i've shot from that have white instrument panels, or the pilots are wearing white golf shirts, or some other bright gaudy colour. Not that I want to be the fashion police, but when you want photos, you need to avoid reflections.

A polarizer will remove many reflections, but on a curved canopy, the effect is somewhat limited. You really need to avoid them in the first place. The tonneau cover is a common solution. A dark bathtowel is another option... Drape it over the instrument panel to cut reflections.

But at the end of the day, you can get great shots just shooting through the canopy. Choose your angles carefully to minimize reflections, and if necessary, make a turn so you can shoot more out the side than the front. Here are some shots from a trip we did down to the Vans Homecoming, and back up the Oregon Coast to BC.

https://plus.google.com/photos/117972730164625167408/albums/5511053877007502913

You'll see that sometimes even with the canopy reflections you still get a good shot.
 
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