Tips & Tricks for Drone Aerial Photography

Do’s & Don’t of Flying a Drone

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Ok, we all have heard about the #AerialPhotography and seen Drone flying over in our neighborhood, weddings, events and even in a Modern family (remember how Phil spies on Luke with drone camera) always fancies how cool is that. Rings bell? Ahh common…Don’t be shy. We all have been there at that place. Aren’t we all a wonderer.

So, I am going to kill your all curiosity today in this article and will share some cool tips on how to own a drone to how to become an Aerial photographer / Videographer ohh whatever you prefer. (common, aren’t we all at least a phone photographer? Now is the time to start on a drone. woohoo

You wondering which model to go for?
a. MAVIC
b. DJI Phantom 4 – Pro & Advance
c. DJI Phantom 3

So according to your budget, you can decide on the model and start your photography will these tips:

I am going to review today DJI phantom 3 (create a hyperlink with product description) which I am using these days:

Let’s get started with all the wondering thoughts…

⦁ Who should buy a Drone?

Do you like taking pictures of Nature? Landscapes? Cityscapes? Countryside? Windmills? Mountains? Urban cities? Clouds? Panorama? Almost everything?

This shows your passion for photography so why not give a try to drone which can provide you a top view or a bird’s view of your location and believe me, the view from above can make you all mesmerized. Things look different from above just like when you see your city or destination from airplane. Sounds fancy yeah?

Ok, no more craving, let’s get started with Drone do’s & don’ts:

Drone requires a handle with care notion so if you are following the below tips, it’s likely that you will get all pleasantry results.

(After reading and understanding your manual which you got it inside your packaging box let’s find a good location)
NB before taking your drone out, spend some time to fly in a safer place to practice over, taking control, bringing down smoothly and then think about

         ⦁ Which location is suitable for Drones?

Do some recee and after your location scouting and finalizing, I recommend you to google some of the aerial shots of the location because Planning always gives a fruitful result and your recently bought delicate Drone requires your full attention. *alert*

⦁ Find a location

⦁ See some shots already taken to understand what type of shot you are going to take by googling, hashtagging on Instagram #aerialshot #dronephotography #dronestagram #dronepilots #dronephotos etc.

⦁ For beginners, make sure the location is free of

⦁ Free space like garden

⦁ Not heavily surrounded by trees

⦁ Avoid narrow lanes, high buildings can give you a rough time with your drone

⦁ Free of birds
NB Once you are good in handling drone, you can ignore building and bird recommendations.

In the right side of the blog – small image according to visibility & layout

⦁ Weather
Check your weather forecast because you don’t want to go with all your excitement and find out that it’s highly breezy or drizzling which makes your shoot gets nixed.

⦁ Drone Settings:

⦁ Format: always use a RAW format so that you get edit and tweak settings in your post-production at home or Studio

⦁ Don’t get confuse in 16:9 or 4:3 . You can start in both and see the results and decide which ratio is suitable for you.

⦁ In DJI phantom 3 – feature is bracketing with 5 shots. It’s most useful in if you have made a mistake in taking the correct or perfect for you* exposure, you can choose the right one later from 3 to 5 bracketed photos

⦁ P (auto) and M (manual) Mode: I always prefer a manual mode which allows me to take the lowest possible ISO as well as the shutter speed I desire

⦁ ISO: I personally prefer to shoot at low ISO, In phantom, the lowest is 100 which gives you nice quality picture less of noise (mostly).

⦁ Shoot at night: I recommend you not go above 3 sec exposure to avoid shaking of the drone which will be resulting in shaky photos. Though phantom offers the ability to go as high as 8 sec shutter speed it’s entirely up to you. Though, there’s nothing quite like a photo at dawn or dusk to take advantage of the unique light contrasts.
NB I recommend having a controller with an LCD display if trying night photography

⦁ Use GPS mode if possible: In this, by the help of GPS drone hover and stabilize itself results in a clear picture. Voila!

⦁ Battery: make sure your drone is fully charged before you are heading out, after all, you don’t want to leave your shoot in between when you are almost there to take a perfect shot. (#Storyofmylife )
Also, don’t let it discharge completely as you are just shortening your battery life.
So now you are all technically proof & don’t forget to share your proud shots with us. Use #GuriBroadcast to get a feature on our page.

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This article is written by Sristi Singh who is a Marketing professional and keeps a keen interest in photography. She currently handles social media marketing of Guri Broadcast.

N.B: Opinions expressed in this article are those of the contributing author and not necessarily that of GuriBroadcast.com