On a cold day or early February, I was on a flight from San Francisco to Seattle. Around half way along the flight, the captain pointed us to a natural landmark, the Crater Lake National Park of Oregon, visible clearly 35000 ft below. The lake is actually a crater of a volcano. This area is hard to access during the winter months because of snow, but is a very popular spot to visit in summer. Whenever I fly, I always carry my camera with me for such great photo opportunities. Here are a few tips for aerial photography from the commercial jetliners. Try to get a window seat on the other side of the sun. Use the smallest aperture possible to minimize the effect of the imperfections of the window glass. Good usable range of focal length would be 35mm-200mm. Do not use a polarizer filter; you will get ghost tints.

This is a picture of Mt. Rainier, the highest peak of the Cascade mountain range of Washington which has several dormant volcanoes like this. This picture was taken from an altitude of about 20000 ft during the ascend of a Seattle to Denver flight. Later it was published in the Earth magazine.