I spent a longggg week in Las Vegas with FlyNYON to gather as much content as possible and to take over the Life Is Beautiful Festival. During this trip, I took many, many open door helicopter flights around the city and dessert. I honestly didn't think I would be too impressed but It was refreshing and exciting to get this perspective on a new city since I'm so used to New York. My favorite time to photograph Las Vegas was definitely at night since it lights up so much with so many different colors. Every building and hotel has a differently shaped footprint and it makes for unique photos of the strip. The colors and lights reminded me of being able to photograph Times Square in New York City.
Since I took a high altitude night flight over New York City on September 11th to capture the tribute lights, I truly appreciate the Sony A7SII's low-light capabilities while photographing cities at night. Cities are tough at night since there's such a high contrast in light between the bright lights in the windows and the dark shadows on the streets and sky. I've learned to process these night images completely differently than I used to with any other camera because of the lack of noise at such high ISOs and it gives me so much more dynamic range. This definitely comes in handy while hanging out of a helicopter going 100mph since you need as much stabilization and as fast of a shutter as possible. For this shot, I was able to be at ISO 51,200! That's practically unheard of in the photography world. This camera with its super sensitive sensor and in body stabilization was meant for night aerial photography!
Sony A7SII, Sony 12-24mm f/4 (iso 51,200, f/4, 1/125s)