Helicopter landing in a slanted city

As you may know, there are lots of helicopters in the air space over and around New York City. While a few may contain tourists seeing the sights I suspect that most ferrying one-percenter executives about their daily rounds. The whirlybirds make a terrible racket.

Every once in awhile I like to track one through the sky with my camera. It's not a particularly interesting sight. Nor will my camera allow me to zoom in really close so I can see their faces as they read their reports or sip their scotch or whatever it is they do while being masters of the universe. I suppose I track them for the fun and (minor) challenge of following a helicopter while taking photos.

So, I picked one up Sunday afternoon:

And followed it as it passed one of those aerial construction sites on Manhattan's West Side:

Notice how those buildings seem to be leaning to the left (North). Isn't that strange?

Well of course, I know that. The buildings aren't leaning. I'm tilting my camera. But not deliberately.

I didn't think about that at the time. Wasn't trying to tilt it, didn't notice I was. I was just tracking the helicopter and snapping photos. Why'd I tilt the camera?

I also do it when tracking boats zipping along on the Hudson, though not so much. Am I unconsciously leaning into the direction of motion? Perhaps.

However, look at the helicopter in the third and fourth photos. It appears to be pretty level. I say "appears" because it can't be. It may be level with respect to the top and bottom frames of the picture, but the camera is tilted. And that implies that the helicopter is tilted with respect to the ground. Was I unconsciously tilting the camera so as to normalize the helicopter's orientation?

Who knows.

Do you think I can learn to keep the camera level when tracking helicopters – and birds and boats? It's not easy, not when you're moving. There's a reason photographers mount cameras on tripods. Perhaps if I did enough of this I could train myself. But it would be tricky. For one thing I'd have to remember to do it. When I'm out taking photographs I'm not thinking about such things. I'n thinking about what's in front of my eyes. And even if I remember to keep the camera level, that's more easily said than done. After all, I'm moving, not just my hands, but my trunk, perhaps my whole body. I'm moving quickly and the difference between rock solid level and off just so much as you'd notice, that's a relatively small difference.

Tricky.