Digital Photography

• A daunting problem with photographing from a small plane is vibration. When sitting in a private plane you are subject to movements and vibrations. Don’t let your arms or your camera touch the aircraft. If you touch the window or any part of the of the plane, the vibration will shake the camera and your pictures will be blurred. An image stabilizer has become a popular feature in photo cameras. By adding image stabilization, your shots improve immensely.

Haze is another special and big problem with aerial photography. A polarizing filter can help to improve contrast. Preferably photograph on a clear and smooth day.

• Many plane windows are Plexiglas and with heavy scratches. Shooting though the plastic results in less sharpness and reflections. When flying in a private aircraft, see if there are possibilities to shoot through an open window. Be aware that it can get cold inside. If it is not possible to shoot through an open window, shoot with the camera straight through the window, instead of at an angle. But don’t touch the window with your camera because of the vibrations.
• When possible, switch off auto focus. Manually focus to infinity or switch to ‘landscape mode’, since the subjects on the ground are several thousand feet away. This will avoid the camera focusing on the window glass.
• Watch for the position of the sun. Make use of shadows. Your photo will look flat if you have the sun directly behind you. The best lighting a probably the hours after sunrise and before sunset. Then the warm and low sunlight creates long shadows.
• If you are on a commercial flight, choose your seating. First of all a window seat is needed. And if you are too close to a wing, the view will be obscured by the wing or blurred by the engine exhaust.
• With aerial photography holding it is even more important to hold your camera level, because often a distinct and inexorable horizon is within the frame.
• When you are taking a photo from your own house be sure there is no rubbish in your garden. This will spoil your nice photo.

Don’t forget the most important: your photograph must present a clear topic, or at most a few topics. When you are flying high, the view will be very broad, and ‘everything’ will be included in the view: merely a chaotic combination of unclear miniature, indistinguishable houses of several villages, some forest, and vague horizon, etcetera.
So do some selection. Show certain structures in landscape or cityscape and exclude what is not relevant. Search for a clear subject in the picture, like a tall building, a lake or colored agricultural field. The subject must be clear and big enough on the photo not to disappear in the rest. Zoom in when necessary or get closer if possible.