Drone photography and video

[Paul Arden]

Just wondering how many of you fly drones with any expertise? Ashly gave me a Mavic Air 2 for my 50th. It’s extremely impressive and I’m learning it I’ve been spending quite a bit of time on YouTube watching tutorials. The active track and spotlight features are awesome and the battery life is far better than my previous parrot drone. In fact it’s a different level altogether.

I plan to make some casting videos and maybe even some Snakehead catching videos using it. But first I’m learning it. Flying and landing over water (hand catching) is what I’m learning at the moment. One slightly annoying feature is that the batteries self-discharge to a lower level after three days to prolong battery life. For some reason the inverter doesn’t change them on the boat however I’ve ordered a car charger and then I should be able to fly most days and quickly gain some experience.

Of course it’s difficult to fish and fly at the same time

Cheers, Paul

[Viking Lars]

Well, I'm a certified drone pilot - necessary in Denmark to fly in some areas. Basically the certificate gives you the right to ask for dispensation to fly in areas where it's otherwise not allowed. There are a good number of rules to know - for instance you're not allowed to fly closer than 200m to any royal residence :-).
Anyway - yes, I fly drones regularly and of course with an incredible level of expertise :-). With the tracking feature and a proper battery life you should be able to get some decent drone footage of your self fishing, even as a one-man-band.

L

[Paul Arden]

Wow you learn something new every day. You are full of surprises Lars

[Paul Arden]

The thing I struggle with is reflection off the iPhone when trying to see what’s going on when flying. I think I’ll need to invent some sort of hood.

[Paul Arden]

A strange feeling of vertigo this morning

[Viking Lars]

There are many of those commercially available and most are so cheap that it's hard ly inventing some yourself. I'm quite pleased with this one.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ ... _hood.html

[t.z.]

The thing I struggle with is reflection off the iPhone when trying to see what’s going on when flying. I think I’ll need to invent some sort of hood.

I bought a hood which works really nice. Basically it's a square tube made from fabric supported by some sort of insert (like baseball cap brim). It looks somewhat similar to this thing. I guess you can easily make this yourself with a bit of velcro and gaffatape -

[t.z.]

I had a Mavic Air 1 and swapped it for a Mavic mini. Less hassle with charging was the main reason. These little drones are really impressive. However, a set of proper ND filters really ups the game a lot.

For best results you need to have your shutter speed related to your fps by the so called 180 degree rule. That way you can see motion in a natural way. Our eyes are used to motion blur. The 180 degree rule means that that you should shoot with twice the shutter speed than your frame rate (fps) This poses the problem of overexposing your footage. Example - with 30fps you should shoot with a shutter speed of 60, which results in a very bright picture.

Your drone can't do better than ISO 100, which is very good, but still might be too bright. So the drone sets your shutter speed automatically to expose correctly (aka not too bright) That often is way too fast to get smooth motion in the footage. You can of course shoot slow motion (120fps shutter 240), but that gets tricky in post production. So the right thing to do to get your exposure right is to limit the amount of light coming through the lens by putting a filter (basically sunglasses for the camera) in front. Bingo.

There are many YouTube videos out there on this exposure triangle problem. I found this the easiest to understand.



Landing and starting in hand gets rather simple as soon you have a lanyard on your remote. That way you are not afraid dropping it and it can be operated with one hand. I made that lanyard myself with a piece of rope I had lying around.



Last year I had a client who does professional commercial work with drones. One good advise he had was to think about a drone like a fancy camera stand. He use the drone very stationary and had basically 5 or 6 different "moves" he used. Most of these moves needed up revealing you subject.

[t.z.]

Most of these moves needed up revealing you subject. --- I meant to say - Most of these moves he used ended up revealing your subject.

[Paul Arden]

Thanks Thomas - great advice! I’ll go through these videos this week.

Cheers, Paul