Hello or Jambo, as they say here in Kenya, we are early this morning with
a group of photographers and we are waiting to embark on a hot air balloon
journey over Masai Mara national reserve.
So in this video, I wanna give you a few tips and tricks what to look out for when
photographing from a hot air balloon.
So let's get going, and see you in a bit...
Go Pangolin!
Yeah.
Wow.
We just finished our hot air balloon ride and it was absolutely amazing.
So, I wanna just give you a little bit of a heads-up on what sort of gear
to take on a hot air balloon ride?
Preferably, I found two camera bodies with two lenses works really well.
You must just remember, there's very little space in these baskets, so you're
quite crammed in, um, so any big bulky lenses you wanna probably leave behind,
but generally anything, a bit more wider angle, like Let's say a 16mm to 35mm
lens, although that's quite wide, but it can come in handy, especially in the
beginning when they, when the balloons are still on the ground and they are just
inflating them with the burners going.
Sometimes you have two, three balloons, very colorful balloons
lying next to each other.
So it is nice to have a wide angle and get these shots early morning...and
then of course, also a bit of a zoom, like a 70mm to 200mm, f/2.8 works great.
A 100mm to 400mm lens.
I would say anything in the range between 70mm to 400mm is great
because you do go up quite high.
So, a super wide angle on top is sometimes a bit too wide.
And with these guys, you can still get great landscape shots as well.
Plus of course, here in the Masai Mara, we are lucky and we do see animals.
We had some lions today, which was great.
Um, we had zebras, we had wildebeest from the migration, so there was
lots going on and then you wanna be able to zoom in a little bit closer.
So these lenses come in handy.
If you do take two camera bodies, just make sure that all lens
hoods are properly tightened.
Lens caps, all these things that usually like to fly around somewhere that you
have them stuffed into pockets with zips.
Preferably.
So try and put on some clothing with lots of pockets...That really helps.
You might even have your phone handy or a little GoPro or whatever, so
you can just put it in there...and super important, the camera strap.
So put it securely around you, you know, gravity likes to take
stuff so you don't wanna lose your camera and lens over the edge.
Make sure you have the camera strap on, or at least a grip, if you have
something like that, that works well.
So I would always recommend having that with you.
For the shooting settings, it is quite difficult to give you standard
settings, not really gonna work, because with a hot air balloon ride,
you typically start very early in the morning when it is still dark.
Then you have the beautiful sunrise and then the light is properly out.
The ambient light is then good.
So the settings actually change the entire time.
What I would suggest is that obviously once you take your first pictures, as the
balloons inflate in the beginning, and even when you go up with a wide aperture,
because you need the light intake, ISOs are typically high at that point.
So just keep on checking your shutter speed and remember whatever focal
length you have on your lens that you at least have a shutter speed
equal to your focal length in the beginning when it's still dark.
And then as you go up and the light increases, then try and double up
the shutter speed from your focal length, so a 70mm to 200mm on a full
frame body, maybe about a 1/400 sec.
Once the light gets a bit better...and then later on, when you start
shooting animals that might be running underneath the balloons.
Obviously you need to compensate for their movement, plus the movement
that the balloon makes itself.
So once the light is good, even go up to something like a 1/2000 sec
shutter speed, that is a very safe setting and freezes most of the motion.
Um, and the aperture, mostly because you shoot down, it is anyway very flat.
There's not much depth, so you can, most of the time, shoot wide
open, I found that works well.
If you shoot anything against a dark ground, like often we have the green
grass, but we might have zebras, which are very bright in contrast.
So often I found underexposing works really well, but of course it depends
a little bit on the ambient light.
Today, we have a bit of overcast, then zero exposure works fine as well.
And of course also look out for opportunities.
Often, there's other balloons that are flying in front of
you in the back of your basket.
The captain is very good in turning the basket, by the way.
So you get also different light scenarios.
Sometimes you shoot to the front with the sun behind you.
Sometimes he turns the basket, so you have a bit of side light, which gives
generally a bit more depth to the image.
Sometimes you get the opportunity to shoot into the light, or
some silhouettes are possible as well with other balloons flying.
If you have them with the full sun on...also underexposing works really well.
So you can get some great landscape shots with these colorful hot air
balloons...and going a little bit on the minus side on the exposure really
brings out the balloons nicely...And last but not least, don't forget to
also take in the scenery and enjoy, without constantly looking through your
viewfinder, like us photographers like to do, because it is amazing up there.
And it's not always about just getting the images, but also about the experience.
So, just now and then, put the camera down.
Just enjoy, look around, look at the scenery.
It is absolutely stunning.
And if you ever do a hot air balloon trip, enjoy, I can just recommend a Masai Mara.
Absolutely beautiful!
See you next time....