
A week ago Monday, Jan and I flew to Salt Lake City to see Elif and Mina. The first leg of the flight, Providence to Baltimore was about an hour. By sheer coincidence, our exit gate was next to the connecting flight gate to Salt Lake City.
Take a Window Seat on Flight to Photograph
The wait was short and we boarded first along with other passengers who needed special aid. This time I chose to sit in the window seat to take photographs. I have done this quite a few times using infrared cameras and wanted to try recording the Earth once more, this time in color. The clear weather was on my side, making the flight smooth and my photography easier.
Aerial photography, especially at 30,000′ is very different from shooting landscapes. First, there are two layers of airplane window glass of dubious optical quality and cleanliness. Add to this the speed at which the plane is flying, the weather conditions, and unexpected bumps, and the engagement with the subject becomes a very different experience altogether.
Upon takeoff, the city and highways provide ample material to photograph. There is not much time to think and compose, one has to rely on one’s instincts. At these lower altitudes, things go by much faster requiring faster shutter speeds and reactions. As the altitude increases the clouds may enter the scene sometimes adding quality elements to the photographs and at others becoming a pure obstruction. But, be on the alert, a partially revealed scene below may offer interesting photographs.
Some Camera Automation May Help
The camera angle, the exposure settings, and the lens zoom all need to be carefully controlled. With quick-changing light, it is best to use some form of automation. Aperture or shutter-speed priority would work, so long as the shutter speed does not fall below, say 1/250 seconds. I used aperture priority, auto ISO, and shutter speed not below 1/250 seconds. Of course, depending on the changing conditions some amount of exposure compensation is unavoidable. (Also, see the comment by Haluk below.)
The tricky part is the white balance with changing light conditions, clouds coming in and out of the view, and ground color shifting. I relied on auto white-balance and then tweaked it based on my mental images. The color may not be exactly accurate but “they looked right to me!” You may also notice the wide crop ratio of 1:2 rather than the camera image having 3:2. The wide crop in this case and the previous instances allowed me to retain the feeling of looking at a wide vista while eliminating the parts that could not be left out when photographing.
Cropping and Perspective Correction as Needed
You may notice that some of the photographs have the appearance of looking directly down. A few of them were lucky moments when the plane banked and gave me a good view of what was down below. In the other frames, I used Lightroom to yield a corrected view. That gave the land a better presentation of its features.
Yet, others remained mostly the way I took them except for some cropping to get the window frame out, or to remove the extreme rotation of the camera angle. (Thank you, Bill, for noticing this and commenting on it. This paragraph was in the post. But, thanks to my hosting company’s poor service my site crashed as I tried to save the post causing me to lose a good deal of content.)
These are not meant to be highly accurate reconnaissance photographs but photographs I want to share with you. The detail may be lacking, and the colors may not be exactly correct (although I believe darn close to it!) but remember the two layers of dirty airplane window glass, all the clouds going in and out. I prefer that you enjoy the colors, shapes, texture, lines, mood, and feeling encoded in the images. Come to think of it, that is the way to look at and read photographs.
I hope you will travel with me from Baltimore to Salt Lake City. Let’s fly!
Haluk Atamal
Of course you need to autofocus – but that will be autofocus at infinity.
The infinity mark on the lens barrel should not be trusted at all. Most lenses can be focused beyond infinity, making the whole frame blurred. I think they do this to accomodate for variations of the focal plane to lens distance due to temperature and other outside influences.
Is Binnaz OK now?
Regards to Jan and you!
Haluk
Cemal Ekin
Ah, I see. I thought you meant to focus at infinity.
Binnaz is still the same, hanging in there. Thanks for asking Haluk.
Cemal
Sal Capirchio
Beautiful as usual Cemal. It never ceases to amaze me how these landscapes make for such great abstract photos. I’m curious, is there a lot of vertical and horizontal perspective adjustment involved in post? I’m asking, because I’m just thinking of how the camera needs to be positioned during this type of photography. I’ve tried it-its challenging trying to keep that camera steady – and of course, sitting in those “very comfortable – extremely spacious seats”, making it so EASY to position yourself…..NOT!!!!
-Sal
Cemal Ekin
Hi Sal, I am glad you enjoyed the aerial views. The amount of perspective correction depends on how much you would like to correct the views. On some of these photographs, there is indeed a good amount of that. But many others have crop rotation, simple transformations. I want to present a particular view rather than what the camera recorded. Otherwise, I could have left at the point of cropping and leveling.
You are right about those comfortable airline seats!
Cemal