Helinut,
i totally agree with you, and it should be the helicopter operator/pilot that puts their foot down, or has the final say on the flying part of any aerial filming/photography operation. I dont have any idea what happens in Europe, but in NZ and Oz, we have hundreds of helicopters, and operators on every hill.
With our large number of helicopters per head of population, everyone either knows a helicopter pilot, or is related to one, or has been in a helicopter. The saying "a little bit of knowledge can be more dangerous than no knowledge" is often used at our work, as we are dealing with self proclaimed experts all the time wanting to tell us how the other guy could do this, and how they can go down the road and get someone else to do the job and he has a smaller helicopter, therefore its cheaper, etc.
So while the Helicopter Pilot has ultimate responsibility for the safty of the operation, the other pressure that is put on them by the client can often be such that they will end up doing things that they wouldn't otherwise do.
We have done numerous ad hoc filming/photography jobs, and apart from 2 or 3 very experienced photographers, every other time some filming is needed to be done, the number of people "required" for the job is always as many as the helicopter has seats. R22, photographer, he can manage by himself. R44, we really need 3 people to go. JR well there is 4 people that have to be onboard. AS350, um yeah we have to take a couple of land owners to show us what we want, so we need 5 people...... And on it goes, they are the client, they tell you what they require, you have to try to work with it.
Very few non helicopter pilots understand that just because a helicopter can carry 5 people that it cant hover OGE with 5 onboard, and they have no idea about wind, temp, etc.
And you will never educate them, as there is always another new helicopter operator down the road thats just started up and needs all the work that they can get, so they will do anything to get it...