Ron Shoots

The Owens Valley is spectacular. At sunset, the Sierra Nevada mountains to the west cut-off the last bit of sunlight to the valley while lighting up the ridge to the east. Today, the lake was a perfect mirror surface. We navigated the helicopter about 50-100 feet above the lake in search of the perfect “mirror” image.

Here’s a cool angle on the Hollywood sign! The LA smog cleared enough for us to get a few cool shots at the top of the Hollywood Hills.

Started a 5 day aerial shoot on the West Coast today. The pilot and I flew into San Diego from Maui arriving around 11pm Friday night. The Hughes 500D helicopter we’re using is based in San Diego.

We arrived at the hanger early this morning to get the aircraft configured. Since I’m shooting with the Hasselblad H2D-39, I wanted to be tethered straight to the laptop. Fortunately, we were able to modify the laptop mount I use in the truck to fit into the helicopter cockpit. (I’ll post a shot of the configuration in the next day or so.) The next step was to configure power. The helicopter native voltage is 24v which we ran through a 24-12v converter in order to run a 12v-110v inverter to power the laptop. (Yes, my head hurts too from thinking about all that electrical stuff!) To stabilize the camera, I’m using a gyro-stabilizer that also requires 12v power to an inverter. Basically, we have a bunch of wires running everywhere!

The snapshot above is from a fuel stop at the Fullerton airport in Southern California. The aircraft has an auxiliary fuel tank so we can go a good 3 hours on a fuel load. also helpful when you’re crossing the mountains or desert without an airport for miles!