Question for Jonathan Weinke

[John Camp]

When you were in Iraq, did you do any photography from helicopters? If so, did you find that while infinity shots seem fine and sharp, that when you framed the shots with something close-by, like the doorframe or the door-gunner's window, that you get a halo (a fairly hard line) around the close-up objects, while the distant objects still seemed sharp? Do you know what causes the effect? Is it a regular high-frequency vibration from the aircraft?

JC

[Jonathan Wienke]

No, because all of the helicopter flights were at night, and the only camera I had was an Olympus SP-350 digicam. But there was definitely a lot of vibration, so that seems to be a reasonable hypothesis.

[Misirlou]

Yes, that's my experience as well. Your body absorbs a lot of vibration, especially close to the contact point between your body and the aircraft (i.e. your butt and the seat). So there ends up being a fair amount of relative motion between the airframe and your head/hands.

I've noticed that helicopters are particularly problematic, maybe because there are also light interference effects caused by the shadows of the turning rotors. I once got a ride down the Potomac in a Blackhawk with the doors open. All my shots of ground objects look great, but the interior stuff is pretty soft, which I attributed to vibration.