Visual Wilderness
  • Get Started
  • Shop
    • SPECIAL OFFERS
    • STREAMING SERVICE
    • Browse by Topic
    • Learn To Shoot
    • Post Processing
    • Online Classes
    • eBooks
    • Landscape Photography Guide
  • Blog
    • Blog
    • Guest Photographers
  • About
  • My Account
    • My Account
  • Search
  • Menu Menu
  • 0Shopping Cart
Aerial View of Lava

Photographing Lava from Air – Part II

February 24, 2017/in Fieldwork/by Grant

In my last article, I discussed photographing lava in Hawaii from the land. In this article, I’ll be discussing how to photograph lava from the air. If you never get the chance to shoot lava, most of the tips can be applied to any shots taken from a helicopter or plane (though you can usually get away with shorter exposure speeds on a plane, as it will be less turbulent).

I recommend booking a tour with helicopters that have no doors, so you won’t have to shoot through any glass windows. Try to book a tour as close to sunrise or sunset as possible to get the best light.

Lava at Kamokuna, Hawaii

You’ll need a camera strap and you won’t be able to change lenses on the helicopter, as they don’t want any loose objects that might fall out. If you want to shoot with two different lenses, you’ll need to bring two cameras and have them both around your neck.

One issue with shooting in a helicopter with no doors is that there will be a lot of wind from the rotors. This can make it very difficult to hold your camera still, especially with a longer lens. You’ll therefore need to use a very fast shutter speed to get images that are in focus. If you have vibration reduction on your lens, it can be somewhat helpful.

Aerial View of Lava

I recommend taking a lot of test shots as soon as you take off, so you can check your exposure and focus. It will take a little while to get to the lava, so you’ll have plenty of time to make sure your shots are coming out well. Zoom in all the way on your images on the LCD screen to make sure they are sharp with your selected shutter speed.

I shot most of my images with a focal length of 200-300mm. With this focal length, I found that I needed exposures of 1/2000 secs or faster to get sharp images. This required me to raise the ISO to 4000 and use my widest aperture, which was f5.6.  The images were nosier with such a high ISO, but this was much preferable to out-of-focus images.

Lava from Kilauea

Once you are over the lava, you won’t have a whole lot of time to shoot it, as they’ll only make a couple quick passes over it. The helicopter will be moving fast enough that you will have little time to compose your shots. I therefore recommend taking as many shots as you can while you are over the lava. I fired off 130 shots in 2 ½ minutes.

If you don’t get perfect compositions, you can later crop some of the images to improve the shot. You can even attempt to stitch two or more images together, as you’ll probably get a lot of shots of overlapping scenes. You can stitch images in Lightroom by selecting all of the images you want to stitch, right-clicking on them and selecting Photomerge > Panorama. Sometimes, the smoke will move too much between shots to stitch the images, but I was able to stitch a number of my shots together.

Fallen Trees, Lava Field, Hawaii

After you pass over the lava, keep an eye out for more compositions. You’ll pass over huge lava fields, which can offer some good photos opportunities. They will then take you over a couple waterfalls. While these aren’t the most photogenic waterfalls from the air, it’s still worth taking some shots. However, you’d probably need to take a different tour to see the best waterfalls.

Aerial View, Rainbow Falls

 

 

 

About Author Grant

Grant Collier has been working as a professional photographer since 1996 and has been shooting photos at night since 2003. He is the author of 12 books and has recently released a book called Collier’s Guide to Night Photography in the Great Outdoors. He has also produced a new instructional video called Collier’s Guide to Post-Processing Night Photos.

Website | Facebook| Google+| Twitter

4 replies
  1. Clipping path
    Clipping path says:
    July 8, 2019 at 7:52 am

    Oh! It was a great post. Thanks for sharing.

  2. Salim Ahmed
    Salim Ahmed says:
    July 1, 2019 at 7:27 am

    Excellent photography. Thank you for sharing.

  3. Lisamery
    Lisamery says:
    February 27, 2017 at 5:33 am

    Amazing! Is it from a drone photography?

    • Jay Patel
      Jay Patel says:
      February 27, 2017 at 5:37 am

      I think this was done via a helicopter. Drones are not allowed in National Parks.

Comments are closed.

NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY NEWSLETTER

Join 45,000+ Nature Photographers and get the free eBooks, free creativity course & discount codes right in your inbox.

loader

Note: We never share your email address with anyone. More Info.

Blog | Shop | About

 Email Policy  |  Privacy Policy  |  Terms

INFOCUS NEWSLETTER

Join 45,000+ other photographers and get the Free eBooks, Free Creativity Course & Discount Codes right in your inbox.


loader

Note: We never share your email address with anyone. More Info.

All Rights Reserved, © Copyright Visual Wilderness

How to Capture Great Photos at All Times of DayGrand Canyon National Park South Rim, Arizona by Peter CoskunAn Intro to Camera’s Metering Modes
Scroll to top

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

OK

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Privacy Policy

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

Privacy Policy
Learn More
NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY NEWSLETTERJoin 45,000+ Nature Photographers

Unlock Your Photography Potential! Get Free Webinars, Tips, eBooks, and More Delivered Straight to Your Inbox! 📸✨

We never share your email address with anyone. More Info.

Enter your email address