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Inspired by a remotely flashed helicopter post on www.strobist.com, I decided to have a go myself.
My pal Gordon and I set up the actual shoot this afternoon and turned up well prepped from a previous test/install/fiddle about visit. Everything charged, enough lenses & bodies to keep us busy, flashes everywhere and a bunch of Pocketwizards.
And so to the hanger. It's the first time I've ever been asked "which helicopter would you like to use"!!! They are all twin-turbine Agusta 109's so I chose a dark coloured one that would look more cool. Gordon & I helped roll it out of its hanger and onto a nice little parking spot.
#1 First job was to do some PR photos of Philip, the boss of Rotormotion (biggest Agusta fleet in the world if you ever need one). Nailed these with Gordon's help as senior reflector holder. Helicopter in the background, blurred to various extents using a 50mm 1.4 (great lens!!!). All look pretty good but not for sharing yet. Here's one of Gordon so you get the flavour:
#2 I particularly wanted a low-down shot taken as the heli took off. I roped in my brave and fearless companion. As you can see, we had two flashes in the heli, a 580EXII taped to the front windscreen strut firing up & back, with the inbuilt diffuser engaged and at 1/4 power, and a Vivitar in the rear at 1/8 power bouncing light around the back. Both triggered by Pocketwizards.
As you can see, I've underexposed the background by about a stop to add drama to the in-flight shots. I'd earlier determined that 1/125th shutter speed was ideal for blurring the rotor blades a tad, so that was the shutter speed fixed. The variables left were the flash power which we'd previously sorted & balanced, leaving aperture & ISO. I left ISO on 100 and sorted an aperture of f/7.1-f/8 to give the right exposure. Gathering dusk made it important to get the shoot done quickly as opening the aperture further would have resulted in the flashes appearing overexposed.
By the way, the camera is a Canon 1D Mark III and I was using a 70-200 F4 for the in-flight shots.
#3 Here's a takeoff shot taken by me - Gordon is immediately under the heli at this point.
#4 A "Gordon's Eye" view (17-40 on a 5D. Nice & wiiiiide)
#5 Then onto the in-flight shots. I'd briefed the pilot to do clockwise circles around me and worked out some hand signals to ensure we got the height of the heli right so there were no trees in the background. Here's the first high-speed pass as he was getting sorted out. Looks cool with wheels up I reckon.
#6 I'd said during the briefing that I wanted some banked shots so the heli was perpendicular to the lens, like this. Note the rear flash recycling time was a bit long so didn't fire in this shot, but I'm not overly worried about that due to the rear just being a large expanse of white leather.
#7 And I was after a more front 3/4 angle too like this. I think this is the pick of the day. Lots of room to put a big long ROTORMOTION logo along the top too :smashin::
#8 and just for interest, here's me and the heli just to show the sort of bank angles we were playing with.
Fun or what. Really enjoyed it. Huge thanks to Gordon for loan of his brain, body and flash gear, and to Philip at Rotormotion for lending me a gazillion quid helicopter to play with.
Tobers
My pal Gordon and I set up the actual shoot this afternoon and turned up well prepped from a previous test/install/fiddle about visit. Everything charged, enough lenses & bodies to keep us busy, flashes everywhere and a bunch of Pocketwizards.
And so to the hanger. It's the first time I've ever been asked "which helicopter would you like to use"!!! They are all twin-turbine Agusta 109's so I chose a dark coloured one that would look more cool. Gordon & I helped roll it out of its hanger and onto a nice little parking spot.
#1 First job was to do some PR photos of Philip, the boss of Rotormotion (biggest Agusta fleet in the world if you ever need one). Nailed these with Gordon's help as senior reflector holder. Helicopter in the background, blurred to various extents using a 50mm 1.4 (great lens!!!). All look pretty good but not for sharing yet. Here's one of Gordon so you get the flavour:
#2 I particularly wanted a low-down shot taken as the heli took off. I roped in my brave and fearless companion. As you can see, we had two flashes in the heli, a 580EXII taped to the front windscreen strut firing up & back, with the inbuilt diffuser engaged and at 1/4 power, and a Vivitar in the rear at 1/8 power bouncing light around the back. Both triggered by Pocketwizards.
As you can see, I've underexposed the background by about a stop to add drama to the in-flight shots. I'd earlier determined that 1/125th shutter speed was ideal for blurring the rotor blades a tad, so that was the shutter speed fixed. The variables left were the flash power which we'd previously sorted & balanced, leaving aperture & ISO. I left ISO on 100 and sorted an aperture of f/7.1-f/8 to give the right exposure. Gathering dusk made it important to get the shoot done quickly as opening the aperture further would have resulted in the flashes appearing overexposed.
By the way, the camera is a Canon 1D Mark III and I was using a 70-200 F4 for the in-flight shots.
#3 Here's a takeoff shot taken by me - Gordon is immediately under the heli at this point.
#4 A "Gordon's Eye" view (17-40 on a 5D. Nice & wiiiiide)
#5 Then onto the in-flight shots. I'd briefed the pilot to do clockwise circles around me and worked out some hand signals to ensure we got the height of the heli right so there were no trees in the background. Here's the first high-speed pass as he was getting sorted out. Looks cool with wheels up I reckon.
#6 I'd said during the briefing that I wanted some banked shots so the heli was perpendicular to the lens, like this. Note the rear flash recycling time was a bit long so didn't fire in this shot, but I'm not overly worried about that due to the rear just being a large expanse of white leather.
#7 And I was after a more front 3/4 angle too like this. I think this is the pick of the day. Lots of room to put a big long ROTORMOTION logo along the top too :smashin::
#8 and just for interest, here's me and the heli just to show the sort of bank angles we were playing with.
Fun or what. Really enjoyed it. Huge thanks to Gordon for loan of his brain, body and flash gear, and to Philip at Rotormotion for lending me a gazillion quid helicopter to play with.
Tobers
Great idea and well executed!!!
.