Flying high
Take your photography to new heights! Pro videographer Brent Kirkman attaches a Nikon Key Mission 360 and Nikon 1 J5 to a drone for an aerial masterclass…
Pro videographer Brent Kirkman attaches two Nikon cameras to a drone for an aerial masterclass
Aerial photography offers a unique view of the world, but until recently the only way to get your Nikon airborne was to hire a helicopter. Now, with the ever-increasing popularity of drones, it’s possible to shoot amazing photographs and videos from a bird’s-eye perspective without spending a fortune.
With close to three million drones forecast to be shipped in 2017, drone photography is taking a massive leap into photographers’ and videographers’ lives. They’ve opened up an aerial world that was previously reserved for those with access to expensive aircraft. Drones are available from under £100 to many thousands, depending on budget, and if you don’t own one yourself you’ve probably seen (or heard) them zooming along beaches, up mountains or across rivers and lakes.
Even basic drones typically come with a built-in camera that can shoot stills or video in the air, but the images that these create are typically rather low quality, limited by the tiny sensor and fixed-focus lens. But what if you could get your Nikon airborne instead? We’ve had many readers ask this very question, so we set ourselves a challenge to do just that, enlisting the expert guidance of professional videographer and drone pilot Brent Kirkman. So let’s get started with our pre-flight briefing…
The basics of flight
Not well-known for their aerial pursuits, the first challenge is how to attach a Nikon to a drone. There’s currently no standard adaptor for any Nikon camera. While large octocopters and other heavy-duty drones can carry large payloads, such as a DSLR, they’re extremely costly and one would require permission from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to fly it in the UK.
So Brent set about designing a custom mount to attach the Key Mission 360 and Nikon 1 J5 to the underside of the DJI Inspire 1, a mid-priced drone that retails for around £1850. It had to be lightweight and sturdy enough to withstand the wind speeds brought about by flying. Carbon fibre is the perfect material as it’s relatively cheap, strong and light.
His platform consisted of a carbon fibre pole that extended below the drone to keep the field of view clear of the propellers and the legs of the drone (not dissimilar to a centre column on a tripod), with plates to attach both cameras underneath and mounted upside-down. However, as this setup isn’t gimbal-stabilized, as the on-board cameras are, footage can proved to be a bit shaky in high wind.
Learning the controls
Flying a drone takes a little practice. The controls are simple with throttle/yaw on the left stick, and pitch/roll on the right stick. It helps to gently move the controls in a smooth motion and not to jerk them around too wildly. The biggest thing to get used to is that, when you fly facing the drone, the controls are reversed (push right and the drone banks left, and vice versa), so to combat this Brent recommends turning your back to the drone and looking over one shoulder. Now the controls are in the same direction once again (right is right and left is left). This is especially helpful when new pilots are in a sticky situation and start to panic.
At first, most new pilots overcompensate on the controls, but the best course of action to take when the drone starts drifting is to just let go of the sticks and let it centre. The GPS will stabilize the drone, giving the pilot time to regain composure, but even so, caution must always be exercised when flying to avoid a crash.
It’s not only important to think about other people while you’re flying your drone – you have to keep yourself safe,
too. Wearing a high-visibility jacket is a good idea, as it enables other people to see you in public spaces.
Up and away
For our test flight, we headed to a local private estate. The custom rig extends down below the drone by some way, so launching it from the ground wasn’t an option. Starting with the KeyMission harnessed underneath the drone first, Brent hit the record button and then launched the DJI Inspire 1 from a couple of well-placed benches.
Brent flew it nearby to start with, studying the height and position of the drone with some careful throttle and yaw movements, then switched to the smart device link between the controller and the in-built camera for a ‘drone’s-eye’ view. “There’s an overwhelming urge to look directly at the drone and fly it by sight, but actually this isn’t a good idea,” explains Brent. “There’s no distance perspective, especially when you start flying out to 100ft or more. It’s a large drone so you can see it from far away, but you may be heading straight for the tree you think you’re far behind.” Even so, it is important that the drone always remains in line of sight, and to have an ‘observer’ who is looking at the drone and can warn the pilot of any potential dangers.
We followed the drone until we reached an area free from trees. At around 150ft in the air we then did a 180-degree turn and aimed back towards the house for our first shot. Framing proved a little challenging because there was no way to get a direct feed from the KeyMission itself, but by using the feed from the on-board camera, and pressing the record button before setting off, we managed to get some great shots. Of course, the KeyMission’s main
raison d’être is to produce immersive 3D video, so to check out the 4K video footage, go to http://bit.ly/nphotokey and, for the best effect, view it in a Google Chrome browser, as you can click-and-drag around the entire view in three dimensions.
Then we swapped the KeyMission for the Nikon 1 J5. Once again, we set the camera to video recording mode – a wireless shutter release isn’t an option, because as soon as the drone is more than a few dozen feet away it’s out of range of the wireless signal. This time, Brent headed to an obelisk at the end of the lawn. From here
the whole area opened up with a line of trees down the main lawn, and a grazing field to the left of the house.
Once the sortie was over, it was simply a case of reviewing the video and picking frames for still images. We found the best were those that were framed tightly, to exclude the sky, so that attention could be focused on the detail in the tree/shrubs that lined the grounds.
So there we have it – it is possible to get your Nikon airborne on a drone to take advantage of the camera’s superior sensor. However, unless you spend really serious money, there are a number of drawbacks that would make us think twice before doing it again: you’re limited to the lightest camera bodies, composing shots is very hit and miss, and the only practical way to take stills is to take individual frames from video, therefore relinquishing much of the control over aperture and shutter speed, and you’re limited by the 4K crop. It was a fun exercise, though!