First Flight Photography | Bismarck, ND

10/3/2016

So I got to photograph some property from the air a few days ago, and it was my first time photographing from an airplane! I had a really great time flying around over Bismarck, ND with Frank, the Executive Air pilot and his Cessna. Really great! While we were circling around to get back over the property I was snapping some more photos with my Fuji camera that I had around my neck.

So I did some research beforehand, and all the random articles online said that I should have 2 or 3 camera bodies, each with their own lens on it so that you don't have to worry about changing lenses while flying. Probably don't want to drop a $2000 lens out the window of a plane or helicopter...

I had 2 Canon 5D Mark III cameras with a 70-200 f/2.8 IS II and a 24-70 f/2.8 for the work photos, and my Fujifilm X-T2 and the Fuji 10-24 f/4. The 10mm lens really was perfect for the "behind the scenes" shots I have from inside the place, since it is super wide! But the 70-200 was perfect for the photos out of the window, since we were flying at around 3700 feet, which is a lot higher than it might sound.

As we were flying around getting different angles on the site (I was on the right side of the plane so he had to circle around a bit to get my an angle on the property) the sun kept going in and out behind the clouds, giving me basically a new landscape below me on each pass! Really interesting!