My first air to air shoot

[Joel Hamm]

I am getting together with one of my pilots to take some air to air shots at sunset. I have never done this before. Any tips and or reccomended settings to try?

[Scott Youmans]

Joel, What are you shooting and what are you going to be shooting from?

[Joel Hamm]

I will be in a bush plane with no door and shooting a spanish light attack jet. My pilot did not give me a lot of info to go off of.

[Scott Youmans]

Sounds pretty cool.

For starters, it's a good thing you won't be shooting through a window.  Another good thing is that it's not a prop driven aircraft that you'll be photographing.  No need to worry about using too high a shutter speed. I typically shoot in aperture priority to ensure that I have enough depth of field (but no more than necessary) with the camera adjusting shutter speed as necessary.  You'll need to keep an eye on shutter speed and bump up the ISO if you think the shutter speed is getting too low.  Another approach is to use shutter priority but unless it's getting dark you should be getting shutter speeds that are plenty fast at say f/8.  I'd start with ISO 200 and go up only if you need to.  Remember the 1/focal length rule for shutter speed but remember you'll be in a shaking aircraft so be on the safe side.  Don't be leaning against the aircraft interior because you are subject to picking some vibration.

If you have a suitable lens with IS or VR use it.

Depending on where you are flying it can be helpful to fly in large circles to get a variety of lighting conditions.  Sometimes you think you know what you want only to find the better shots were from a different sun position.  It also puts the aircraft into a bit of a bank which can be nice.  If you find yourself in a backlit situation it pays to check your display for over or under exposure.  You might need to use some exposure compensation to avoid a too dark aircraft.  Open up a bit but not so much that you are overexposing.  Helps to have the over exposure warning on.

Keep your lens/hood out of the slipstream and make sure there is nothing loose on you or your gear.  Not good to have things hitting the horizontal or vertical stabilizers.  Also check your harness carefully and make sure any sort of buckle can't be inadvertently unhooked by dragging something past it.

You might find that by moving around a bit within the cabin you can find an area that is less windy, thereby making it easier to hold the camera still.

Make sure you discuss your plans ahead of time with the pilots of both aircraft.  Possibly work out some hand signals to indicate if you want the subject aircraft higher, farther, closer, forward, etc.  I've found it easier to signal than to try and have communications passed from me to the photo plane pilot and then on to the pilot of the subject aircraft.  A bad decision on the part of one or both pilots can bring the two aircraft together in a second or two.  If the pilots are not used to flying in formation you probably shouldn't be attempting this.

More often than not I find myself shooting at longer focal lengths than I had imagined beforehand.  You don't need to be especially close for a good shot.  70mm to 150mm is fairly typical but be prepared for a wider range.  I use a 24-105 on a full frame body and a 70-200 on a 1.3 crop body.

Well that's a start!  Hope you get some great shots.  More importantly, be safe!  Things never seem to go quite as planned!

[Joel Hamm]

Thanks for the info this will be a good way for me to test the waters. I have a pilot I really trust and I am sure I will have a blast doing this!

[cpasley]

Joel sounds like you may be shooting an Hispano HA-200 Saeta, if thats the case im super jealous

[FelipeG]

I had the same feeling, it might even be the blue one that was at Nellis, as I'm sure there aren't many Saetas in the US.

[Joe Copalman]

You may run into some speed differential issues as well with the subject being a jet.  Be sure you talk with both pilots not just about what you want to do, but what they feel they can SAFELY do with regard to speed and separation distance.  If the differences in safe operating speeds are too high for mutual comfort on the part of the pilots (and hopefully they're both experienced formation guys), the traditional "drag" type shoot might not be possible, and you'll have to do turns with the Saeta on the outside rather than on the inside.  

I've done one air-to-air shoot, so I don't have the depth of insight that Jay and Scott can provide, but here are a few tips based on my experience.

-Pre-visualize the shoot.  Think of shots you want to get and discuss them with both pilots, in the same place at the same time while you are all briefing prior to the flight.  This is paramount regardless, but can be even more necessary if the speed difference is too great.  If this is the case, you may only have a few passes to make what you want to happen happen, so make it count.  Maybe even sketch out shots you would like to show the pilots what you are after.  Basically, do everything in your power to stick to the flight as briefed and minimize contingency shots once you are airborne.  

-Experiment with camera angles.  On my flight, so many of my shots wound up being straight-and-level, with the subject aircraft being a straight line that bisected the image.  I finally started to rotate the camera a bit during the flight with the aircraft being oriented nose-to-tail diagonally rather than horizontally.  We did a lot of echelon turns on that flight, with the subject aircraft on the inside of our turn, slightly below and behind us, which yielded a lot of opportunities to experiment with framing, but I kept things level out of habit for way too long.  Really wish I had done that differently.  Actually, that's one thing I wish most guys who do air-to-air shoots would do.  

-Know the area around the airport you will be staging the photo-flight out of, both in terms of the topography as it would factor in as a backdrop, and any restrictions within that airspace.  If possible, work with the pilots to plan a flight that yields a few different backdrops.

That's pretty much all I have to add to what Scott has written.  I will echo him on safety though.  Number one thing in the whole process.

[Scott Youmans]

Joe makes some very good points. Pre-visualizing your shots is always a good idea. Stay open to new opportunities as they arise but it's clearly a good idea to plan around what you've preconceived.

Also, incorporating diagonals into your composition is a good way to make a stronger photograph when practical. In the air and on the ground. Don't rule out verticals (portrait) either. Typically more dynamic compositions than horizontal (landscape) shots. Verticals come into play more often when you have multiple subjects.

If you have control over the timing, shoot early in the morning or late in the day. I've gotten some ok shots at mid-day but it was in spite of the light, not because of it.

The speed differential issue has arisen on several of my flights. I once shot an OV-10 from a Cessna 185. You would think this wouldn't be too big a problem but the OV-10 actually flies relatively fast without flaps and this pilot was comfortable at around 175, quite bit faster than the Cessna.  Because he had to make multiple passes, there was quite a bit of time waisted finding each other again after each pass. This was made more complicated by clouds just above our altitude of 10,000 ft. There were a couple of times where neither pilot could see the other aircraft which was scary.

Not a problem when you have an open door or window to shoot from but if you ever need to shoot through a window other issues present themselves.  The Cessna used for the OV-10 shoot had a non
-removable bubble window on the passenger side.  Not good. Not only did autofocus not work worth beans due to the distorted optical quality (or lack thereof) but the plexiglas was tinted a light blue.  Due to my inexperience and rushed schedule I failed to perform a custom white balance for shooting through the blue window which made it a real challenge to correct white balance later.

[Joel Hamm]

Thanks everyone I will print this out and go over it with them

[Brian Lockett]

I had the same feeling, it might even be the blue one that was at Nellis, as I'm sure there aren't many Saetas in the US.

The blue Saeta N390WW flew from Nellis to Davis-Monthan on Friday.

[Joel Hamm]

I got to do a little walk around on her this morning she is pretty cool!

[jslugman]

So Joel, how did the A-A gig go?