There’s a category of shot I’ve wanted to level up for years: aerials over dramatic landscape. Every time I’ve booked a scenic flight, I’ve come back with images that look fine but feel flat. Nice enough for a travel album, not good enough to print. The problem wasn’t the scenery. It was that I had no system. I was just pointing a camera out a window and hoping.

That changed when I found William Patino’s aerial photography tutorial, filmed over the jaw-dropping fjords of New Zealand. Watch the full tutorial on YouTube. What makes this video worth your time isn’t the location (though, wow). It’s that Patino treats aerial photography as a craft with real, repeatable decisions behind every frame. He breaks down planning, light direction, gear selection, and pilot communication in a way that actually translates to your next flight, whether you’re over Fiordland or flying a small sightseeing loop over the Olympic Peninsula.

I’ve watched it several times now and pulled out the techniques that shifted how I approach any elevated shoot. Here’s the full walkthrough.

Step 1: Start with a Concrete Visual Plan

Patino explaining pre-flight planning factors on camera Patino explaining pre-flight planning factors on camera Before you ever book a flight, you need to answer three questions: What are you going up to photograph, what will you be flying around, and what does the final image look like in your head? Patino is clear that showing up without a game plan wastes expensive air time. Think about the specific subject, the general direction of travel, and the mood you’re after. Is this a dramatic, shadow-heavy shot, or something soft and expansive? Knowing the answer shapes every other decision you make.

That said, Patino is also honest that the plan is a starting point, not a script. He estimates that roughly 80 percent of the time, something better than the original idea reveals itself once you’re airborne. The goal of planning isn’t rigidity. It’s giving yourself a confident baseline so you can improvise from a position of knowledge rather than panic.

Step 2: Use Light Direction to Create Depth

Patino describing shooting toward the sun over mountain ranges Patino describing shooting toward the sun over mountain ranges This is the technique I keep coming back to. Patino avoids shooting with the sun behind him when he’s over mountainous terrain, because flat front light removes depth. Every ridge looks the same brightness, and the image ends up feeling two-dimensional no matter how spectacular the actual landscape is.

Instead, he positions the aircraft so he’s shooting either directly toward the sun or with the light coming in from the side. Side light, especially, creates dramatic separation between mountain ranges because the near ridges cast shadows onto the far ones. On days with enough humidity, side light also produces visible light beams cutting through valleys. That one detail, shooting toward or across the light rather than with it at your back, is probably the biggest compositional shift you can make in aerial work.

Step 3: Use Planning Tools to Pre-Visualize Sun Position

Patino referencing Google Earth and sun tracking apps for location scouting Patino referencing Google Earth and sun tracking apps for location scouting Patino uses Google Earth combined with a sun-position app (he references tools like the Photographer’s Ephemeris and PhotoPills) to scout locations before he’s ever in a plane. In Google Earth, he can study the shape of fjords, the angle of mountain arms, and roughly where the sun will align with specific geographic features at a given time of year. This lets him pick not just a location but a specific window of time when the light will line up with the composition he’s imagined.

For the shoot in the video, he identifies a particular arm of a sound where the sunset will track almost directly down the water, and he plans to place mountains in the foreground to add scale and lead the eye toward that light. You can apply this same approach anywhere. Open Google Earth, drop a pin on your target area, cross-reference with your sun app, and figure out when the geometry works in your favor. It takes maybe 20 minutes and makes a huge difference.

Step 4: Choose Your Lenses Based on What You’re Compressing

Patino describing mid-range zoom and 100-400mm lens choices Patino describing mid-range zoom and 100-400mm lens choices Ultra-wide lenses are usually the wrong call for fixed-wing aircraft photography. The field of view is broad enough to pick up wing struts and window frames in your frame, and the distortion they introduce flattens mountain forms rather than enhancing them. Patino brings two bodies: one with a mid-range zoom for wider landscape context that captures the fjord and surrounding environment, and one with a 100-400mm telephoto specifically for compressing mountain layers.

That long telephoto is the real workhorse here. Compression stacks distant ridgelines so they appear closer together, which makes the landscape feel more layered and dense. It’s the opposite of what you might expect, using a longer lens to make a vast scene feel bigger, but it works because it emphasizes the repeating forms of the terrain rather than the empty space between them.

Step 5: Prioritize Pilot Communication - Before and During the Flight

Patino discussing his long-term working relationship with his pilot Patino discussing his long-term working relationship with his pilot Your pilot is your co-creator on an aerial shoot. Patino has flown with his pilot Sean close to a hundred times over several years, and that relationship is part of why his images work. The pilot understands the photographic goals, knows how to position the aircraft for a specific angle, and can make micro-adjustments mid-flight based on what the camera is seeing.

If you’re booking a flight with someone new, have a real conversation before you take off. Explain what you’re going after, describe the angles you need, and ask how they prefer to receive in-flight direction. Patino recommends two-way comms if possible, so you can speak directly to the pilot rather than relying on hand signals. Being able to say “can you drop the left wing slightly” in real time is infinitely more precise than gesturing from the back seat.

Step 6: Check Your Window Situation Before You Book

Patino showing the open aircraft window for shooting Patino showing the open aircraft window for shooting This one sounds obvious until you’ve been stuck behind a scratched, tanted, fixed pane of glass with your camera pressed against it. Patino specifically calls out checking whether windows open before you commit to a plane or helicopter. Shooting through glass introduces reflections, chromatic aberration, and softness that no amount of post-processing fully fixes. An open window removes all of that.

Ask the operator directly: can the window be opened or removed? Many smaller aircraft accommodate this easily. Helicopter doors are often removable as well. It’s a detail that costs you nothing to ask about in advance and can be the difference between sharp, clean images and a frustrating batch of frames that almost worked.

A Note on Staying Flexible Mid-Air

I’ve had my version of the “plan going out the window” moment Patino describes. Once, on a flight over the San Juan Islands, I was so committed to a specific bay I’d scouted that I nearly missed a fog layer rolling through the straits that was ten times more interesting. My Sunday photo walks have taught me the same lesson on the ground: the shot you planned for and the shot waiting for you are often two different things. Go in prepared, but keep your eyes moving.

The best aerial photographers I’ve followed, Patino included, treat planning as a creative rehearsal rather than a shooting script. The research sharpens your instincts so that when something unexpected appears at altitude, you recognize it fast and react.

The single most important thing I took from this tutorial is the light direction principle. Shoot toward or across the light, not with it behind you. That one change, before you touch any other variable, will immediately add depth and drama to aerial images over terrain. Everything else, the gear choices, the planning tools, the pilot relationship, supports that core idea.

Watch the full tutorial on YouTube to see how Patino applies these principles in real time over some genuinely stunning New Zealand landscape. It’s worth watching even if you’re not booking a flight any time soon. The compositional thinking transfers directly to landscape work from the ground up.