Hone your drone skills
don’t let the recent furore put you off drone photography. a new book on the subject is inspiring and full of ideas, as Geoff Harris reveals
Don’t let the recent negative publicity put you off drone photography. It’s a great way of finding a new photographic perspective
Drones have been in the news a lot recently, but for all the wrong reasons. The chaos caused at Gatwick Airport by a suspected drone sighting in December ruined a lot of travellers’ festive holidays and won’t be forgotten quickly, and there is justified outrage about drug dealers using drones to distribute their illicit wares to prisoners.
Despite all this bad publicity, it is important to remember that the vast majority of drone users in the UK are conscientious and lawabiding. Drones are also a fantastic tool for still photography and film making, especially when it comes to landscape work. A new book called Masters of Drone Photography celebrates some of the greatest achievements in this genre, so we’re going to preview of some of its best bits.
Drone photography is a relatively new discipline. Although many enthusiasts have been using a variety of remote-controlled aircraft equipped with specialist cameras for a few years, small multi-rotor drones with cameras have only been commercially available to the public for the past six years. This makes it all the more astonishing that the standard of drone photography has made such great leaps in such a short time. For example, there are now more than 1.5 million posts on Instagram tagged with #drone. As the publishers of this new book observe, ‘a revolution in photography is taking place above our heads’.
If you are curious about drone photography but not sure what it involves, Masters of Drone Photography will provide lots of ideas and food for thought. There’s certainly never been a better time to get into it. Folding drones take up a similar amount of space to a larger lens in your camera bag, so aerial photography is a viable option for many photographers. But as editor Fergus Kennedy explains in the introduction, don’t mistake ease of use for fly-and-click simplicity. ‘Successful drone photographers must master all the usual photographic techniques, and then apply these to an aerial platform. If anything, drone photography demands an extra leap of the imagination, as a top-level image is rarely the result of a random flight.
As with most other branches of photography, it usually entails a high degree of planning and forethought, as well as persistence. It certainly helps to be able to imagine what the world might look like from above, and how different lighting conditions might affect the shot.’
Getting started
If this book inspires you to get into drone photography, what is a good entry-level model? We don’t have space here for a full group test, but can make a few recommendations. The DJI Mavic Pro (around £900) is one of the most popular drones and for good reason. It features a quality camera capable of 4K video and 12MP stills. Battery life is a respectable 27 minutes, plus it conveniently folds up for carrying around. Half the
weight and price of the Mavic, the DJI Spark (£449) is a great choice for beginners. It has a 12MP stabilised camera and handy front-obstacle avoidance, plus a return-to-home feature in case you’re worried about it getting lost. Another good entry-level choice is the Parrot Bebop 2 (about £300), a fun starter drone capable of 14MP stills and 1,080p video, with 20mins flight time and a maximum range of 300m. It features a fisheye camera that offers a wide view.
Regardless of what you buy, a new drone will not automatically result in stunning photographs. All the principles of good landscape photography still apply. The biggest factor to take into consideration is the light. A high viewpoint can leave the land looking rather flat, like the view from an aircraft window. As always, the most interesting light is often at dawn or dusk when the shadows are longer and the directional light accentuates the rise and fall of the landscape. It also helps to look for patterns, strong graphic shapes and contrasting objects, as you can see from these images from the book. Budget drones, sometimes called ‘selfie drones’, usually have fixed cameras, but serious photography requires a drone with a gimbal head. It will let you tilt the camera up or down independently of the drone’s movement – essential for composing a picture. Stabilisation is also important, especially for video.
Ideas for better shots
When it comes to drone photography technique, try to stay relatively low. Even at a decent altitude it can be difficult to convey a dramatic sense of height in stills, although this is less of a problem with video. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if the photo has been taken at all. To help prevent this, don’t go too high, and try to include larger foreground objects so that the scene recedes into the distance. Straight down views can yield fantastic results too. It often helps if the sun is low, as the raking shadows can add extra depth to a line of trees or a row of buildings. Some new drone users can end up feeling a bit
deflated by the quality and resolution of the stills and footage compared to a dedicated DSLR or mirrorless camera. One solution is to merge a set of shots into a panorama, as drones are good at staying still and level. Check out intelligent tracking features, if these are built into your drone, as these lock on to objects and landmarks, making drone operation easier for beginners.
So what about the law and drone photography? While there is pressure on the government to tighten the legislation, it won’t want to spoil the fun for the vast majority of law-abiding users, or damage a fast-growing market that has created many jobs in the UK. The main thrust of the proposed new laws will be to give the police extra powers to land, seize and search drones; expand the use of technology to detect and repel drones at sites like airports and prisons; and not surprisingly, to extend exclusion zones around said airports. If you are worried that your innocent drone photography will somehow land you in trouble, don’t be. As Aviation Minister Baroness Sugg recently stated, ‘For those who operate their drones responsibly and safely, we do not want to make it difficult to realise the potential of this technology.’