First Time Aerial Filming Tips

[Michael Notar]

I may be filming a golf course from a helicopter in 4-6 weeks and am curious for tips. I am not new to filming but new to aerials. I will be flying low in a R44 helicopter, doing a fly over of each hole. The pilot is very experienced. I am thinking that I will be most likely shoot on my Scarlet at 4k, ISO 800 at 1/125-250th Shutter at what ever F stop I get. I will be out putting the project at 1080, but really the client wont use it much bigger than about 540p.

My main question is regarding stabilization, I am anticipating needing to have the helicopter pilot aim for perfection flying along the path I want. I plan on using an image stabilized lens as well as stabilizing the footage in post. Is this all necessary or am I over thinking it. I can also use the pilot's gyro stabilizer but I think thats more for still photos.

If I need to do some in post, what plugin do you recommend for Final Cut 7? If the only option is to use a After Effects plugin, then I will buy the software, but would like to not. I have tried the FCP plugin and really dont like it. I think I saw Warp Stabilize in AE and it seemed to be pretty good.

Should I aim to over crank or under crank while filming, does this have any benefit for stabilization (I realize what it does to speed)?

Many thanks.

[Michael Mayda]

Did a quickie chopper shoot last week with Epic-M and Duclos 11-16 at 16mm. Also a Kenyon K8 gyro. Shot 5k at 60 fps. I kept the camera loosely hand held with side grip and left side handle. Raw footAge turned out pretty good. Some stabilization in post with NukeX cleaned up some drift from the chopper having to crab along the flight path to give me a good forward view. The 5k frame gave me the extra real estate I needed to stabilize to a 4k HD frame. As you likely know, never let the camera contact the chopper body. I imagine that your lens stabilization will help a lot to cut the high frequency vibes. Good luck! Sounds like a fun shoot. BTW, I over ranked. It never hurts having more frames. Also shutter was at 1/500 to help with stabilization. I planned to use NukeX to add motion blur, but did not have too in the end.

[Will Keir]

Michael,

Any chance you can share some footage with us?

Did a quickie chopper shoot last week with Epic-M and Duclos 11-16 at 16mm. Also a Kenyon K8 gyro. Shot 5k at 60 fps. I kept the camera loosely hand held with side grip and left side handle. Raw footAge turned out pretty good. Some stabilization in post with NukeX cleaned up some drift from the chopper having to crab along the flight path to give me a good forward view. The 5k frame gave me the extra real estate I needed to stabilize to a 4k HD frame. As you likely know, never let the camera contact the chopper body. I imagine that your lens stabilization will help a lot to cut the high frequency vibes. Good luck! Sounds like a fun shoot. BTW, I over ranked. It never hurts having more frames. Also shutter was at 1/500 to help with stabilization. I planned to use NukeX to add motion blur, but did not have too in the end.

[Michael Notar]

ya forgot to add that i will be doing a test flight too and have budgeted for it.

[Paul Russell]

yep, shoot at as high res as you can, which will give you plenty of room for stabilisation. Overcrank to at least 2 x output framerate, if not 4x, and shoot with fast shutter speeds (1/250th minimum to counteract chopper vibration). You will only need f5.6 as everything will focus at infinity. Use a nice wide lens.

ProDad's Mercalli 2 is by far the best and fastest stabiliser out there at the moment, IMHO.

[Will Keir]

You will only need f5.6 as everything will focus at infinity.

Why have aperture at F5.6? That is the sweet spot for sharpness? I've heard talk about the lens being it's sharpest 2 stops above full open. Is this why?

[Paul Russell]

I was only using f5.6 as an example, given that it's 2 stops from a f2.8 lens. What I meant was you won't need to stop down to f22 for maximum DOF.

[Will Keir]

Paul, why the 2 stops above full open? Why not 3 or 1? or 5? Trying to get away from shallow DOF you would then to find in wide open situations?

[Rob Franklin]

PM sent..

[Paul Russell]

In a chopper you're going to be at least 60ft from anything. With a wide angle lens on an S35 sensors you'll get all the DOF you need at F5.6. Stop it down more if you like, but you're better off trying to get the shutter speed up as high as possible without flickering to counteract the micro vibrations that cause blur and make stabilisation difficult. YMMV, IMHO, HAND etc :-)