Headed to the Hawaiian islands next week. I am planning to take a Helicopter tour on the island of Kauai. I have never shot from a helicopter. Can anyone suggest minimum shutter speeds and any other techniques that will help as well as what I should tell the pilot. Also, please suggest a helicopter tour company that worked for you. I was looking at Blue Hawaiian. Also, as to doors on, do you typically shoot through a port hole or what?
On this trip I will be taking a Nikon D810 and D800E as well as Nikon, 20mm 1.8, Nikon 14-24, Nikon 70-200, Nikon 24-70 and 1.4 Teleconverter. I have longer lenses but was not planning on taking them on this trip.
If there are articles on this site about this or forum answers please send link.
Any advise or help would be greatly appreciated.
1. Two cameras good idea...1 long, 1 wide. changing lenses in flight will introduce dust.
2. Communicate your goals to the pilot. Get him on your page if possible, but at least get on the same page. Find out how high you will be flying to judge by what you are shooting the focal lengths.
3. Find a charter that will fly doors off. Will be much better than shooting through little cut outs.
4. Watch for air flow around the helicopter. Keep longer lenses inside and out of this wicked source of vibration.
5. Active VR might help, might not.
6. Watch for blades and skids in the images. It is real easy to block these out when shooting only to be disappointed later.
7. keep everything secured, obviously, especially if doors off.
8. Figure out what the ISO limit you are willing to accept ahead of time.
9. There is great variablity in the vibration and shake of different helicopters so hard to give a definitive on shutter speeds. Might discuss with pilot based on airspeed and his experience.