Help w/ flying opportunity

[gaffmedic]

Greetings DP folks!!!

I was a photographer for our county's 9/11 ceremony that included a processional and a beautiful sculpted steel structure that incorporated a piece of the WTC. It is amazing! I was asked as a follow-up to take some night shots of the sculpture which the area includes marble & granite monument pieces memorializing the pentagon as well as each flight that crashed. I have not yet taken these shots,...but here is where I need some guidance....please.

I have been offered to fly in the county helicopter and take some night shots from the air. I am so extremely excited but have absolutely NO idea where to begin with lenses. I use a Nikon D90 and have a 24-70mm f/2.8, an 18-105 f/305, a 50mm 1.4, and a kit zoom. With the trees in the area, the lowest we'll be able to hover is 80 feet. Any suggestions for settings and or lenses? I do have access to an excellent pro photo rental place to get anything I don't currently own. I just want to make the most of this special op. Thanx in advance for your input!!!

Attached are some images from the 9/11 ceremony.

[scootermcq]

Night shots usually equal long exposure.... moving vehicle usually equals motion blur.....

Hmmmm might be some fun.

I would use whatever lens has VR, crank the ISO to about 1000 (much more than that on a D90 equals noise) and go with a fairly large aperture. See what sort of shutter speeds you get. If it is fast enough to avoid motion blur....

[SwissJon]

Suggest, if you're renting stuff, you rent a D3S and a 70-200 2.8 VR2.

That way you'll get some useable shots at 6400 or even 12800 giving you 3 or 4 extra useable stops on the D90.. You could even pump it up to 102,400 and get another 3 stops on top of that but the quality is poor.

Add that to the 2.8 on the lens and you've got a camera and lens combo that can shoot in almost dark conditions, certainly fast enough to capture something brightly lit, like a monument, from 80'.

[scootermcq]

I just did some rough math



That was ISO 400, f6.7 and a 2 second exposure.

Obviously you would get motion blur.

If you pushed the ISO to 1600 and went with your 18-105 cause it has VR so f3.5 at the wide end you might get into the range of 1/8 for your shutter. I honestly don't know if that will be fast enough in a helicopter.

I tried doing cityscapes off of a boat at one wedding and best I could get was about 1 in 10 not blurred.

[Doug Sundseth]

Depending on the image you're considering, you might want to think about using flash to illuminate your subject. A decent radio trigger should get you 100 meters or so of range, which might be enough to place the flash on the ground and shoot from the air.