Image Focus

There is no room for mistakes when you are shooting 'air-to-air' photographs. You don't get many, if any, second chances.

Cessna Airplanes challenged me to shoot their first Air-to-Air project in Europe. Over four days, I shot a Cessna airplane over Germany, Switzerland, Croatia, and my home country of Slovenia. On the last day, I had the idea that it would be incredible to capture a plane flying over Bled Island.

Lake Bled is one of the most beautiful places in the world and undoubtedly the most famous sight in Slovenia – it is the only island Slovenia has. To have the opportunity to shoot an air-to-air photograph over such a fantastic place turned out to be a one-of-a-kind experience.

Getting the airplane I was shooting from, the Cessna airplane I was photographing, and Bled Island perfectly lined up was challenging to say the least. With the cost of the flights and logistics, there aren't many chances to get the perfect shot. When you are high up between clouds, fog, sun, while flying at very high speeds and shooting from an open-door airplane, you have to put a lot of trust in the equipment you take.

I took the shot with the Sony Alpha 7R IV and Sony 85mm f/1.4 GM lens. With its amazing resolution, the Alpha 7R IV is the perfect choice for a project like this. The client told me that they would be printing the images, so having the highest possible resolution was essential. The 85mm f/1.4 GM lens is my 'go-to' lens for this type of project. I like working with fixed focal length lenses rather than zoom lenses, as they are ultra-sharp on any setting, and the 85mm has reliable focus accuracy. I was confident the images would be just as I imagined them.

The sun had already set over the lake when I took the photo, so I set the aperture to f/1.4 and the sensitivity to ISO 200. I needed to keep the shutter fast to freeze any movement, so it was at 1/1250th sec. I was able to get an extremely sharp image, even with the low-light conditions, all thanks to the Alpha 7R IV’s impressive performance in low-light conditions.

The image means a lot to me and there are no similar images out there. Never has a plane of this size flown so low over the island of Bled, and of course, it has more meaning to me because it is my home country of Slovenia. It is a great feeling to be able to do a project such as this, particularly as the first photographer to capture an image on this scale.