With a landmark birthday coming up soon, I've decided to treat myself to a few special gifts so i ring in the Big Five Oh in style this August.
My first treat took place last week, when I took part in a one-day workshop on Aerial Photography organized by the Leica Akademie.
The highlight of the course was a hands-on photo session of New York City at dusk from a doorless helicopter.
Before stepping into the chopper, photographer Tom Grill guided our group of 8 "students" through the dos and don'ts of aerial photography, ensuring that once in the air, we were ready to make great photographs.
There are "3 main problems to overcome" in night time aerial photography, Grill explained:
1. Achieving the correct exposure.
2. Motion blur.
3. Noise from high ISOs.
Grill also said that the ideal time to shoot is during the Civil Twilight, right after sunset when the sun is just below the horizon but its rays still light up the sky.
The workshop was held at a helicopter hangar in Kearney, NJ, about 9 miles as the crow flies from my office at the Empire State Building, and base of operations for an exciting new adventure company called FlyNyOn, which was founded in 2012 and provides professional aerial photography flights over NYC.
Following a brief safety video, the FlyNyOn team rigged us up with harnesses, carabiners and straps for our cameras. Changing lenses or SD cards in-flight was strictly forbidden, so we had to choose our equipment carefully.
I opted for a 24mm f1.4 Leica Summilux lens -- which was lent to me for the flight by John Kreider of the Leica Akademie -- on my M9 body. I also took along my Leica XU which sports a 35mm lens. I used 32MB and 64MB memory cards, respectively.
With our cameras dangling from our harnesses, we rode golf carts across the helipad to a pair of helicopters - four of us to each along with an experienced pilot.
Strapped in to our seats (note to self: Test the integrity), the doors of the helicopters open to the Jersey air, the motors hummed to life, the propellers began churning, and we lifted into the sky.
Timing our flight to start just past sunset at 8pm ET, we rose from the industrial swampland of Kearney and within 5 minutes were hovering just south of Lady Liberty, charting a course from the Statue of Liberty and Lower Manhattan ("The money shot!" according to the FlyNyOn team), to the Brooklyn and Williamsburg Bridges over the East River, to the Empire State Building, then down the west side to the new World Trade Center.
"The minimum legal altitude for helicopters is NYC is 2,000 feet," said Grill. "The World Trade Center is 1,776 feet high, so you're right above it! You can get some great shots of this very important building."
TO BE CONTINUED...