MD500N Helicopter

[CalPiker]

So, I was out today checking out some huge nasty waves that were brought in by some storms in my area. I was up about 50 or so feet on some cliffs, when the Huntington Beach PD helicopter decided to fly up the coast. I wasn't ready for it, so I couldn't plan out how I wanted to shoot it. I ended up freezing the rotor and underexposing it (this helicopter uses the NOTAR exhaust system so there is no tail rotor). Nothing was working out for me today, even the sky was a pale gray. A lingering effect of the storm that just passed. I was one of two or three people out in the crazy winds and cold. They flew so close, even the pilot was eyeballing me. Probably telling the observer, "Look at that crazy fool." :D

I did quite a bit of work in Lightroom and Photoshop to get it to where it is. I chose it for my picture of the day for my 365 Day Project, but I'm not really happy with it. Besides it being pretty boring and not freezing the rotor, what do you think? Am I being to hard on myself and this pic?

http://ericbowen.smugmug.com/photos/768232017_Z7mwk-L.jpg
200mm, f/4.5, 1/800, ISO 100

[F/M Bill]

Seems to me that you are pretty honest with yourself. You know the faults and fixed what you could. I think the shot would be worthy of a place in a 365 project. Not every shot is going to be of equal quality. Besides, you might be able to take more pride in this shot because of the conditions and work that went into your processing over a shot that might have needed less work due to more optimal shooting conditions. Thanks for sharing.

[PhotosGuy]

It's OK for a grab shot. If you had been shooting the waves on M, then the same exposure would have worked for the chopper. I'm not against using other settings. I learned to set the Av & Tv settings close to the M settings when I bumped the dial & didn't notice. Sometimes I set Tv to the fastest speed I might want & Av to a wide aperture. Then when things are happening fast, I can change fast, (if I remember to do it). ;).

[FlyingPhotog]

The fact that your eye line is just about dead even with the rotor hub mitigates the frozen-ness of the blades.

NOTAR is pretty cool technology. Nice Catch.

IMO, this is another good reason for shooting in Manual. X clicks slower shutter and X clicks smaller aperture and you're blurring the rotor without even having to look at the camera. You can even go X-1 or X+1 without looking and Voila! you've also dialed in some +/- EC

[CalPiker]

I almost forgot about this post. I went away on vacation for a week just after I posted this!

Thanks for the comments everyone. I've done a little more shooting of helicopters lately and realized that with the lens I had on my camera (70-200) I would probably need to be using my monopod or tripod to get my shutter speed slow enough to not freeze the rotors.

[asysin2leads]

Nice shot of a great heli. Probably one of my favorite small turbine helis.