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Dauphin off the coast of Cornwall. May 2013

Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 5:10 pm
by 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.

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Re: Dauphin off the coast of Cornwall. May 2013

Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 8:51 pm
by noryport
Great shot and a pleasure to see something so different... :thumb:

Re: Dauphin off the coast of Cornwall. May 2013

Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2013 6:01 pm
by vortex003
noryport wrote:Great shot and a pleasure to see something so different... :thumb:
Agreed.

Did you have the Vibration Reduction switch set to 'ON' ;) :lol:

Re: Dauphin off the coast of Cornwall. May 2013

Posted: Thu Jun 27, 2013 1:42 pm
by aw139
NIce catch! Do British International no longer own these helicopters then? thought it was their contract? Was bond's at one point :)

Re: Dauphin off the coast of Cornwall. May 2013

Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 9:04 am
by Our Man In The East
vortex003 wrote:
noryport wrote:Great shot and a pleasure to see something so different... :thumb:
Agreed.

Did you have the Vibration Reduction switch set to 'ON' ;) :lol:
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.

Re: Dauphin off the coast of Cornwall. May 2013

Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 9:09 am
by Our Man In The East
noryport wrote:Great shot and a pleasure to see something so different... :thumb:
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.

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Re: Dauphin off the coast of Cornwall. May 2013

Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 9:21 am
by Our Man In The East
aw139 wrote: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.

Re: Dauphin off the coast of Cornwall. May 2013

Posted: Sat Jun 29, 2013 7:04 am
by vortex003
Our Man In The East wrote:
noryport wrote:Great shot and a pleasure to see something so different... :thumb:
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.

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