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Filed under: Cameras •Hardware •Production •Tips •

An Aerial Adventure

The phone rings,about a month ago.  It’s Paul, the scheduler at Wisconsin Public TV (my “day job.”)

“Hey Bruce, whatcha doing on Friday October 8?”

“Looks like I’m available.  What’s up?”

“These folks doing a documentary on Aldo Leopold need some aerials out near LaCrosse.  You want to do it?”

Two things to know about me:  I absolutely LOVE flying.  I come from an airline family - my Dad and two older brothers are (or were) airline pilots, my oldest sister was a flight attendant for 26 years, you get the picture.  Thing two is that when I was in third grade, I got hit hard in the left eye with a kickball, detaching my retina and eliminating any chance I might have ever had of being an airline pilot.  (Don’t feel bad for me - considering the sorry state of airlines, I consider that day one of the luckier ones in my life.)  So it is a given that any time I get the opportunity to shoot aerials, I’m in, period.

All Hail The King Of The Dweebs!

It gets better.  “The pilot is based in Viroqua, and he flies some kinda plane that was designed for National Geographic to do aerial photography.  They say it is like flying while sitting in a canoe.”

“Ex-cellent,” I said.

“One more thing - the producers are sending along some kind of gyroscope thing to help smooth out the shots.”

Oh really?  I’d seen camera gyros in magazines and at the NAB show, but never had a chance to use one. 

So it sounded like a fun adventure, right up my alley.  I made email contact with the producers, who filled in the situation a bit more.

For the un-initiated, Aldo Leopold was one of the great conservationists in the United States, and developed a “land ethic” best expressed in his book “A Sand County Almanac.”  The hook here was Leopold’s championing of “terrace farming,” where farmers in hilly country can prevent their topsoil from running away with the rain by alternating planting strips of corn or soybeans with grasses.  The producers needed some shots to illustrate terracing, and as an added bonus, the fall foliage was supposed to be at it’s peak on that Friday.

The first question was:  What camera to use?  WPT has settled on full-sized Sony HDCam camcorders for field work, but in this situation I considered the big camera a bad choice.  For one, compared to other cameras it is relatively huge, and in a small airplane being compact is usually an advantage.  Also, we do not own any type of lens stabilization in our shop, and the particular issues of working within the University of Wisconsin system made renting something on short notice unlikely at best.  Thirdly, the idea of trying to hold that beast still in a non-stop 70-MPH wind seemed sketchy at best.  On the other hand, I own a Canon XL-H1 camcorder, and while it may not be the exact equal of the HDCam in the imaging department, it does feature an excellent optical stabilizer in the lens, a reasonably compact form factor, and a 63-minute tape load when shooting in HDV. For safety’s sake, I double-recorded on my Focus Enhancements Firestore FS-5. Finally, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to bring along my GoPro HDHero action camera for a second perspective.

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I am green with envy: what a gig! Sadly, the second video (aerial.mp4) was listed as “unavailable” by YouTube, but dang! that 15 seconds of GoPro only whetted my appetite.

Q: Couldn’t you fly until civil twilight under day-VFR rules?

Thanks, Bruce. Write more often, willya?

Posted by Adam Wilt  on  10/24  at  11:39 PM

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Really enjoyed your post! First, because just last week I did my first aerial videography work with the Canon 5DmkII.  I didn’t have really any support gear (there wasn’t room in the Cessna 150), so the footage was pretty rough, but usable. 

Secondly, Wisconsin is my home state!  I had no idea the founder of PVC lived within an hour of me!  If you ever need an assistant for shooting or editing, I’m nearby.

Andrew W

Posted by Andrew W  on  10/25  at  07:28 AM

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The other YouTube clip is up now.

>Q: Couldn’t you fly until civil twilight under day-VFR rules?<

Probably so, but as a pilot yourself I’m sure you know Rule #1: 

Never fly beyond the pilot’s comfort level! 

Believe me, I wanted the front seat in the worst way, but Loran only had about a dozen landings in the back seat, so it made sense to err on the side of caution.  It should also be pointed out that Loran was doing this as a volunteer, so I appreciated the chance to fly at all.

Andrew:  Thanks, I’ll keep you in mind!  I have shot out of Cessna 150’s and 172’s - NOT a very good aerial platform.  The wing strut manages to get into every shot.

BAJ

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  10/25  at  07:50 AM

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Nice shots! I just went up for my first aerial shoot ever last Friday. I learned alot. Wish I would have known about the gyro. We looked into getting a gyro mounted on the chopper but it was too expensive for our client. Footage came out slightly shaky but we were able to fix the best parts using software.

Thanks for sharing your story.

Posted by ajpoag  on  10/28  at  02:36 PM

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Amazing place - I had never heard of Driftless, looks beautiful, makes me want to come over to the US just to shoot it myself. Do you have a flickr stream?
Tom

Posted by aerial photography  on  01/09  at  06:04 AM

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