Ok, here are the major issues to plan for;
a) Shutter Speed - ALL YOU CAN GET - nothing less than 250th
b) f stop - Again higher is better, at least f:16
c) Vibration - There are several way to combat this,
1- DO NOT LEAN ON ANY PART OF THE PLANE (I hope I made that clear)
2- As was covered by “bear music”, have the pilot throttle back and glide while you are shooting. This will work well on the Cessna, not so good with the jets I had to shoot from or the helos.
d) How low can you go, well the FAA has a few issues with this and depending on the area you are at may have a limited ceiling or hard deck for your flight.
e) I would push my resolution as high as I can to avoid clutter in the image when you view it or crop it down. Try and shoot a little lose, to allow some cropping down as there is a lot of image to see and so little time when looking through the view finder.
f) Lens - Depending on the size of area and altitude will dictate what lens you use. For almost any thing I had to shoot I used a 75-200 or 35-70 on occasion.
g) Your aircraft has a few issues to keep in mind and there are ways around them;
a) Wing Strut - it is a pain and limits shot angles a lot - to make this work you will need to work with your pilot and have him do a slow turn to the left, not more than and attack angle of 10 degrees, this give you two things, wing tip is up an out of the image, and if you miss it on the first orbit you will get a second chance at it.
b) Door Window - Shooting through the small window opening is, well, a real pain in the @%&$#, so remove the door and dress very warmly as the wind will kick you in the... well you get the idea. Headsets are a
requirement to do this kind of mission but hand signals will work in a jam.
So have a good flight and remember that the aircraft you are flying in was built by the lowest bidder!!!
Kind of makes you feel safe, ya think!?!
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