Aerial photography tutorial and two lens reviews for photo.net

by philg

I’ve drafted three new articles for photo.net and would appreciate comments:

Thanks in advance for corrections or suggestions for new sections.

6 thoughts on “Aerial photography tutorial and two lens reviews for photo.net”

  2. I’ve never shot out of a helicopter, but in addition to the Cessna fixed high wing , I’d like to mention another aircraft that is even better for photography. One could go as far back as the Super Cub, but the Aviat Husky is an amazing aircraft for photography that feels like it can just hang in the air. In fact, if you can get a 60 knot headwind, you can hang, almost fixed in geostationary space. 🙂

    I am also happy to see you mention the advantages of image stabilization (or vibration reduction for the Nikon folks). Back when i was shooting film, we simply did not have this amazing technical capability.

    Finally, since one is not uncommonly hanging out of the aircraft to some extent when shooting images, some sort of restraint for the photographer *and* their gear should be mentioned. I once watched as another photographer (properly restrained) standing on the edge of an open rear cargo door turned to ask for another camera body while he for some reason let go of the camera he was carrying. Both of our eyes followed that Hasselblad as it bounced once on the cargo door and out, to fall 3500 feet to the desert floor, never to be seen again.

  3. I suppose you could compare the experience of shooting and/or image quality with the 5D and the 24-70 f/2.8 EF vs. the 30D and the 17-55 EF-S IS. Also, anybody know if Canon plans to make an IS version of the 24-70? (I have a 5D but no mid-range zoom; I picked up a strong preference for prime lenses back in 1999 from reading photo.net, but I do shoot a lot of weddings and other events where the zoom might be necessary).

  4. I do not know how you arrived at the conclusion that “you’ll get higher image quality from the 24-70” or even what you meant by “image quality”, but I have done Imatest MTF 50 measurements at all focals and apertures on 24-105s and 24-70, and the 24-105s came out with higher numbers. In particular the performance wide open at wide settings was quite impressive for a zoom.

  5. QT: Ooops. I had heard that the 24-70 was the better lens. You’re saying that at, say, f/4 or f/5.6, the 24-105 actually crushes it? What does the 24-70 do better, aside from the one f-stop improvement?

  6. Until I have time to publish my findings in detail, I’ll have to be a bit imprecise, but I’d say in terms of resolution/contrast, the 24-105 is slightly, but consistently better, esp. at f4 (the 24-70 is an excellent lens that cannot be “crushed” easily). The 24-70 has less distortion and vignetting, but this did not matter for me, as in general I run the files through DxO which automatically gets rids of those. The 24-70 has a considerably more effective lens hood.

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