When I was shooting the Pilanesberg Game Reserve story, I found that my 24-70mm zoom lens wasn’t nearly wide enough (even on a full frame 5D) to get an overview shot of the balloon basket and its occupants.
It took a bit of time to perfect and I still don’t feel the images were strong enough, mainly because of the grey weather, but I thought my on-the-fly solution may be of interest.
I put the big 35mm Canon 5D away and grabbed my little backup point&shoot Canon G9. I attached it to a monopod and then set the camera to shoot three frames with a self-timer shot delay via its very clever interface. I didn’t know the camera could do that but found it as I was going through the menu. The result is I was able to push the button, extend the lightweight camera out and above (and below) the flying balloon basket and after a short delay it would shoot three frames. The delay between frames was enough to move the camera into different positions and get a variety of compositions.
