Drones are becoming popular all over the world, and I couldn’t resist getting on board and dabbling in this new approach to aerial photography. Not only is it much cheaper than a helicopter flight, it is also much more flexible. So long as you keep within your local aviation regulations, you can go anywhere you want to capture stunning aerial views.
DRONE PHOTOGRAPHY
SELECTING YOUR EQUIPMENT
Firstly, I must profess that all my drone photography words of wisdom have been taught to me by my brother Jeff – expert drone cinematographer. Check out some of his work at http://vimeo.com/149734057
His equipment of choice is the Solo made by 3DR https://3drobotics.com as it is the only drone on the market offering autonomous smart videography shots, apart from its good looks the other feature that made him choose this drone was the ability to control a GoPro. The Solo is capable of delivering a live HD video feed from the GoPro to a mobile device, be it a phone or tablet. By downloading the 3DR Solo app, you will have finger tip access to Solo’s smart shots and camera controls. The live feed feature avaiable thought the app is not only important for framing and taking pictures but also flying the drone. The live feed helps the pilot to quickly know the drone’s relative bearing to an object and manoeuvre it accordingly. The Gimbal for the solo is an additional extra, but it is also a must have. It’s a device that hangs from the drone and stabilises the camera for perfectly stable images. It essentially allows you to point the camera at a specific location while compensating for the drone movement itself.
GOPRO SETTINGS
A tip for capturing a series of stills is to use the time lapse option on the camera to take pictures throughout the duration of the flight.The GoPro can be set in photo/stills mode or if choosing video mode for stills you should shoot in 4K whenever possible to capture high-resolution stills. As for colour profile settings, there are two options – the default ‘GoPro colour’ or ‘flat’ which is only available once ‘protune’ in turned on. Flat colour profile provides more post editing flexibility of the jpeg image file, while GoPro colour is not intended for any post colour correction.
CORRECTING THE BARREL DISTORTION
Since you can not change field of view in 12MB stills mode or 4K on the GoPro, the lens will always be wide. This can lead to some image distortion known as the fish-eye effect or barrel distortion. I quite like the effect at times, as it provides a sense of scale, but if you want to get rid of the fish-eye you can either use Photoshop or the GoPro studio, which is free.
Photoshop has also made fish-eye correction easy with their lens correction tool. Simply open the image in Photoshop, go to the ‘filter’ menu and select ‘lens correction’. Once you have selected the camera/lens make and model, Photoshop will then auto-correct the distortion. Note, lens correction can also be found in Camera Raw but camera make/lens profile will only be available with RAW files, not Jpegs.
If using the GoPro studio, import the images and check the ‘Remove Fisheye’ checkbox. This will allow you to export the images without a barrel distortion.
FLYING THE DRONE
Before you start to fly your drone, make sure you know how your drone works and practice in an open location. It is also important to know the rules and regulations for flying a drone. Under Australian regulation, the main thing to note is that when you cross the line between personal to commercial use (ie financial gain) you need a licence to fly your drone. For detailed Australian regulation visit the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), and read this safety information booklet. Orientation is one of the greatest challenges with flying the drone, and if you’re not experienced, things can become confusing quickly. The best way to keep track of what your drone is doing is to make sure you’re looking in the same direction as the drone. Once you become more experienced you can experiment with different orientations. Not all drones have a GPS receiver but the addition of GPS makes flying a lot easier. In this mode the drone stabilises itself in relation to the latitude, longitude, altitude and bearing. With a GPS receiver the drone flight computer will allow you to take a pictures/videos with out worrying about the drone drifting around due to environmental conditions such as wind. The flight computer will basicly fly the drone for you and all you have to do is tell it where to go and any environmental variations will be corrected for by the drone itself. The Solo Drone can fly comfortably in winds 30 knots, but even so, you are obviously better to fly when conditions are calm to reduce camera shack. Calmer conditions will also make it easier to raise to high altitudes in order to capture spectacular aerial shots (within CASA regulations of course).LIGHTING
Lastly, as with all photography, the most important element to get right is the lighting. As highlighted in more detail in my land photography post, the time of day impacts on the quality of your images. The harsh midday light will flatten the image colour and cause harsh shadows. It is therefore best to fly during the ‘golden hour’ when the light is more diffuse and colour saturated. However, sometimes the golden hour doesn’t end up so perfect, as was the case with these images taken out in the Royal National Park during a rainy morning. Although the colour is flat due to the cloud cover, the flat colour matches the texture of the landscape, so that the overall image ends up working.