No Doors

A helicopter ride over an active volcano… With no doors.

In mid-July deb and I took a helicopter flight over Kilauea with Paradise Helicopter. A lot of fun! I took all of the material we shot in our helicopter flight and assembled as a bit of video. A lot more view-able this way, more fun than a pile of images sitting on a disk.

On the other had I think I discovered all of the things that can go wrong when shooting from a helicopter with no doors! The wind and vibration is rough, making even the wide angle video of a GoPro jump about. Video shot on the DLSR’s was useless. I also discovered that helicopter blades passing in front of the Sun gives the GoPro Hero 4 Black exposure fits, with black ripples in the image. Thanks to image stabilization and fast shutter speeds the still photos are fairly good.

Seated in a steeply banking helicopter with nothing between me and the molten lava a couple hundred feet below is a thrill I will not soon forget. You can smell the sulfur and feel the heat. Hopefully a little of that comes through in the video.

No Doors

No Doors from Andrew Cooper on Vimeo

Author: Andrew

An electrical engineer, amateur astronomer, and diver, living and working on the island of Hawaiʻi.

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