Airial photography.

[pumper_bob]

Do any of you know where to get a camera mount for the doorway of a Cessna? I am thinking in terms of a frame with a gimbal mount possibly, to stabilise the camera. Obviously the door will be taken out first. Also have any of you had experience of this type of thing? Any tip's or advice gratefully recieved.
Cheers PB.

[BackPacker]

Make sure you stay legal. On first glance, a number of things can go wrong:
- If you don't have a CPL you can't be rewarded for your flying. This also applies to aerial photography.
- If you don't have a specific aerial photography license, then taking pictures from the air might be forbidden altogether. Ancient, but still active laws having to do with protecting military secrets, nowadays mostly used to protect the aerial photography industry.
- If you take the door out of a Cessna, make sure you're still within the parameters of the CofA and the insurance, and not breaching any other rules. Also, with the door removed, drag is increased, impacting performance.
- Do not breach the low flying rules.
- If flying low, do not fly slow. Speed and altitude is life. Don't get rid of both of them.
- As pilot, don't get distracted by what the photographer is doing. Fly the plane first of all.

[Mike Cross]

Are you talking air/ground or air/air?
Either way bolting the thing to the airframe is unlikely to be a good idea, you'll just be transmitting vibration to the camera.
Here's Nige (handheld Canon EOS 300D, nothing special)

[IO540]

There are various commercial gyro stabilised camera platforms on the market. None of them are cheap - 4 figures and more. They tend to be fitted mostly to helicopters.

One can get acceptable pics with a decent handheld fast DSLR - at 1/2000 the result will be at least OK and there are simple techniques for preventing the worst vibration reaching the camera.

More tricky is avoidance of window reflections, so you have the right idea re removing the door.

If you don't have a CPL you can't be rewarded for your flying

Not sure that is the complete story on that one, but it's a different subject.

[tangovictor]

as IO540 says, use a higher than usual shutter speed, if your camera doesn't show you the speed, look for the "sport" mode, 2000 may be a tad high, the prop sometimes freeze's dead still, try 500 or 1000, and look what its coming out like, movement of the prop looks better than static.
the other problem, is if you can't remove the door / window
then its better to use the old fashioned type rubber lens hood, push it against
your inner window, that will cut out all the highlights etc from inside the cabin
and ensure you take what you see, rather then reflections etc.

[F900EX]

Depends on what you are shooting. If you want 'vertical' then you need to use a floor mounted camera. For 'oblique' it is possible to shoot from a 172 or similar with just the window lifted. If I remember correctly there is a kit that you can use to open the window of a Cessna completely to allow full access to that space for shooting.

If it is survey work then you really need to shoot through the floor for correct vertical. Again if memory serves me I think the biggest company producing this equipment is Dutch. However the aircraft would need to be customized. In addition you need a suite of software to drive the camera (survey work again)

[SkyHawk-N]

If you are flying a Cessna 172 remove the bolt which secures the window stay to the window frame (the nut will drop into the window frame and needs fishing back to the hole to secure the bolt again). When airborne open the window and the airflow will hold the window fully open, it may be worth taping some foam to the bottom edge of the window to prevent it marking the underside of the wing. You may find that removing the door is not neccessary.

As has been said, use an SLR and set the shutter speed 1/500 and above but it depends on the conditions and how steady you hand is. I've always set it to about 1/800-1/1000 and have had very good results but this all depends on the light which should be more than adequate on a sunny day. Obviously a wide aperture lens (F2.8) helps.

[Floppy Link]

do a search for Kenyon gyro stabiliser, I think it's called. Not cheap, but screws into the tripod bush on the camera.

[davidatter708]

All of the 152 at our club you open the windwo push slightly on the stay thing and it will pop out then the window is fully open however every time it goes in for a service it is put back to how it should be I'v got good pics just out of handheld also use a g clap tripod clamp to dash and then use it for videoing landing not too much vibrations but video is quite slow
David

[Fly Stimulator]

I bought a mount for a video camera from B. Hague & Co. which works pretty well, combined with a camera with its own image stabilisation function.

While mine is not for Cessna doors, they seem to have a pretty wide range of clever mountings.

[pumper_bob]

Thanks for the reply's chaps. The photography side of things is taken care of as the guys i'm working with are Paparazzi! Long story short, i explained how much cheaper fixed wing is compaired to whirly, and i got a try out. It is air to ground work, mainly houses !! I am thinking of an Aerobat with the door off. The financial side of it is easy! As long as the plane is booked and paid for in entirety by someone other than myself, i can fly it so long as i am not being paid specifically for the flying. IE if following people around in a vehicle, boat, car, motorcycle or plane is what i am employed to do then its ok! I have proof of this with someone doing something similar up north!
Has any one got a link to a company manufacturing these mounts?

[Fly Stimulator]

Has any one got a link to a company manufacturing these mounts?

The underlined company name in my post above is a link.

[Mike Cross]

Regrettably "I have proof of this with someone doing something similar up north! " is not likely to be taken as a valid defence by a court should the CAA's legal dept get wind of it.

Posting what you have on here might just have let your particular moggy out of the bag.

No doubt you also think that flying someone to the Isle of Man for the TT races is OK. I'd suggest you have a good read of the ANO, in particular the definitions of Public Transport and Aerial Work with reference to the bits that include the phrase "if valuable consideration is given for the flight or for the purposes of the flight."

[Slopey]

As long as the plane is booked and paid for in entirety by someone other than myself, i can fly it so long as i am not being paid specifically for the flying.

Eh? Surely you have to pay at least half the costs, or the appropriate proprotion, otherwise you are effectively being paid specifically for the flying?

[S-Works]

pumperbob.

You are having a laugh at our expense right?

What you are doing IS ariel work and if you only hold a PPL then you are very clearly breaking the law. Just because some guy "up north" is currently getting away with breaking the law does not make it right for you to do so.

In just the same way as a PPL flying an air taxi because the aircraft rental and costs are picked up by someone else and there proper job is to transport people around..........

[BackPacker]

I'd suggest you have a good read of the ANO, in particular the definitions of Public Transport and Aerial Work with reference to the bits that include the phrase "if valuable consideration is given for the flight or for the purposes of the flight."

This flight type achieves something (ie. paparazzi air-to-ground shots) which would not be possible if done from the ground. Because of that, a large number of exceptions that the ANO makes with regards to paying an equal share, do not apply here. On a PPL, I would personally not risk it unless the CAA told me specifically and personally that it was OK.

In addition to this, I reiterate what I said earlier. You might need a license specific for aerial photography from the MoD. I don't think they're interested in private people taking snapshots of their own home, but if you take a paparazzi and start buzzing celebrities homes, this may just be another stick they can wave at you.

And then there's rule 5 (which has been renumbered to rule 6 recently, I think). To get the best shots the paparazzi is going to ask you to go lower & slower, every time. Make sure you don't break rule 5, but also make sure you can prove you did not break it - bring a GPS with barometric altitude decoding (an eTrex Summit for instance) and save the track log of your flights. That's one less stick they can wave at you. (Note: for best accuracy you'd have to hook the GPS up to the static port. Most likely this will be impossible so you need to do a little calibration to determine whether there's a difference between the "official" static pressure and the pressure in the cabin, with the window open. The POH may give some pointers: look for the chapter which deals with the alternate static port.)

[IO540]

With any half decent GPS, the GPS derived altitude is much more accurate than an altimeter - unless you set the altimeter to the local QNH and remain in the local area.

I've never seen GPS altitude (KLN94 or Garmin 496) to be more than 20-50ft out, at any known elevation.

The AAIB is more than happy to use recordings of GPS altitude in their investigations.

As to the flight being illegal, it probably is if the plane is being fixed up with special gear for taking pics, but if I took some pics out of my plane (or allowed a passenger to take them) and those pics subsequently got sold I don't see how they could do me for it. It would come down to knowing of the commercial situation in advance.

[BackPacker]

Obviously you've got to set QNH on the handheld GPS. But then I'd say with the barometric encoding (provided that you get the static port thing sorted out) you will be accurate to a few feet, instead of 20-50 feet as derived from the standard GPS signal. 50 feet is a lot of error if you want to prove you didn't bust some 500 feet rule. Particularly not if you're flying as low as the law allows you to take good pictures.

ICAO article 36 states that "each state may prohibit or regulate the use of photographic apparatus in aircraft over its territory". I checked the ANO, which would be the likely place to do this, and the ANO only forbids this (without a specific license) to foreign-registered aircraft. I don't know UK law good enough, to search further for legislation wrt. this, but I know in the Netherlands there is a law specifically forbidding this.

It's got nothing to do with aircraft licensing/CofA (so a fixed apparatus is just as forbidden as a handheld one) or PPL vs. CPL, but with the defense of military secrets. So if there were rules like this in the UK, I'd expect them to be either in the ANO, or in the laws with regards to military secrets.

In any case, if I fly in the Netherlands and have passengers wishing to take pictures, I tell them that's fine, but for personal use only. Not for publication.

[groundhand]

The other issue Pumper Bob needs to ensure is that the aircraft insurance specifically covers aerial photography - without this he is risking, as the person responsible, personal liability for any incident that may occur:

aircraft damage
personal injury compensation
medical care
third party damage
unlimited public liability

Just think about it before you accept the 'bung' for the 'no reward' flight!

The courts would ask if it was reasonable for you to operate the aircraft for a third party for their business without being rewarded yourself.

Are you a registered charity?

[pumper_bob]

This is an interesting one! The hire and reward part is pretty clear to me as the person "up North" has shown me legal papers relating to CAA actions that were dealt with! What also interests me is Backpackers info on the Netherlands blanket ban on photo's from the air due to military reasons! What do the Netherlands have to be so protective of? If you look on google earth you will see that all the airfields in Holland are smudged out! Not even Russia or USA take these steps, so what are they hiding I think we should be told!