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Lesson Info
8. Cessna Walkthrough
Lessons
Workshop Introduction
04:42 2Aerial Photography Theory
14:18 3Aerial Composition
18:51 4Route Planning
11:51 5Clothing & Safety Gear
17:18 6Camera Gear
21:49 7Drones
07:15 8Cessna Walkthrough
09:10Lesson Info
Cessna Walkthrough
(serious music) All right you guys. I just want to do a quick walkthrough of the Cessna 172. Typically, the Cessna 172 or the Cessna is gonna be your go-to plane for almost any tiny, small commercial outfit or private outfit where you might be going and doing a flight-seeing tour. So, it's good to get used to this plane. It's good to get comfortable with this plane, understand, kind of, its perks, its pros, its cons, and whatnot. First of all, I wanna give you just kind of a little quick inside tour as to sort of how I'm going to be positioning myself and where I'm going to be putting the camera gear and just really how it operates. So, cruise on in. So, always be cognizant of where the wing is. You don't wanna smash your head on this. It will happen. Luckily I'm short so I don't have that problem. Another thing is just making sure you know where the steps are, right? Step here, you can step there. There's a step up front too. Just kind of being cognizant and aware of sort of some o...
f the places where you can put pressure on the plane, 'cause all of these things are pretty strong and steel and aluminum or whatnot. They are pretty fragile at the same time. One thing that any pilot will give you hassle about is if you have to pull and yank and yard on something, it's probably a problem. So, be gentle. If you can't get into the plane, just kind of take it easy and door opens really simply. One of the main things that you're gonna wanna be aware of is that inside the Cessna 210, 172, whatnot, the window typically, if you remove the pin, which allows right here for this to be disconnected, this window can pop all the way open. And while you're flying this will stay up because of the wind, right? So, point being is that when you pop this open this whole thing, so you have this entire space to work, right? You can put a camera out here. And what I want you to understand is that while you're sitting up here in this seat, you're best, sort of, angle of view is really gonna be here. Right? Not here because of the strut. Not this way because of the wing. It's really this perspective. So, what makes it complicated is that typically you're passing your subject by and shooting back at it, right? So, if your subject is over there, this beautiful landscape, your pilot is kind of looking over his right shoulder to see it. So, it really takes good length of communication to really understand where you want to be shooting. Now, this is the seat up here. What I would traditionally do is I would take my little kit right here. As you can notice in this this scenario, I just have both my cameras in here. Here's by full kit. I've got gloves right here and a balaclava in my pocket. I'm gonna put this in the seat right there, and then this is moved forward because I'm gonna probably wanna leave space for somebody to get it the back seat, and then once they get in the back seat, I would come in here and I would basically push my seat all the way back, nice and locked in, right? There's a little seat lever on the front here. And then, I would step on the step, kay? Then I would jump in here, right? Now that I'm in here, what I wanna do is I wanna make sure that there's no seat belts, nothing like that inside the plane. Put it over my lap. Make sure everything's good. I'm gonna close (door shuts) this door and I'm gonna kinda get used to how this is gonna operate with my camera coming out. So, this thing- Thank you so much for holding that. So, typically what's gonna happen is camera's around my neck here. I have a ton of space. You can actually see I've got maybe 3 feet in front of me here where my camera can go, my feet can go. And I'm gonna basically open my bag and just have this, kind of, sitting right down here, right between my legs. Because I don't need to touch the controls. The pilot does need to be closer so he can touch the controls. This plane right now is set up for basically a lesson. So, both of us could potentially control the plane. If you wanted to come in here and you want to kinda get a flight lesson you could, but in this case I'm really setting myself back as far as I can go so that I can come in here and I can be shooting like this. So in this case, what I'd be doing is I'd be taking the camera strapping it around my neck. I often times am lengthening out this strap a little bit so that I do have maximum length here. I'm not really worried about this strap coming off my neck but if you are, you can potentially put it around your arm, or something along those lines. So, with this camera like this, and with my buckled in completely, this gives me full range of motion to kind of be looking, shooting this way. A lot of times, and this is one of the biggest and maybe best secrets, is you're using your screen and the articulating screen to really get a perspective for what you're shooting. So, I'm not really able to always have my eye to the camera. So, I'm really relying on this screen to aim back, kind of frame it up. 24, 35, 50. I'm gonna frame this up. I'm gonna auto-focus and I'm just going to be shooting, shooting, shooting. And what you'll notice, and this is really challenging, is that because of the glare, and because of the fact that I can't always get my eye right here, you don't really exactly know what you're shooting. You're kind of seeing the frame, you might be framing it up, and then you're just firing, firing, firing, firing, firing, right? And then you kind of hope you got what you got. Now of course in this scenario it's really nice to be able to kinda peek out and look out like this, but what will happen is because the plane is bumping and bouncing and this thing is off teetering up and down, it can be really uncomfortable. Cameras can hit this, you're chest or your chin, whatever can hit stuff. So, you just want to be cognizant. You also want to make sure you're not throwing elbows into your pilot, or something like that. Now sometimes, again, for a 70-200, or a longer lens here you could shoot in the front this direction or out this way. I just simply like going like this. And you have a smaller field of view here, right? So if I were shooting 16-35, I'd get the strut, I'd get this but if I'm shooting 50 or 70, I don't need to worry about that. So again, a longer lens does create an easier scenario for shooting. But a wider lens really allows you to get a much broader landscape in this scenario. So, one other scenario that I would say is that if you have the opportunity (door clanking and opening) to shoot with the door off, which some planes and some pilots will allow you to do it's just takes some time. It's not something their really happy about doing usually. You could potentially shoot with the door off, okay? And in that regard, you might be putting a foot there, you would have your gear and all your equipment still up in front, but in this case what I would do is I would strapped this with one of those carabiners to some part of the seat, right? Something down here, something that straps to here. I would be be buckled in, but in addition to be being buckled in I'd probably be wanting to attach myself to some part of the plane. Whether it's even just around the seat itself. Because opening this door, this is going to allow you to now have your whole body out of the plane, shooting, shooting, shooting, shooting, shooting, right? So again, the more room you have the work, the more comfortable. Other than that, there's about a million other little gizmos and gadgets in here. The thing I would say is, "Don't touch anything." (instructor laughs) Understand and know how to work the air. There's a little air controller usually right here that can give you a little fresh air. Understand how to just kind of stay out the pilot's way. Communicate to him as best you can. And what I highly recommend is learning how to have non-verbal communication. Why? Because one of the maybe the biggest pet peeves of a pilot is when you have your headset on, and you open the window or you open the door or whatever, all that wind is coming into that headset and it's coming into that mic. And what they do is they typically turn off that mic 'cause they don't wanna hear- (instructor imitates wind crackling) for about 30, 40, 50 seconds while you're shooting. So what happens is, they'll turn off it off or you can turn it off. And so it's really important to realize that you don't wanna be constantly turning it back on turning it- So it's really nice for me as the photographer to be able to to look at the pilot and go- Or go- Or go- Or something along those lines. Some sort of non-verbal communication meaning, "Hey bank right. Can you bank left? Hey let's slow down, or let's go higher, or let's go lower." Anything you can do. I mean, this is really how we can communicate what we want the most effectively because instead of me trying to make sure he can hear me- (instructor imitates wind crackling) You know, I have to close the door, close the window. "Hey, yeah let's do this. Let's do this pass." I can just tap him on the shoulder and be like, "Bank right. Bank left. More wing." And just figuring out what you need. That's one of the most effective tools you can use to really get the shots that you want. Now the only other thing I would say is if you have more equipment, the Cessna, the nice this is it has more storage in the back so you can throw gear back there. You can throw an extra jacket, a beanie, something like that. But in these planes because there's a heater, and because you can have that heat kind of blowing on you and you're really protected from the wind, you'll find that you don't tend to get that cold. It's really just if you're doing two to three to four minute moments where you're sticking your hands out the window, or if you have the door off then it can get really freezing. That is pretty much most of what you need to know about flying in a Cessna and being in and around this small cockpit.
Ratings and Reviews
lorenzo p
Great intro class from one of the masters of adventure photography
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