Non UK Which Lens For Uluru?

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Well we've booked the biggest holiday we will ever have - down to Australia next February / March.

Part of our trip is a helicopter flight around Uluru (Ayers Rock) - on Valentines Day 2019 for the romantic & spiritual among you.

To save weight & because of (I assume) limited space in the 'copter I only want to take one lens. So which is it to be:-

10-18 for those nice wide angled panoramas.

18-55 kit lens

100 prime - a bit of width, but also a bit of magnification

70-300 for those distant close-up shots.

All thoughts are welcome, but if you have done the Uluru helicopter flight I would particularly like to hear from you.
 
No idea. I don't even know what NSFW means. When I tried to post I was asked for a prefix & that one was top of the list. What does NSFW actually mean?
 
What does NSFW actually mean?
Not Safe For Work.

It's to protect those who are looking at the internet when they are being paid to work and who decide to look at images that their company's tech spies might think are too salacious for snowflakes to look at.
I don't think a trip to Ayers Rock comes in that category!!!
 
Now found out what NSFW means. Can anybody please tell me how to remove those initials, or edit my thread title?
 
Top of the thread there is a drop down box that says "Thread Tools". If you can't do it through there then just report yourself and a mod will do it for you.
 
What camera are you using? Is it FF or crop sensor?

For example, if you have a Nikon DX camera, I'd would probably buy or rent, something like the Nikon 18 - 200.
 
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As above I’d go for something like 18-200 that gives you more options .ive not done the helicopter flight but have been to Uluru and it’s pretty massive so would like awideishh lens to photo it all but there’s detail around it also . Helicopter flight will be fab.
 
Might be worth looking at Flickr (other photo sharing platforms are worth a look too!) and searching for Uluru (try its other names too...) and helicopter. Then look at the EXIF (if it hasn't been stripped) of the shots you like and make a decision based on that. Personally, I'd probably go down the 18-200 route but I might slip a compact into a pocket as well. Don't forget a spare fully charged battery and a spare card. Enjoy!
 
Never been to Australia but I was on a helicopter trip once in Barbados and we were loaded in the back seat and viewing was a little difficult so if at all possible I would create a reason to be seated in the front next to the pilot. Helicopters are pretty small places.
 
I've not done it but.... I expect the wide angles would be more useful as you would be getting fairly close with the helicopter and would want to capture the whole thing whilst showing some context of the surrounding area. Maybe check with the tour company on that?

The 18-55 would be more flexible for zoom range than 10-18.

If its a sunrise./sunset tour then shutter speed might be an issue. I expect with vibration of the helicopter, and plus you will be in motion, if light is not great you may need to increase the iso.

Would it be worth hiring a faster lens (say sigma 18-35 1.8), especially if you are staying in the area I bet you could get some really good night sky shots too.
 
I have been in a very small plane and Photography was nigh on impossible! If I were to do this, I would ignore my Canon and take my Olympus with the 12-100 which is equivalent to 24-200. Have a brilliant trip. We visit my brother regularly and haven’t been there yet although I did see it in the distance on the flight home and even from so far away it looked spectacular.
 
I'd go for the 18-55mm as it's the most versatile.
If you used the 10-18mm it'll give you two problems: 1) it'll be so wide at 10mm that the helicopter rotorblades will be visible and 2) Uluru (or any mountain) will look tiny and you'll lose the impact of it's size.

I would also take the 70-300 (so long as it has IS) so get some closer views and compress the landscape, but there's the risk of dropping a lens out of the chopper while changing lenses.

Make sure you keep the shutter speed nice and high to combat the vibrations from the chopper and aperture above f5.6 perhaps f8-f11 in order to have plenty in focus and then adjust the ISO to suit.
There are plenty of videos on youtube on shooting from a helicopter, including Jared Polin and Peter McKinnon.
 
I'd go for the 18-55mm as it's the most versatile.
If you used the 10-18mm it'll give you two problems: 1) it'll be so wide at 10mm that the helicopter rotorblades will be visible and 2) Uluru (or any mountain) will look tiny and you'll lose the impact of it's size.

I would also take the 70-300 (so long as it has IS) so get some closer views and compress the landscape, but there's the risk of dropping a lens out of the chopper while changing lenses.

Make sure you keep the shutter speed nice and high to combat the vibrations from the chopper and aperture above f5.6 perhaps f8-f11 in order to have plenty in focus and then adjust the ISO to suit.
There are plenty of videos on youtube on shooting from a helicopter, including Jared Polin and Peter McKinnon.

You can tell that I'm an oldie as I never think to look for instruction videos on YouTube. I'll have a look for Jared Polin & Peter McKinnon.
 
Also, try this one from Chase Jarvis, he talks about lenses, shutter speeds (1/1600th), and safety. Note he says to take off the lens hoods and why you should if you're hanging out of the chopper.
View: https://youtu.be/vNZ8YPeQm6k


If you're shooting from inside the helicopter, probably worth putting a polariser on the lens to get rid of the reflections in the windows.

And this one from Vincent Laforet, just because his series called "Air" is stunning.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-R0EK76au0
 
Looking at shots on Flickr, it looks like they don't get much closer than a mile to Uluru, and that the helicopters are sealed, ie no open windows or doors. This would I think make the 18-55 would be the best choice. I've not looked at the exif of any shots, but it would be worthwhile searching out images taken from helicopter flights and checking the exif if possible. In my experience (though shooting from planes rather than helicopters), anything over about 90mm on a crop sensor will result in images being blurred in parts, as the windows are not optically perfect at all. I have shot longer focal lengths than that, but you have to find exactly the right bit of window.If you can open a window (I'd be very surprised if you got a flight without doors) then this problem obviously disappears. Be careful of sticking a lens into the slipstream though. If you sit in the front, the distortion from the bubble would be even worse, along with reflections. Wherever you sit, try to shoot through the flattest bit of window you can find that doesn't have scratches. If it's dirty see if it can be cleaned.

Also, as far as windows go (though I've not managed to find any any scientific reason for this) in my experience lenses with smaller front elements tend to perform better shooting through aircraft windows. For example, my Pentax 18-55mm worked better on aerial shots than a Sigma 24-70mm f2.8, which had a very large front element. The Sigma was far sharper on the ground. I've also found that shooting from about 4-6 inches (the closer distance for wider focal lengths) from the window gives the best IQ. Again, I've no scientific evidence to support this, just a lot of experimentation. F8 seems to be the sweet spot on slower lenses, smaller apertures appear to increase diffraction when shooting through windows. However, I must stress that this is from shooting from a pressurised aircraft, with laminated windows, but I'd expect the thinner windows in a helicopter would not be any more optically correct. In a plane, it's possible to shoot at really slow shutter speeds, but I'd expect to have to increase that a fair bit on a chopper. Try to keep your elbows/arms away from the fuselage when shooting and you'll be able to shoot at slower speeds, but if the flight is in broad daylight you should be able to shoot at pretty fast shutter speeds at f8 if you shoot at say ISO 200-400.

If the helicopter obviously has smaller windows that will open, and it's only people in your party on the flight, then you may be able to talk the pilot into letting you open the window. That would be the best option. If it's got the doors open or removed, even better. Then I'd try to take another body with the 70-300mm lens on too.

Have a look at my aerial images if you like.
 
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