Flying high

Amazing aerial shots with Joe Mcnally

Biggest problems shooting a pic like this? Control of light. Not a situation for a bounce flash. You’ll illuminate the entire interior of the chopper, and it will look awful and flat and reflect the entire interior in the windshield. Also important: Control of power. Don’t blind the pilot. This has consequences beyond the taking of a bad photo…

There are three SB-5000 flashes at play here, all controlled with a WR-R10 controller. One is on the floorboard, camera left. You can see it defines the floor and gives it some texture. Another is the key light for the pilot; it’s hidden behind the instrument panel on the right, clamped to a metal brace. And the third is below the camera, putting a glow on the empty seat and dashboard.

This picture did not have a promising beginning. In our first test shot, Andrew Tomasino sits in the pilot seat, illuminated, badly, by the three flashes. The hardest part of this, as we all know, is trying to sort out placement and power early in the day, when the Nevada sun is nuking everything in sight. We couldn’t move the chopper inside, so we did the best we could. The placement of the flash on the right, that hot spot, was of course a no-no.

First test flight, as you can see, was predictably awful. Sky too bright, lights still not powered right, or in the right place. Here’s where modern camera tech saves your butt. If these were overpowered, in a manual sense, as they would have been back in the days before radio controls over flash exposure, we would’ve landed the chopper and made adjustments. Now, with radio controlled TTL flash, and an LCD, I can make calls and dial power right from camera.

The readout on the final shot, using a D850, is ISO400, f/11 at 1.6 secs, with a handheld 8-15mm fisheye zoom. I am sitting behind the passenger seat, draping my arms over it, hugging it, and using it as a flyboy tripod. I have to say, when that 8-15mm fisheye zoom was introduced, I thought it was a nutty idea and would be a lens I’d never really gravitate to. Now, I use it a lot. In a situation like this, it is invaluable.

This still could have been fine-tuned better, but once in the air, you are limited just by the fact of being in a flying machine! The highlight on the passenger seat, for instance, could have been finessed better, and we had to burn it down a bit in post. Andrew kept messing with the position of that light during the flight, as it was clamped with a Manfrotto Friction Arm, and thus movable. The happy accident of the key light for the pilot is it brightens the door next to him and separates him from what would have been darkness. Downside? (There’s always a downside…) It splashes some light on Andrew, sitting behind the pilot. We could make that disappear, but left it in.

But overall, we came away with a still-fantastic photograph.