Best Lens for Hot Air Balloon Ride?

Weather permitting, I will try my first balloon ride this week. I was wondering if anyone has taken a hot air balloon ride and what lens they would recommend from the following?

My available choices -

100-400mm
24-105mm
70-200mm
100mm macro prime
50mm f1.4 prime

Thanks for any counsel you can provide?

What are your goals during the ride? Images of the balloon, or images on the ground?

If taking images of things on the ground, the 100-400 is nice. Images of the balloon and people inside, the 24-105- this would also be a general purpose lens if I wasn't sure what I'd shoot.

There isn't a lot of space inside the basket (usually), so keep in mind opportunities to change lenses may be limited. If I could only take one lens, it would be the 24-105. Wide enough for wide angle shots, get good landscape images, and still see some objects on the ground.

I'll often shoot from a small plane at 1000 - 2000 feet above the ground and I rarely need more than 400 mm on a crop sensor for closeups of ground objects. Chances are you'll be lower so the 24-105 would still be my choice. The images are balloons flying at or below the altitudes I like to fly at. I was taking the picture of the vulture in the second image and I didn't notice the balloon until I looked at the picture. The first picture shows how little space you may have in the basket. Use the camera strap!

Photo from Capn Jack's gallery.

Photo from Capn Jack's gallery.

Very helpful info for me to plan. Thousand Thanks Jack.

If limited to a single lens, definitely the 24-105. You have lots of time for shots from the ground while the ballon is filled, then aerial shots as it lifts off and travels to it end point.

This balloon launched a 1/2 mile from where I live. One of the largest in the world at 190 feet tall, 115 feet wide and weighing in at 992#.

Smartphone picture, crappy at best.

John from PA wrote in post #18924545
If limited to a single lens, definitely the 24-105. You have lots of time for shots from the ground while the ballon is filled, then aerial shots as it lifts off and travels to it end point.

This balloon launched a 1/2 mile from where I live. One of the largest in the world at 190 feet tall, 115 feet wide and weighing in at 992#.

Smartphone picture, crappy at best.

Hosted photo: posted by John from PA in
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forum: Nature & Landscapes

Without the hot air

I'm just playing with you a little; a cubic meter of air weighs ~1.3 kilograms at sea level. Heated to 100 °C, the density would be ~1 kg/m^3. I guestimate that balloon needs about 2000 cubic meters to lift 1200 pounds (balloon, a couple of people). So it weighs on the order of 2000 kg + 992 lb -> 4400 lb + 992 lb -> 5392 pounds when inflated!

Greg_8 wrote in post #18924276
Very helpful info for me to plan. Thousand Thanks Jack.

You are most welcome!

Once you reach a stable altitude, I would play with the idea of taking a ton of overlapping shots of the scenery, zoomed in at 105mm and then stitching them all together later. You get the benefits of all that detail by being zoomed in, but also the wide angle view. Just lock in your exposure settings right out the gate and do a matrix set of shots like 6 rows of 5 images each all overlapping each other by at least 1/3.

You will end up with something like a 80Mpx image, but could zoom all the way into the scene. Pretty fun!

I did that from the top of a condo at the gulf with my M50.
https://teamspeed.smug​mug.com …f-Shores-2019/i-Q7kN9WV/A

More excellent counsel. Thanks all. I appreciate you taking the time to reply.

In my recent trip to Arizona, I took ballon ride and realised that 24-105 is more than sufficient, amount of space inside ballon is very tight. Enjoy Your ballon experience

Thanks Nick

Good advice here. I'll warn you that it's very hot in a hot air balloon. I felt like I was baking as I was close to the fire.