Aerial photography over South West Rocks

I’ve just had a flight up to South West Rocks for some aerial photography. The job was to shoot The Rocks Fair Shopping Centre for CBRE. We headed up in the trusty Cessna 152. It’s slow, cramped and uncomfortable but it’s absolutely perfect for aerial photography because it is so slow and of course because of it’s high wing.

We flew circuits of the centre at 1000ft while I hung out the window shooting. I tend to shoot aerials in manual as no matter the camera their meters can be fooled. Especially when you have a subject with a bright, reflective roof such as this had. I also shoot with a fairly fast shutter speed because of the vibration and movement you get in small planes. These were shot at 1/1250th of a second. I use the Nikon D810 for the majority of my aerial shoots because of it’s amazing resolution and great raw files. This time it was teamed with my pin sharp Nikon 24-70mm f2.8.

I love doing aerial photography as the perspective you get while flying low and slow is amazing as shown by this last shot. If you have ever wondered what the historic Trial Bay Gaol near South West Rocks looks like from the air here it is……….