Helicopter Power

A helicopter crew does some maintenance on a transmission line tower along Anthony Henday Drive on October 6, 2009. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal

I remember my photojournalism instructor Frank O’Connor once telling the class that if you ever shoot a helicopter be sure to drop your shutter speed down or else it will look strange.  Why?  Well if you shoot at 1/2000 sec shutter speed for example then the helicopter blades will be perfectly frozen and it will look as if they aren’t turning.

Instead shoot at something like 1/250th of a second and then the blades will have a little bit of motion blur on them, making the helicopter look more realistic.