Air-to-air photography: the ultimate guide!
- Kris Christiaens
- May 29
- 5 min read
Updated: May 30
In the world of aviation photography, air-to-air photography is definitely the most spectacular and adventurous way to photograph aircraft or helicopters. As the name suggests, air-to-air photography is the art of photographing airplanes or helicopters as they fly and from another aircraft. This way you can photograph these magnificent machines in their own habitat and often with beautiful backgrounds or in fantastic conditions. Air-to-air photography is often used in military aviation, advertising and film making. In this article, I'll give you my personal tips for taking air-to-air photos and tell you who to contact to for this type of aviation photography!
Preparation and planning are essential
When you want to photograph beautiful photos of aircraft or helicopters from the sky, good planning and preparation are essential. Flying is very expensive so every flying hour spent on photography must be filled as efficiently as possible. Therefore, good communication between the photographer and the pilots is very important. When pilots are told in advance what a photographer would like to see in the picture, they can adapt to this if possible and certain things can even be done on request. Of course, pilots or aircraft controllers always make the final decisions and a planned flight can always be cancelled at the last minute due to bad weather conditions or technical problems. Another very important thing to consider when taking photos of aircraft or helicopters in the air is the sunlight and the position of the sun in relation to the photographed subject. Backlight can be particularly annoying and can cause very distracting reflections when taking photos behind glass in an aircraft. Therefore, it is always recommended to position yourself with the photoship so that you do not shoot in backlight. This should be coordinated in advance with the pilots during a briefing. If you photograph from behind glass in an aircraft, always use a silicone lenshood that you can hold against the glass so you won't see any reflections in your photos. A well-known manufacturer of this type of lens hoods is ULH (https://www.ultimatelenshood.com).
Photoship
So in order to photograph aircraft or helicopters from the air and flying, you need to be able to take photos from another aircraft. This is also known as the 'photoship'. Such photos can be taken from, for example, a small propeller plane, a large military tanker aircraft or even from a fighter jet. Often, air-to-air photos are taken from a military cargo aircraft such as a Hercules C-130 or an Airbus A400M or a civilian aircraft such as a Skyvan while photographers are at the rear of the aircraft and the aircraft's rear tailgate is open during flight. This way, photographers have a nice wide view while the aircraft or helicopters come flying behind the aircraft. Another way to take air-to-air photos is from an aircraft flying along in formation. This can be either a small propeller plane or a real fighter where you fly along in the backseat. This will give the photographer the chance to take pictures while flying very close to the photographed subject and you can also take pictures while certain maneuvers are being performed.
Safety above all
When photographers are taking pictures a few meters from an aircraft while both are flying at an altitude of one kilometer above populated areas, safety is the most important thing. The biggest fear is that parts coming from photographic equipment would come loose and end up in a fighter plane's air intake or in an aircraft's propeller. Therefore, this is the reason why all loose parts on photographic equipment, such as sunshades, filters or external flashes, must always be removed. The camera must be secured with an additional security strap to the photographer, and absolutely no lenses should ever be changed during an air-to-air photo flight. So the right choice of lens is very important for such photo shoots. These strict rules also apply to the photographer himself. Loose items such as glasses must be secured under a hat and items that may come off such as rings or timepieces must be removed before the flight. It also goes without saying that the photographer himself must also be secured so that he cannot fall out of the plane or helicopter. This is very often done using an officially approved safety harness that is attached to the inside of the plane or helicopter. In short, safety is paramount in this type of photography as one small mistake can have extremely serious consequences.
Formations and manoeuvres
Do you have the chance to take air-to-air photos of a formation team or multiple aircraft flying together? Then it is best to decide during the briefing which formations will be taken that are the most beautiful. A well-known and very common formation for air-to-air photography is an echelon formation. During this formation the aircraft are arranged diagonally and each aircraft is stationed behind. Another well-known manoeuvre often used during an air-to-air photo shoot is a split of the different aircraft. This involves the planes moving away from each other at the same time. If you can photograph large formations of aircraft from a plane such as well-known formation teams, they will very often fly side by side so that they are all nicely visible.
Equipment and settings
For my air-to-air photo shoots I have always used the Nikon D610 in the past and today I use the Nikon Z6II. Because it is not possible and not allowed to change lenses while taking such photos, I have always used an all-round zoom lens with a range of 24 to 200mm. This allows me to take close-up photos as well as wide-angle photos where the horizon is visible. Because the subjects are moving, I set my camera to Auto Focus Continuous (AF-C) and the camera keeps focusing continuously when I half-press the shutter button. In terms of exposure, you are spoiled during an air-to-air photo shoot since there will almost always be plenty of sunlight. If you are even flying above the clouds, the sunlight can be tremendously harsh and bright as sunlight will reflect off the white clouds making low ISO values highly recommended. If you get the chance to photograph fighter planes during an air-to-air photo shoot, you should also work with fast shutter speeds since such fast planes can make sudden movements.
Photographing airplanes equipped with a propeller provides an additional challenge because you can make the propeller become a nice round disk when using slower shutter speeds. If you get the chance to do an air-to-air photo shoot during a beautiful sunset, you will soon notice that the sunlight diminishes in intensity very quickly and becomes very soft and warm, so you will have to increase the ISO values of the camera. Personally, I always choose an automatic white balance since I can adjust it later in post-processing programs such as Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop.
Where to go for this kind of photography?
Do you feel like taking air-to-air photos too? If so, don't hesitate to follow any of the companies or organizations listed below via social media or contact them directly. They are all very professional in offering air-to-air photo flights and offer numerous special photo flights worldwide every year. It must be said that such photography flights are not cheap and there are often waiting lists as global interest in this type of photography is particularly high. For example, an air-to-air photo flight with fighter jets or warbirds can easily cost several thousand euros. Click here if you want to see more of my air-to-air photos!
Text & imgaes: Kris Christiaens
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