Red Bull Helicopter

Technically, it was the most difficult image for me to take this year at the Airventure. I was watching Chuck Aaron performing his show in the Red Bull helicopter. It is the only helicopetr in the world, made to withstands all those aerobatic tricks.

I was shooting all those typical images, when I thought- what if…? I slowed the shutter to 1/30 sec and started panning. This first day, none of the images I took looked even remotely sharp. Mind you, I was trying to do it with the lens weighing a bit over 4 lb., not even counting the weight of the camera body. Yet, I thought it has to be doable, and I tried some more the next day, over and over again.

I not only wanted the rotor to show the mouvement, I wanted to see the whole circle it created, like the one I saw with my eyes!

It proves to never give up. Finally, I saw this image on the camera screen. I zoomed in quite a bit to make sure, before I called it a success. And I was relieved to see later on the computer that the image was, indeed, sharp.