Drone photography for beginners

Have you ever wondered how people take those incredible bird’s eye view photos of the world? Some people fly actual planes or helicopters but the easier way is to buy a drone!

Drone photographer has never been as easy, affordable, and high quality as it is today. The technology has come a long way even in the span of the last few years.

Today, you can get 4K video and crystal clear photos on a device a little larger than your phone that takes about 30 seconds to set up. Plug in your phone, screw in their thumb controls, and turn on the drone and remote and you are ready to fly.

What kind of drone should you buy?

This is the most important question! I recently purchased DJI’s newest drone, the DJI Mini 2. It weights half a pound and because of this, flies under the radar of the US government (and many foreign governments as well). You don’t have to register it, get a drone license, or take any tests.

While there are certainly better drones in terms of both distance (the Mini can go up to 10km which seems plenty far enough to me), battery life, and image/video quality, the convenience of being able to pull the drone in and out of your pocket to fly it is pretty unbelievable.

Where can you fly it?

I wanted to buy a drone back in 2017. I walked into DJI’s San Francisco store at the time and decided against the purchase because a) they were expensive (at the time, about twice the Mini’s cost) and b) I was scared away by all the rules and regulations.

While a lot of governments are cracking down on drone usage, including the United States, in some ways they are also standardizing the industry and making it much easier to understand what is and isn’t allowed. There are now some amazing apps like B4UFLY, which gives you up to date airspace regulations and rules for where you want to fly, and KITTYHAWK which allows you to request clearance to fly in controlled airspace from the local air traffic controllers.

Technically the DJI app gives you warning indicators as well but they are less restrictive than the FAA’s app. Follow the rules!

In general, places that are off limits are:

• National Parks
• Areas in close proximity to airports and military bases
• Stadiums / Performance arenas

But how do you learn how to fly if you never have before?

You practice! Learn the basics and practice them in a safe space, like an open baseball field or park. Before you go crazy with your drone, feel confident:

1. Taking off automatically and manually
2. Landing automatically and manually
3. Setting up “automatic return to home” and other features
4. Flying in all directions and understanding the differences with the controls, including the speed settings.
5. Practicing manipulating the gimbal and taking images and videos
6. Practicing reading the map and getting a sense for how far away 100ft up versus away from you actually is.
7. Practice being aware of your environment – are there low flying helicopters nearby, or airplanes? Think – what will you do if one comes close to you? Always fly under 400 feet and lower depending on local restrictions.

There are so many good videos on youtube that can help show you the ropes. It also helps to fly your drone with another person – that way you can pay attention to the remote, and the other person can keep line of sight on the drone itself to make sure you don’t encounter any obstacles.

What should I do with my drone content when I finish flying?

DJI gives you different options to store the data of your flight right on your phone as a backup, in case you lose the drone. However, I recommend taking the memory card out of the drone and importing the material directly into a computer or external hard drive to edit and share it. This will guarentee you the highest quality. What you will learn very quickly is that video space takes up a lot of memory to manipulate so it helps to keep it on an external drive.

For editing, DJI has an in app editing software which is helpful for quick changes. If you want to have more creative control, Adobe’s Premier Pro is where you’ll want to important your video clips. For editing software between those two options, Adobe has a mobile app of Adobe Premier Rush, which has a watered down version of Pro available on mobile.

How to take great drone photos and videos?

Ah yes, the question of the hour. I’ve only been droning for a little over a month so here are some tips I have learned the hard way. There are a lot of great youtube videos about this as well, but my favorite is this tutorial that talks about classic cinematography technique. Some things you definitely want to avoid to make your videos better and your editing easier:

• Shoot away from the sun. This should be obvious but the sensors on the drone are not as sophisticated as those on mirrorless cameras so you risk blowing out the background.
• Shoot in a singular direction / motion. Take your videos moving the from left to right, for example.
• Shoot small clips, between 15-30 seconds. Any longer and you end up having to comb through many videos to find what you are looking for.
• Only shoot from really high up if you are trying to capture a large landscape. Otherwise, it’ll be impossible to get the details in the frame!
• Don’t make jerky movements and switch directions mid-video. It looks really weird and you’ll end up having to trip your content later!
• Don’t move the gimbal while flying at high speed – it’ll stick and creating jerky content.
• In general, if you want good video, fly at slow speeds. You can always speed it up later in editing.
• Avoid filming in circles – it makes the viewer dizzy!
• Some of the best photo angles are bird’s eye (straight down) and a 45 degree angle when above 100ft. You can also capture some really interesting things at low flight heights under 100 feet.

Other beginner tips

1. Always do a pre-flight checklist, at least mentally. Make sure your joysticks are assembled, phone is plugged in, wifi is disabled (or you are in airplane mode), make sure the propellers are clean and free of debris (and secured), make sure you have a memory card installed, and make sure the battery pack is secured and has full juice.
2. Check your B4UFLY app for warnings and restrictions, and make sure you have GPS and calibration working correctly before you take off. Heed all warnings on your drone!
3. Make sure there aren’t many people around or other obstacles.
4. Make sure you set your return to home height above the tallest building or tree in your vicinity.
5. Never fly with less than 20% battery left – it could take a long time for your drone to come back and depending on the temperature of the air where you are, you might have even less battery than you think. Start coming home before the device starts beeping at you.
6. Flying a drone can be nerve-wracking. You are paying attention to both the object in front of you and a device, with potential hazards around. Sometimes people will stare at it or ask you questions about it in curiosity. If you follow the rules and maps, you should be within your rights to fly. Of course, if someone is upset with you (there is a lot of negative press out there about drones), calmly and politely engage and stop flying. While this has yet to happen to me (lots of people have talked to me about the drone but always from a place of genuine curiosity and wonder), be aware this is a risk many drone flyers encounter.

Good luck out there and fly safely!