Photographs
Almost every photograph that fails on a sightseeing flight fails for one of three reasons, and none of them is the camera. It is a reflection off the inside of the window, a shutter speed slow enough to catch the rotor, or sitting on the wrong side of the aircraft when the Hollywood Sign goes past.
Quick answer
Wear black, put the lens against the glass, shoot at 1/1000 s or faster, turn off the flash, and ask at check-in which side the Hollywood Sign will be on. A phone is genuinely good enough — the limiting factor on a helicopter ride Los Angeles operators fly at 1,000 to 2,000 feet is the window, not the sensor.
The three things that ruin frames
Black clothes, 1/1000 of a second, and ask which side.
Reflections. A white or light shirt bounces off the inside of the window and lands in the middle of every photograph, and you will not see it until you are home. Wear black. Then put the lens physically against the glass, which removes the air gap the reflection lives in. Do not rest the camera on the window frame — the airframe vibrates and the vibration goes straight into the picture.
Motion. A helicopter moves, the air is not always smooth, and the rotor cuts through the top of the frame. At 1/1000 of a second all three problems disappear. On a phone, that means not shooting in night mode by day and not using any long-exposure setting. On a camera, shutter priority at 1/1000 and let the ISO go wherever it needs to.
The wrong side. The Hollywood Sign goes past once. On most routings out of Burbank it is on the left, but wind, air traffic and the day’s routing change it. Ask at check-in. It is the single highest-value question you can ask and nobody asks it.
Ten things that make the difference
None of this needs equipment you do not already own.
More glass, a lower sill, and the rotor mast is behind you rather than in the frame. Ask at the counter, early.
The single biggest improvement available for free. Dark clothes do not reflect.
Ask at the counter rather than reaching for it yourself. Some operators wipe them between rotations and some do not.
Touching, not near. It removes reflections and it removes the double image from the window’s two surfaces.
You are moving at ninety knots past a thing you get one pass at. Shoot fifteen frames and keep one.
It reflects straight back and the pilot will ask you to anyway.
Aircraft windows are laminated and a polariser turns them into rainbows.
A zoomed frame from a moving aircraft is almost always slightly soft. Wide is sharper and you can crop on the ground.
The turn across the front of the Hollywood Sign is better as ten seconds of video than as nine stills, and you can pull a frame out of it afterwards.
On a twenty-minute flight, one minute of just looking is worth more than the photographs you did not take.
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Which side is the Sign on
Usually left out of Burbank. Ask, because it changes.
It depends on the departure airfield and the day. Out of Van Nuys and Burbank, both north of the hills, the standard approach to Mount Lee puts the Hollywood Sign on the left on most routings — but that is a tendency, not a rule, and air traffic around Burbank rewrites it regularly.
What is more reliable: on a loop that runs Hollywood, then Griffith, then the Sunset Strip and Beverly Hills, the aircraft turns, so each side gets its own landmarks. If you are on the right for the Sign you will be on the correct side for Downtown and the basin on the way back.
Ask at check-in, take the answer, and stop worrying about it. The people with the worst photographs from a helicopter ride Los Angeles are not the ones on the wrong side. They are the ones in a white shirt.
The most expensive mistake on a sightseeing flight is a pale shirt.
Seats and check-in→Common questions
Yes, on every flight here. Phones and cameras are allowed, with a wrist strap, and nothing loose in the cabin.
Usually the left on routings out of Burbank and Van Nuys, but it changes with traffic and wind. Ask at check-in — it is the most useful question you can ask that day.
1/1000 of a second or faster. It removes rotor blur, airframe vibration and the effect of your own movement in one setting.
Not among the fourteen listings on this page. All of them fly doors on, which is why the window technique matters.
Yes. At 1,000 to 2,000 feet through a laminated window, the window is the limiting factor, not the sensor. A modern phone held against the glass beats a good camera held six inches from it.
No. Aircraft glazing is laminated and polarisers produce coloured banding across the whole frame.
Day for landmarks, night for the city. The lit grid is the more striking photograph and the harder one to get: black clothes, no flash, 1/1000 if your camera will hold it.
What to shoot in each part of the flight
Three minutes of nothing, forty seconds that matter, then the wide one.
The climb out. Nothing yet. Put the phone down, get the headset comfortable and find where the window reflections are, because on a twenty-minute helicopter ride Los Angeles flight you have about three minutes before the first landmark.
The Sign pass. Forty seconds. Burst mode, wide, lens on the glass. Shoot the whole pass rather than waiting for the best angle — you cannot see the best angle coming.
Griffith and the Strip. The observatory domes and then the long diagonal of Sunset Boulevard. Good video, because the aircraft is turning and the frame moves across the city.
The turn for home. The widest view of the basin you will get on a helicopter ride Los Angeles flight, with the mountains behind and the ocean on the far side. One frame, wide, and then stop.
Four settings to fix before you board
The cabin is noisy and the landmarks arrive fast. Nothing here can be done at ninety knots.
The flash reflects; the grid keeps the horizon straight, which matters more from a banking helicopter than from anywhere on the ground.
The single setting that saves most frames on a helicopter ride Los Angeles flight.
Running out of space forty seconds into the Sign pass happens more often than you would think.
Nothing loose in the cabin. It is a rule, and it is also how people lose phones.
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DowntownThe towers, the stadiums and the basin they stand on.
PrivateFrom $640 for the aircraft, and when it works.
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