Aerial Photography 101 How to Shoot Your Own Aerial Photos of the World

Thanks to the advent of smaller and lighter cameras that can easily be attached to our multirotors, more and more pilots are getting their high-quality shots and HD video from the sky. Let’s discuss lifting cameras into the sky by multirotor and how to guide your camera through the air.

- John Reid

CAMERA ATTACHMENT

Keep in mind that it really doesn’t matter how we attach the camera to the multirotors because most of our shots will be within the hundreds or thousands of a second. Therefore, we don’t have to worry about the vibration that is produced from the four or more motors. When taking video, we have to isolate the camera from the frame of the multirotor to prevent the dreaded Jell-O effect in our videos. When shooting photographs, all that is needed is to have the camera mounted to the rig securely. If there is a gimbal setup already installed there is no reason not to use that same setup as a photographic mount.

FLYING MODES BEST FOR PHOTOGRAPHY

In all actuality, any multirotor flying mode will work well when doing still images from the air. The photograph can be produced just as easily while the multirotor is moving as well as it can when it is hovering. Because of the way I take photos from the air, I tend to fly in the GPS assist mode. This mode allows the aircraft to stabilize it a three dimensional space without drifting or moving around. This makes it much easier for me to plan the shot because I can just place the drone where I want it and wait for the photo.

On static, landscape types of shots, the camera can be set up to take a photograph every 3-5 seconds. Because nothing is really moving, it is easy enough to hover the aircraft in one spot for 6 to 10 seconds to take a couple of shots.