Air to Air photography?

[keniko]

I am a general portrait, wedding, occasional landscape photographer but I was offered a job to shoot some air to air photography. I've never done it before but its for a friend of a good friend. This guy owns a flightseeing company and a few planes. He wants to send me up in a plane with another one of his planes following and take some pictures of his other plane near the tallest mountain in North America. :)

The largest lens I have is the 70-200mm f/2.8L IS on my 5D Mark II (or I could bring the 1D MIII but I think I'll want the higher resolution). Will this be enough or should I borrow a longer one? I'm sure the planes will be decently close to each other. Don't know an exact distance though.

Most importantly what should I charge him? It's going to take around 10 hours including travel time and he only wants the rights to use the images for his website. He says he doesn't care if I sell them and make money off them either. And I doubt I'll be doing much PP at all. I typically charge $3600 for an 8 hour wedding day with all kinds of PP.

I have no clue what anyone else would charge for this kind of job. I'd almost be happy just doing it, its not going to feel like a job! Thanks in advance for any advice or tips!

[PhotosGuy]

70mm will probably be OK on the 5D. You might even need a slightly wider lens if you want to get some WA perspective.
If you can check the distance between the AC that he feels comfortable with, try out the 70mm & see if it will work at that distance.
And remember, Airshow guys - prop freeze? (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=229542) I'd almost be happy just doing it, its not going to feel like a job! Ask him what his budget is for photography?

[golfecho]

I would seriously research the skill level of the pilots. See lots of input on that score here:

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=741480

Add to all of that high density altitude flying, and a pilot can get in over their heads in a hurry. Be very carefull on this score . . .

[JudeT]

I'm a complete novice with photography. Just ordered the Canon 500D in the hope of improving my aerial shots. I'm currently using a FinePix S5800. My hubby flies a flexwing microlight and I'm the back-seat photographer. I imagine air to air shots very much depend on the speed of the aeroplanes. I have a couple of shots on Photobucket from when we recently flew with a friend. http://s863.photobucket.com/albums/ab193/ACoPilotsView/
We were maybe 60 or 70 metres apart when I took the pics, and doing about 65 mph. I find using any zoom is hopeless because of camera shake - due to being in a small open-air machine. Hopefully the new 500D with IS will help a lot. Have fun - it's great up there!

Jude:D