Dauphin off the coast of Cornwall. May 2013

[Our Man In The East]

Something a bit different? As a Cinematographer and an aviation enthusiast, here's an example of killing 2 birds with 1 stone. This is me in a Royal Navy Dauphin (technically it's a civilian aircraft, operated by FOST) while I was shooting some VFX plates for an upcoming feature film. Whilst it won't win any prizes for photographic quality (this photo was shot by our Marine Co-Ordinator) it certainly will for flying skills - we're less than 50ft off the bow of this type 42 destroyer which was sailing at 18+ knots.

[noryport]

Great shot and a pleasure to see something so different...

[vortex003]

Great shot and a pleasure to see something so different...

Agreed.

Did you have the Vibration Reduction switch set to 'ON'

[aw139]

NIce catch! Do British International no longer own these helicopters then? thought it was their contract? Was bond's at one point

[Our Man In The East]

Great shot and a pleasure to see something so different...

Agreed.

Did you have the Vibration Reduction switch set to 'ON'

Ha ha! Thanks Vortex003. The little device on the bottom of the camera (I say little it weighs a tonne!) is a Tyler Mini-Gyro. It allows the camera to be gyro stabilised in both axis, without a permanent CAA approved mounting to the aircraft - useful when we could only get this close to the ship if we used either a Navy or Civilian aircraft with deck landing capability and rating - the pilot of the Dauphin has 9,000 deck landings in his log book! Ordinarily I'd be sitting in a nice warm & quiet A Star (Squirrel) Aircraft and the camera would be mounted on the side in a dome style Wescam or similar. We also shot from the ships own Lynx during the week, using the same technique.

[Our Man In The East]

Great shot and a pleasure to see something so different...

Thanks Noryport. Technically the photograph I'm adding today shouldn't be on here (Sorry, but it doesn't feature the aircraft) but it gives a nice idea of what the camera was seeing.

[Our Man In The East]

NIce catch! Do British International no longer own these helicopters then? thought it was their contract? Was bond's at one point

Thanks aw139. You clearly know your stuff. I think British International moved away from this work - essentially a bus service that ferries people between ships and land based Navy facilities, and FOST was formed as a civilian / Navy co-operation. The aircraft were based at Plymouth Airport prior to its closure. They are now based at St.Mawgan. And yes, this was previously a Bond aircraft.

[vortex003]

Great shot and a pleasure to see something so different...

Thanks Noryport. Technically the photograph I'm adding today shouldn't be on here (Sorry, but it doesn't feature the aircraft) but it gives a nice idea of what the camera was seeing.

Post away - great to see from the photographers point of view.Wonderful