Tips for Drone/Aerial Photography

Drone/Aerial Photography is the capturing of still images & video by remotely – operated or autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) also known as unmanned aircraft system (UAS) or more commonly, as a drone. It is real fun. Drone comes in wide variety of sizes; it can be launched by hand. It has two parts; the drone & the control unit

1. Learn the Drone Rules & Regulations before flying your drone. Follow the laws & regulations of the land
2. Phantom 4 drone is the right choice & recommended for the beginners. However there are so many other models available with Advanced versions
3. You must know how to fly drone. Mastering controls of your drone will ensure safety of drone & to mitigate situations of crash/damag
4. Use the open space. Be mindful of People/Wildlife to avoid any attack. Keep it under 400 feet while flying under line of sight
5. Fly your drone even when you don’t think there is any point as you may not visualize subject from the ground
6. Calibrate the Drone Compass especially for using the first time or at new location. Check the Sensor Index. Prefer to keep it between 1400 to 1600 range for better results
7. Check the Drone Propeller Balancing & Vibration Dampening to avoid wobble or Jello effect It can solve shaky problem as well
8. Learn to fly in A Mode – ATTI (Attitude) Mode, it helps drone to hold the flight & take away route to avoid crashes. You can land it safely to ground
9. Hover drone for few seconds instead of flying straight up from the ground once the propellers are on. It helps to know the malfunction, if any
10. Know the maximum flight time/ altitude for flying drone. Don’t go beyond permissible limits especially in high security zone
11. Pay attention to weather forecast for heavy rains/ storms
12. Use the right photography equipment. You can use wide angle/prime shorter lens or use Go Pro series for drone photography, as it’s quite light in weight & effective. Maintain your photo equipment’s in high order
13. Plan the flight course, time & location for shooting & the Story you want to convey, the emotions & feelings etc. Visualize the shots you wish to capture.
14. Go slow with yours and drone movements… don’t rush with it
15. Consider lighting, depth & shadows while drone photography. Do the setting as per light available
16. Use bracketing that is take 2-3 pic for better choice
17. Use the lowest ISO during Aerial/Drone Photography, prefer to keep it at 100, for low light you can go up to 800
18. Drone shakes/ shooting at night due to low wind conditions, the higher you go the windier it gets – Set the right shutter speed. Shoot at a shutter speed range of 3-8 seconds. Faster shutter speed is better
19. Be Creative; know your photography technique that is Oblique, Vertical, Wide Shot, Panorama, Close up & Long Exposure shots. Keep experimenting till you get the best. Practice, Practice & Practice
20. Best way to shoot is the RAW format. It is the key as the capacity of Drone camera resolution is limited
21. Prefer Auto mode as compare to Manual mode. Use techniques like Fly by, Reveal, Chase, High PAN & Explorer shots
22. Make use of polarized ND (Natural Density) filters
23. Use Gimbal to help image stabilization & smooth finish of shots
24. Know your flight patterns such as flying in a square, straight line, circle, figure 8 or in orbit around a certain point
25. Download your data after every drone flying event
26. The Battery maintains for Drone & cameras are very important as it works as basic fuel. You must use the right & quality battery, charge them to full, store them at a dry place & discard/dispose the old batteries as per requirements
27. Must carry extra parts such as propeller/battery & other components as spares
28. Make best use of post processing with Adobe Photoshop/Light room. Correct distortion, Add motion blur, Colour Grade, Shadows
29. Give more to get more in return. Share your work with people, let people appreciate it
30. Drone/Aerial Photography is most impressive & breathtaking artistic work you can ever witness/imagine. Capture mountains, rivers stunning landscape shots. Now get out there, have fun & fly your camera in the air.