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Posts Tagged ‘drone’

Photographer uses drone with thermal camera to find missing 6-year-old boy

24 Oct

Photographer Steve Fines helped save the life of a 6-year-old boy who went missing last week on a subfreezing night in Sherburne County, Minnesota.

A group of roughly 600 people showed up to search for Ethan and his dog. As temperatures dropped below 30ºF that evening, the situation became increasingly dire. ‘I heard about the search at 8:00 pm and arrived on site about 9:00 pm,’ Fines tells DPReview. He arrived carrying his DJI m210RTK v2 drone equipped with an XT2 dual thermal camera.

An annotated image shared by Fine showing the location of Ethan and his dog being rescued.

Since Fines uses the drone for business purposes, he already had 10-12 sets of batteries charged and ready to go. ‘I went to the command center and introduced myself. They asked me not to fly until the state police helicopter left the area, which happened about 10:30 pm,’ Fines told us. He also emphasized how important it is for drone operators to yield the right of way to helicopters and other emergency response efforts. Interfering with these critical operations is against the law and can result in fines upwards of $ 20,000. Drone operators need to coordinate with local authorities first before getting involved.

Once Fines received clearance for takeoff, he said ‘I quickly started flying and it was by using a programmed flight path that I could efficiently cover a lot of ground. After quite a few false positives – otters, deer, bear – at 1:40 am, I spotted the six-year-old and his dog. By 1:50 am, a ground rescue team made it to his location and I watched them pick him up on the thermal monitor.’

While Fines has received a lion’s share of the credit from local news station KARE 11 for the success of the rescue, he took to social media and gave thanks to the coordinated efforts led by the County Sheriff along with the hundreds of volunteers that helped guide him in the right direction.

This thermal image shows a stream of volunteers walking a path to find missing 6-year-old Ethan.

While I was running the camera that found him […] I only knew in which direction to look because volunteers on the ground had found a footprint that pointed me in the right direction. I knew which areas had already been searched because of the excellent coordination of the Sherburne County Sheriff. I had other volunteers running radios to coordinate ground search parties – the people moving across really rough ground to find him. There were 600 of us that found Ethan that night.

Below is a video from KARE 11 showing more behind-the-scenes footage of the rescue and a thank you from Ethan:

You can check out more of Fines’ work via his website and follow Fines Aerial Imaging on Facebook and Instagram.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Utah Senator introduces Drone Integration and Zoning Act of 2019

22 Oct

Republican Utah Senator Mike Lee was heavily involved in the unsuccessful Drone Federalism Act of 2017, a bill sponsored by California Senator Dianne Feinstein that sought to restrict drone usage by giving local government and property owners jurisdiction over National Airspace. Now he’s back with a new bill, the Drone Integration and Zoning Act, that will allow cities, states, and Native American tribes to set their own rules on low-flying drones, effectively overriding regulations set by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

In a statement regarding the new bill, Sen. Lee said:

‘The FAA cannot feasibly or efficiently oversee millions of drones in every locality throughout the country […] The reason that the states have sovereign police powers to protect the property of their citizens is because issues of land use, privacy, trespass, and law enforcement make sense at the state and local level. The best way to ensure public safety and allow this innovative industry to thrive is to empower the people closest to the ground to make local decisions in real time and that is exactly what the Drone Integration and Zoning Act does.’

Basically, if passed, it would give home owners, local businesses, and counties full control over the first 200 feet of airspace above their designated property lines. Above 200 feet, FAA rules would apply. The FAA is not in favor of being overruled by local governments as these new ordinances would create even more confusion amongst drone operators. In a statement to Axios, DJI’s Director of U.S. legislative affairs, Mark Aitken, said the bill would ‘spur state and local governments across the country to impose harsh and conflicting taxes and fees on professional and recreational drone flights, throttling an industry still in its infancy.’

Currently, 34 out of 50 U.S. states, including California, are legally allowed to enforce their own regulations and restrictions on drone use at a county level. One state where this isn’t allowed is Michigan and a group of people, including the Michigan Coalition of Drone Operators, is fighting back. Back in December, a Genesee County sheriff arrested and detained Jason Harrison for flying in a park. The flight was legal, despite them attempting to rewrite legislation on drone use to fit their preferences – something that is in violation of Michigan State Law – Public Act 436 of 2016.

A follow-up trial is scheduled for November 8th in Flint, Michigan. If the judge rules in Harrison’s favor, it will hopefully set a precedent for how National Airspace is dictated across the U.S. While the Drone Integration and Zoning Act of 2019 will likely not gain much traction with Congress, it’s still worth writing your Senator to explain how patchwork drone laws will only cause chaos and confusion amongst operators and lawmakers, alike.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Landscape photography with a drone: disadvantages and limitations part 1

20 Oct

So far, I’ve offered nothing but praise for the drone. It’s a remarkably cheap and widely available tool. You can fly it anywhere, get infinite perspectives and unique compositions. It can easily hover in place to shoot long exposures or wait for the right time to shoot. It will venture where no human will, be it through toxic gases or scorching lava. And it is so much fun.

But the drone has its disadvantages and limitations, and that is the subject for today. Discussing these limitations is important in order to understand where and when one should choose to use a drone and when not to. It’s an important aspect to planning a shoot in a new location or circumstance, and it will help you understand that a drone isn’t a magical tool, as amazing as it is. Let’s review some of these limitations, starting with the easier ones to discuss.

Dependence on batteries

All of today’s drones fly using state of the art Lithium Polymer (LiPo) and lithium polymer high voltage (LiHV) batteries. These batteries are compact, and they last a surprisingly long time, but even the longest-flying drones cannot fly for more than about half an hour. This number is further shortened if the drone is flown “aggressively” (made to perform maneuvers, accelerate, decelerate and change direction often), when flying in sports mode and also if there is strong wind pushing against it.

Half an hour is a whole lot in some situations, but it’s not enough in others. I have had to land a drone in the middle of a shoot in harsh winds, even though the light was amazing, simply because the battery had run out. When the actual shooting location is relatively far away from the launch location, just getting to it and back can eat up half of the battery, leaving a measly ten minutes of shooting time before having to head back and change batteries, even if the sky had just opened up and the conditions became optimal.

Afternoon light on the magnificent cliffs of Suðuroy. I flew the drone in the harsh winds typical to the Faroes, and as a result, the battery drained so fast I only had 10 or 15 minutes to shoot.
DJI Mavic II Pro, 1/80 sec, F5.6, ISO 200. Suðuroy, the Faroe Islands

Dependence is not only on the amount of power one battery can give, it’s also on the number of batteries one has or can carry. In situations where the user cannot charge the batteries (for example, camping trips), there’s simply nothing left to do once the battery capacity has been used. Each battery has significant weight – Phantom batteries are 450 grams each, and even the tiny Mavic batteries weigh almost 300 grams each. When you have to carry those batteries, the drone, plus your regular camera equipment (and camping gear if you’re camping), each item matters, and those 3-4 batteries alone will make your backpack more than a kilogram heavier.

I carried three Phantom batteries for 8 km on solidified lava to shoot these surface flows in Kilauea Volcano. The batteries alone weighed almost 1.5 kilograms, not to mention the drone itself, my DSLR gear, tripod and 2 liters of water. While worth it, the backpack was very heavy and the hike wasn’t much fun. Even so, I would in retrospect bring two more batteries, to be able to use them more sparingly on a rare shoot such as this one.
DJI Phantom 4 Pro, 1/15 sec, F6.3, ISO 400. Taken outside of Volcanoes NP, Island of Hawaii.

Limited range

Drones not only have limited flight time, they also have limited range. The range is not only limited by battery power, but by two other factors: connectivity between the drone and the remote, and legal aspects.

When shooting the 2014 Holuhraun volcanic eruption from a helicopter, I spent more than an hour shooting a mind-blowing sunset over the lava, and stayed well into darkness. A drone wouldn’t have been able to remain airborne for long enough to get these conditions (not to mention get there!).
Canon 5D Mark II, Tamron 24-70mm F2.8 VC, 1/200 sec, f/4, ISO 1600. The Central Highlands of Iceland

In modern camera drones, radio connection between the drone and its remote is usually excellent when flight distance isn’t too long (I would give a numeric example but it really depends on many factors). But fly further away and the connection might break. If you use drones, I’m sure you know the horror one feels once the screen turns black and white and the app announces that connection had been lost. Even though the drone will attempt to return home and regain connection 99.9% of the times, there’s always the chance that it has just crashed. If, like yours truly, you have crashed a drone in the past, you will forever dread this feeling.

Connection may be compromised not only when flying too far, but when the drone is positioned so it loses direct line of sight to the remote, which can be a bit risky as the drone is left to navigate its way until regaining connection. Harsh weather such as heavy snow or rain my also break the connection, but this is usually intermittent.

Say what you may about manned aircraft, their range is far longer than that of any drone, and lost connection is not an issue.

My drone lost connection for a few moments when this iceberg’s peaks came between it and the moving boat. There was little to worry about, however, as I knew connection would be regained in a matter of seconds. DJI Mavic II Pro, 1/30 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200. Disko Bay, Greenland.

In any case, today’s modern drones have been known to miraculously find their way home even after having lost connection. Equipped with GPS and with an array of sensors to avoid hitting obstacles, I’ve heard stories of drones reappearing after having been deemed lost, even after long minutes of disconnection. I’ll discuss this further in a future article.

Legal requirements in most countries dictate that the drone remain in line-of-sight. What that means could be debatable, but a stricter interpretation might be that the drone needs to be clearly visible to the operator. This means further limitation of the range.

Limited flight altitude

Another limitation to the drone is its inability to fly higher than a certain altitude limit. Again, this limit can be the result of different factors, technical and legal. Technically, drone manufacturers limit the maximum altitude a drone can fly in. In DJI drones this limit is 500 meters above the home point. Higher altitude flights may only be possible after hacking the drone’s firmware, which is sometimes possible but seriously discouraged.

A much stricter altitude limit is dictated by drone laws in most countries. 100, 120 and 150 meters are the common numbers here, with the vast majority of countries not allowing flight above 120m. My home country of Israel officially limits drones to 50 meters (hmmm…). Even though an altitude limit makes a lot of sense, there’s no doubt that it greatly impacts compositional possibilities. Light planes, for example, are usually allowed to climb up to 2-3 kilometers before intruding the airspace of commercial jets.

The gigantic dunes of the Namib Desert can rise 300 meters high – no chance of shooting them with a drone, even if droning were allowed in the accessible parts of Sossusvlei, which it isn’t. I took this image from a helicopter at a height of more than a kilometer in the air.
Canon 5D Mark III, Tamron 24-70 f/2.8 VC, 1/1250 sec, F10, ISO 800. Sossusvlei, Namibia

Limited flight speed

Finally, drones are limited in their flight speed, which is usually not an issue, but can sometimes be a hindrance to getting the shot. Aerial photography often covers vast distances, and when light breaks faraway, you want to get there fast. A DJI Mavic can fly at 72 km/h (about 45 mph), and even that is on sports mode which quickly drains battery and can sometimes mess with the gimbal.

After DJI lowered its top speed due to stability problems, the faster, much more expensive Inspire 2 now tops at 94 km/h (58mph). Compare that with the 240 km/h of a Robinson 44 helicopter or with over 300 km/h of a Cessna, and the disadvantage is clear.

When seeing this light breaking between the mountains at a distance (and after picking my jaw up from the floor), I asked the pilot to “step on it” to get there as quickly as possible and avoid missing the shot. He asked me to close the window, easily pulled the throttle, taking us to 300 km/h and covering the distance to this composition in less than a minute, before slowing back down to allow me to open the window and shoot for several minutes. A drone would have undoubtedly missed the shot.
Canon 5D Mark III, Tamron 24-70mm F2.8 VC, 1/2000 sec, f/4, ISO 800.
The Lofoten Islands, Arctic Norway

To sum up, a drone is dependent on relatively heavy, power-limited batteries and the ability to carry and charge them. It has limited range, limited speed and limited flight altitude compared to manned aircraft, all of which limit the photographer’s ability to get to a location, spend enough time shooting it and getting good composition and light. While these problems don’t make the drone any less amazing, they have to be considered when planning an aerial shoot and when selecting the right tool to perform it.

In the next article I will continue the discussion of the drone’s disadvantages.

Erez Marom is a professional nature photographer, photography guide and traveler based in Israel. You can follow Erez’s work on Instagram and Facebook, and subscribe to his mailing list for updates.

If you’d like to experience and shoot some of the world’s most fascinating landscapes with Erez as your guide, take a look at his unique photography workshops in The Lofoten Islands, Greenland, Namibia, the Argentinean Puna, the Faroe Islands and Ethiopia.

Erez offers video tutorials discussing his images and explaining how he achieved them.

More in this series:

  • Landscape photography with a drone: Gear basics
  • Landscape photography with a drone: the advantages – part 1
  • Landscape photography with a drone: the advantages – part 2
  • Landscape photography with a drone: the advantages – part 3

Selected articles by Erez Marom:

  • Parallelism in Landscape Photography
  • Winds of Change: Shooting changing landscapes
  • Behind the Shot: Dark Matter
  • On the Importance of Naming Images
  • On Causality in Landscape Photography
  • Shooting K?lauea Volcano, Part 1: How to melt a drone
  • The Art of the Unforeground
  • Whatever it Doesn’t Take
  • Almost human: photographing critically endangered mountain gorillas

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Landscape photography with a drone: the advantages – part 3

06 Oct

In the previous articles in this series, I elaborated about the advantages of the drone, specifically that the drone offers more compositional opportunities, is cheap to run, portable, available anywhere and able to hover in place.

In this article I’d like to conclude the discussion of the drone’s advantages by mentioning its ability to hover in place and its most fun facet: its fearlessness in the face of danger.

Ability to hover

The ability to effortlessly hover in place is unique to the drone. True, good helicopter pilots can hover efficiently, but neither with the same GPS-controlled accuracy as the drone, nor with its ability to go near the subject. In terms of stability, a drone can only be compared to a tripod in the sky, which in turn means that it allows three things: relatively long exposures, parking abilities and immaculate precision.

Long exposures can be useful when the photographer wants to convey a sense of motion in an image. For example, an exposure of half a second or more can smear moving water, creating pleasing lines and a clear feel in an image. Under sufficiently still weather, a modern drone can shoot sharp images at half a second, a second or even more. Multiple attempts can result in a sharp shot even when shooting a several second long exposure – an unprecedented achievement for any aerial shooing (that doesn’t use a heavy, expensive gyro-stabilizer).

A long exposure of Fossa waterfall, Faroe Islands. If I had an ND filter handy, I could’ve extended the exposure even more.
DJI Mavic II Pro, 1/2 sec, F11, ISO 100.

I’ll explain and demonstrate what I mean by ‘parking abilities’ with an image I took earlier this year. I was shooting the total solar eclipse over lake Cuesta Del Viento, in the San Juan province of Argentina. Totality lasted for a mere 2 minutes (which seemed more like 45 seconds), during which I tried to shoot a wide-angle focus-stack, a telephoto closeup of the corona, and an aerial of the eclipse reflecting in the lake above the badlands. Naturally, I had set up my wide angle and telephoto compositions beforehand, but the point here is that the drone allowed me to set up my aerial composition as well.

A wide angle focus-stack of the eclipse above the badlands A telephoto closeup of the corona

I composed the shot about 5 or 10 minutes before the totality, and left the drone hovering in place. Once I was done with the two DSLR shots, I took the remote to find the aerial composition exactly how I had left it. This saved me precious time and allowed me to take all three shots in a very narrow time frame. The drone reflection shot, more than anything, is a true once-in-a-lifetime shot.

The drone aerial I took after the two DSLR shots.
DJI Mavic II Pro, 1/10 sec, F2.8, ISO 100. Lago Cuesta Del Viento, San Juan Province, Argentina

Finally, the controls of a modern drone allow for unprecedented precision. The drone can move very delicately (some drones offer a ‘tripod mode’ for extra delicate movement) and enables the photographer to create and capture a balanced image. This is especially important when shooting in close distances to certain subjects.

The window of showing the boat in the middle of the arch was very small. Delicate movements of the drone allowed me to get the shot with ease.
DJI Phantom 4 Pro, 1/40 sec, F5.6, ISO 200. Disko Bay, Greenland

Fearlessness in the face of danger

A major advantage of the drone is the fact that you can endanger it with little consequence. As a nature photographer who lives and breathes extreme environments, I can’t stress enough how overwhelming it is.

A drone doesn’t care about breathing toxic gases. A drone doesn’t care about being uncomfortable, hot, cold, breathless or tired. A drone is a robot, a slave to your will and it will go wherever you tell it to go. It will scream if the battery is about to run out, it will quietly protest if you try to fly in windy weather, its sensors will avoid contact with close-by objects, it won’t let you fly near airports (thank goodness). But other than that, it will obey the commands of its master, however stupid or dangerous… which gives the photographer a perfect opportunity to be as daring as he wishes.

This shot is hazy because it’s taken from within a caldera filled with toxic gasses.
DJI Mavic II Pro, 1/25 sec, F6.3, ISO 100. Kawah Ijen, East Java, Indonesia

Please note that I’m only legitimizing risking the drone, not people’s health. I will cover drone etiquette in a future article, but for now, let me stress that I’m talking about flying both legally and (even more importantly) morally, where there are no chances of people or the environment being harmed by the drone. Luckily, as a nature photographer, it’s easy to stay on the right side of legality and morality, simply because I do most of my shooting alone in the wild, without people or buildings around me. The worst thing that can happen to me is losing the drone (that has happened, of course, a tale which will be told in the future).

No person, and no manned aircraft for that matter, would dream of flying meters above an active volcano. Only uninformed people would go near an ice-arch, which can collapse at any moment with tragic consequences. But a drone can, and will do so happily. This fact opens a myriad of options which simply aren’t there without a drone. Let’s see some examples and explore the dangerous side of landscape photography.

Lava flows in the shape of a double-headed dragon. During this shoot I flew my drone so close to the lava that the camera was molten (!). Needless to say, I wouldn’t get this close myself.
DJI Phantom 4 Pro, 1/8 sec, F6.3, ISO 400. Taken outside of Volcanoes NP, Island of Hawaii.

I wrote extensively about my Hawaii volcano photography in a previous article, but I’ll mention here that it was an amazing shoot during which I flew my drone very close to the lava, closer than I’d ever venture myself. The red-hot lava was so hot that it melted my drone camera, the perfect example of the drone going where no man would, and coming back in one piece (if damaged).

The shoot was more than worth losing the drone, both financially (the images and videos sold for many times what I paid to fix the drone) and in the images I got from it. It was a once-in-a-lifetime event, and I risked the drone knowing very well I could lose it at any moment. Actually, it was the very fact that I melted the drone camera, rather than the unique images I got, that made this series go viral, and got me a front-page National Geographic website feature and interview.

The point where the lava burst out of the mountain side was extremely hot.
DJI Phantom 4 Pro, 1/100 sec, f/6.3, ISO 400. Taken outside of Volcanoes NP, Island of Hawaii.

From lava to ice. It is well known that large icebergs can be extremely dangerous. They can not only collapse catastrophically, but they can flip over, and both these scenarios involve dislocation of a huge amount of ice and water, creating high waves and endangering everyone sailing within a substantial radius. But again, a drone doesn’t care. It will fly under close-to-collapsing arches, hover meters away from gigantic icebergs and go where no man would dare.

To get the composition I wanted with the faraway iceberg and lenticular clouds framed inside the hole in the closer iceberg, I had to get very close to the ice. Needless to say, this would have been impossible in any other way, as I wouldn’t step on this iceberg, and no manned aircraft would fly this close to it.
DJI Mavic II Pro, 1/30 sec, f/8, ISO 200, vertical stitch. Uummannaq, Greenland

There are even more advantages to using a drone. The more you use it, the easier it is to use and the more freedom it gives you. Other points I won’t elaborate on are:

  • The drone, unlike a manned aircraft, doesn’t pose any obstacle to shooting. Manned aircraft have rotors (in helicopters), wings or beams blocking your view. The windows in light planes can also limit your range of motion.
  • Your carbon footprint is significantly lower with a drone compared to manned aircraft.
  • It’s a good conversation starter.
  • It’s so much fun to fly.

In the next article in the series, I’ll discuss the other side of things: the disadvantages and limitations of the drone.

Erez Marom is a professional nature photographer, photography guide and traveler based in Israel. You can follow Erez’s work on Instagram and Facebook, and subscribe to his mailing list for updates.

If you’d like to experience and shoot some of the world’s most fascinating landscapes with Erez as your guide, take a look at his unique photography workshops in The Lofoten Islands, Greenland, Namibia, the Argentinean Puna, the Faroe Islands and Ethiopia.

Erez offers video tutorials discussing his images and explaining how he achieved them.

More in This Series:

  • Landscape Photography with a Drone – Part 1: Forward / What is a Drone?
  • Landscape Photography with a Drone – Part 2: Advantages of the Drone (i)
  • Landscape Photography with a Drone – Part 3: Advantages of the Drone (ii)

Selected Articles by Erez Marom:

  • Parallelism in Landscape Photography
  • Winds of Change: Shooting changing landscapes
  • Behind the Shot: Dark Matter
  • On the Importance of Naming Images
  • On Causality in Landscape Photography
  • Shooting K?lauea Volcano, Part 1: How to melt a drone
  • The Art of the Unforeground
  • Whatever it Doesn’t Take
  • Almost human: photographing critically endangered mountain gorillas

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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CHASING DORY is a portable, affordable underwater drone with 1080p video

06 Oct

If there’s one omnipresent trend in the drone industry, it’s this: manufacturers are thinking smaller. Companies are aiming to make unmanned aerial vehicles more compact while inserting as many premium features, found in their larger counterparts, as possible. The CHASING DORY underwater drone, which is currently in the midst of a successful crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, is no exception.

Presumably named after the daffy but lovable fish from the movie Finding Nemo, at 18.8cm (7.4in) wide, the drone is smaller than a standard sheet of paper. It is the follow up to Shenzhen-based company CHASING’s GLADIUS MINI drone whose 2017 Indiegogo campaign ended with 1629% funding and a 100% delivery rate to backers. DORY is 56% lighter and 65% smaller than its predecessor which weighed 2.5kg (5.5 pounds).

An algorithm ensures photos remain vivid in all conditions.

DORY’s camera has an F1.6 lens with 1/2.9″ CMOS sensor capable of recording at 1080p, a 100° field of view, and a ±45° Tilt-Lock mode that allows you to scan the floor of a body of water or view its surface above. Two 250-lumen lights placed on the front of drone illuminate the area where its operating without overwhelming underwater inhabitants. CHASING’s color-restore algorithm keeps photos vivid in all conditions. 8 GB of internal memory means you don’t have to worry about losing any footage.

The lowest possible pledge available on Kickstarter will get you a DORY underwater drone, Wi-Fi buoy, tether, and charger. The Wi-Fi buoy helps your mobile device stay connected up to 15 meters (49 feet) away with the wired tether. An Anti-lost Warning is there to prevent any chance of getting disconnected. Depth Lock helps the drone remain stable so it doesn’t get tossed around. The charger takes two hours to power a 4800 mAh battery which will give you one hour of operating time. Unlike other underwater drones that require multiple components to be charged, only the drone needs it with the DORY.

DORY doesn’t come with a remote. Instead, a smartphone is all that is needed, along with the CHASING DORY app (available for iOS and Android), to control the drone. You can customize imagery with 19 different filters, share footage on social networks including Facebook and Instagram, and even stream live. The app also features Co-Play which enables one person to maneuver the drone while the other controls the camera.

As of this writing, there are 17 days left to back DORY on Kickstarter. The campaign has already raised over $ 120,000 of its initial $ 30,000 goal. If underwater exploration is your interest, this portable, affordable drone is an option worth considering.

Disclaimer: Remember to do your research with any crowdfunding project. DPReview does its best to share only the projects that look legitimate and come from reliable creators, but as with any crowdfunded campaign, there’s always the risk of the product or service never coming to fruition.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Skydio 2 is a $999 4K autonomous drone that will keep DJI on its toes

02 Oct

After teasing it back in July, and promising availability for Fall, American drone manufacturer, Skydio, has today announced the release of the Skydio 2. A more compact, lightweight, autonomous drone with a superior camera, compared to its predecessor, the R1, it is going after the DJI Mavic 2 Pro and Air markets.

The Skydio 2 retails at a competitive price point of $ 999. A 12MP camera, mounted on a 3-axis gimbal and built around Sony’s IMX577 1/2.3” CMOS sensor with Qualcomm’s RedDragon™ QSC605 technology, can deliver up to 4K/60p HDR video. Using 45 megapixels of visual sensing from six 200° color cameras, the drone can detect obstacles in every direction and avoid them. This is Skydio’s foundation for truly autonomous flight, an ‘Onboard AI’ that powers the ‘Skydio Autonomy Engine.’

The drone can reach a maximum autonomous speed of 36 mph and can remain in the air for 23 minutes with up to 3.5 km wireless range. To compare, the DJI Mavic 2 series can fly up to 45 mph remain air bound for up to 31 minutes. Nevertheless, Skydio is also selling the fact their latest release is 50% smaller, lighter, and quieter than the R1.

There are three ways to fly the Skydio 2. The Beacon (an additional $ 149) will extend communication range up to roughly 1 mile (1.5 km) and enable the drone to follow you through obstacles, even when it can’t see you. You can use the Beacon’s drag and drop controls to reposition the drone in the sky and access modes including Dronie, Rocket, and Orbit for smooth, cinematic shots.

The drone can also be controlled via smartphone with the Android or iOS app. You can access AI modes including the ones mentioned above along with Cable Cam and Sport mode. Photos and video clips can be downloaded and saved directly to the phone for instant sharing. The remote control, also an additional $ 149, extends the range to over 2 miles (3.5 km) and is ideal for those who want to manually maneuver the drone with joysticks.

Skydio manufactures and repairs its drones in the same Redwood City, California, location as its designers and engineers work. They are so confident in its ability to maneuver around obstacles and operate autonomously that they will replace or repair any Skydio 2 for free, granted it was flown within the company’s Safe Flight guidelines.

You can reserve a Skydio 2 today for $ 100. They are expected to start shipping out within the month.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Landscape photography with a drone: the advantages – part 2

29 Sep

In the previous article in this series, I elaborated on the compositional advantages of the drone compared to land-based shooting. I claimed that the drone offers infinitely more compositional opportunities, which results from the fact that the photographer isn’t bound to the ground. This allows better perspectives and separation of the compositional elements.

In this article I’d like to talk about two more advantages of shooting with a drone, which particularly relate to the comparison with manned-aircraft based shooting: the drone’s availability and its ability to take off and land anywhere.

The Springs of Ojos Del Campo, Argentina. The only way of seeing this scene from the air is using a drone. DJI Mavic II Pro, 1/400 sec, F8, ISO 100. Puna De Argentina

Availability and Running Costs

I would be remiss if I neglected to state that in tandem with its ability to fly, the drone’s availability is the very thing that made the drone change the world of photography forever.

Today’s drones are amazing machines. An idiot-proof, tiny, light, foldable quad-copter can easily fit in your photo bag with several spare batteries and the remote control, while leaving room for a your entire DSLR and lens arsenal. Each of these batteries can last for up to half an hour (!) of flight. Under favorable conditions, you can send the drones 5 kilometers or more away and 500 meters high while maintaining connection (in theory, that is, as it’s illegal in most countries to fly higher than 120m and out of sight).

An aerial perspective exposes the beautiful contour and layers of the shore of the Dead Sea.
DJI Mavic II Pro, 1/20 sec, F4, ISO 200. Ein Gedi, Israel

You can bring a drone with you to any shoot, fly it in any terrain and in harsher weather that you think. You can fly it while sitting comfortably inside a heated car, with the spare batteries charging quickly as you fly. It’s portable enough to hike or even climb with. For the experienced drone user, it can take less than 3 minutes to set up and be airborne, when time is of the essence.

This light on the top of a huge iceberg was disappearing and reappearing with the horizon clouds obscuring the sun to the north west. With the drone, I had the choice of when exactly to fly to optimize my photography and get the best light.
DJI Mavic II Pro, 1/30 sec, F7.1, ISO 100. Kangia Fjord, Greenland

Needless to say, a manned aircraft is not always available. Some natural landscapes one wishes to shoot are far in the back country with no airport or heliport nearby. With a drone, you are free from these worries. An hour of flight in a Cessna can cost hundreds of dollars, and yours truly has once been given a quote of $ 4200 per hour (Or $ 70 per minute. Yes, that’s right) for a helicopter flight. Flying a drone is virtually free.

This river of lava burst out of the mountain side before my eyes. After picking up my jaw from the floor, I grabbed my drone and sent it right to the source of the flow.
DJI Phantom 4 Pro, 1/100 sec, F6.3, ISO 400. Kilauea Volcano, Island of Hawaii

Ability to take off and land anywhere

This ability is a particular aspect of the drone’s unmatched availability. Due to the drone’s minuscule size, it is not only possible to fit it in a camera bag, take it out and have it airborne within minutes. It is actually possible to do so without the need for a helipad – or any kind of takeoff/landing surface whatsoever – after a bit of training, takeoff and landing can be done from the pilot’s hand. This often neglected fact can make a world of difference when the area a photographer is based in is something like a small boat, a place with uneven ground (for example a lava-field or snowy earth) or a roofed area such as a cave.

A typical Targa speed boat in Greenland. There’s no really comfortable place to take off or land, but there’s plenty of space to do so from the pilot’s (or someone else’s) hand.

Taking off from a boat isn’t easy, especially when the open area is crowded or too small. Boats often are loaded with antennas, which makes takeoff from the roof problematic. But the photographer can launch the drone from his hand while standing in the front or back of the boat, thus giving the drone the necessary space for a safe takeoff.

Hand-landing on a boat is a bit more challenging, to say the least. The pilot needs to direct the drone slowly and carefully toward the boat’s open space, then catch the drone in midair by hand. This can be difficult in a number of ways. Firstly, boats tend to sway side to side, and the drone is ideally fixed in its aerial position, thus its course relative to the boat is chaotic. Secondly, the drone’s sensors tend to block it from getting too close the pilot’s hand. Luckily, the sensors can be disabled.

This boat had a much more comfortable open space to take off and land, but it was challenging nevertheless.

Personally, I’ve had more than my share of less-than-pleasant experiences when hand-landing a drone on boats. While the DJI Phantom series has handle-like landing gear which makes it very easy to catch the drone, the Mavic series does not, and a lot can go wrong when trying to maneuver and catch the drone while standing on a swaying boat. The propellers can cut and bruise your fingers or cut through your clothes, and a wrong movement or failure to catch the drone can result in it hitting the boat or worse – taking a nosedive into the water.

A gigantic arched iceberg dwarfs our boat in Disko Bay, Greenland.
DJI Mavic II Pro, 1/30 sec, F8, ISO 100

There’s not much that can be done about this other than practice taking off and landing the drone from your hand. Remember that while a drone can be lost at any moment, images last forever.

For a bit more about flying from a boat, check out my friend Ian’s video about our trip to Greenland earlier this year. Ian suffered a brutal attack by his drone, but survived to tell the tale! Yours truly had plenty of drone fails as well, and the shenanigans meter was on the high side throughout the trip.

In the next article I will conclude the discussion of the drone’s advantages with perhaps the most exciting of its traits: the ability to remain totally fearless in the face of danger!

Erez Marom is a professional nature photographer, photography guide and traveler based in Israel. You can follow Erez’s work on Instagram and Facebook, and subscribe to his mailing list for updates.

If you’d like to experience and shoot some of the world’s most fascinating landscapes with Erez as your guide, take a look at his unique photography workshops in The Lofoten Islands, Greenland, Namibia, the Argentinean Puna, the Faroe Islands and Ethiopia.

Erez offers video tutorials discussing his images and explaining how he achieved them.

More in This Series:

  • Landscape Photography with a Drone – Part 1: Forward / What is a Drone?
  • Landscape Photography with a Drone – Part 2: Advantages of the Drone (i)

Selected Articles by Erez Marom:

  • Parallelism in Landscape Photography
  • Winds of Change: Shooting changing landscapes
  • Behind the Shot: Dark Matter
  • On the Importance of Naming Images
  • On Causality in Landscape Photography
  • Shooting K?lauea Volcano, Part 1: How to melt a drone
  • The Art of the Unforeground
  • Whatever it Doesn’t Take
  • Almost human: photographing critically endangered mountain gorillas

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Yuneec announces Typhoon H3 drone, co-engineered with Leica

27 Sep

Chinese drone manufacturer Yuneec announced the latest release in its Typhoon series, as well as a strategic partnership with Leica Camera AG. The H3 is the first resulting product from the collaborative efforts of the two companies. It is especially aimed at aerial photographers and cinematographers. The Yuneec Typhoon H3’s most noteworthy new feature is an ION L1 Pro camera that was co-engineered with Leica.

The ION L1 Pro camera features a 20MP, 1″ CMOS sensor. It can capture 4K/60p video at a maximum bitrate of 100 Mbps on a stabilized 3-axis gimbal that offers up an unrestricted 360° view for panoramic shots. Imaging modes optimized and calibrated by Leica (Auto White Balance, color reproduction, sharpening, and de-noising) promise top-notch vibrancy, contrast, and resolution.

Developed in accordance with Leica specifications, the camera offers a range of options including automatic exposure bracketing and semi-automatic through wide dynamic range. 10-bit Y-Log and DNG profiles offer optimal conditions for professional post-production workflows on programs including Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. Lossless digital zoom (specs unknown at the moment) and short JPEG intervals for seamless hyperlapse creation are also included.

Wenyan Jiang, Founder & Chairwoman of Yuneec, said the following regarding the new Typhoon H3 drone:

‘The Typhoon H3 with ION L1 Pro camera merges art and technology, craft and modernity in a unique manner and, in doing so, takes our aerial photography to dizzy new heights. This symbiosis makes it possible to take unique aerial photographs from unlimited angles that are so breathtaking, they not only reflect the creativity of each and every photographer and filmmaker, but also constantly push them to achieve more. In the partnership between Yuneec and Leica, the focus is on the photographer and their artistic vision. This manifests itself in our first jointly developed product, which will soon be released as a perfectly matched tool that meets the highest quality standards.’

The standard H3 kit includes the PX4-based ST16S flight controller and two batteries that can power the drone for up to 25 minutes of flight time. A 7″ touchscreen is built into the remote and displays the live camera image in 720p (HD). Image transmission distance extends to almost one mile. A second pilot can be added with the Team Mode function and the purchase of an additional ST16S remote control.

Four intelligent flight modes are included for professional-grade cinematography. The Follow Me/Watch Me mode follows a designated subject, Curve Cable Cam allows you to plot coordinates beforehand for the drone to follow while the camera remains independently controllable, Orbit Me flies around a target in a circular motion, and Journey ascends along a linear path then automatically returns for a flawless shot.

Yuneec has continually emphasized the fact that all data is transmitted strictly between the drone, its camera, and controller. There isn’t a cloud system in place, ensuring privacy. While the Typhoon H3 doesn’t contain any rear-facing obstacle avoidance sensors, it comes with a redundant control signal, a Return Home function, and an adjustable virtual fence that ensures it won’t fly beyond a specified radius. The hexacopter has a failsafe 5-rotor mode that automatically activates if one fails. This ensures that the drone remains in the air and doesn’t crash.

A release date has not been announced. Pre-ordering is currently not available and official specs haven’t been published yet as of this writing. Though not confirmed, it is expected to retail for around $ 2,200.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Landscape photography with a drone: the advantages – part 1

22 Sep

In the first article of this series I explained what drones are, how they are built and controlled by the user. The next question to naturally arise is “Why does one need a drone?” What is a drone good for, and why should you get one?

The answer to this question is long and complicated, but could be summed up by saying that a drone gives the photographer opportunities for shots not achievable in any other way. That’s quite the statement, but I stand firmly behind it, and I intend to explain this position in depth in this article and in the ones to follow.

The first order of business would be to compare the drone to the ubiquitous tool of the photographer: the DSLR, or any hand-held camera for that matter. Indeed, I have written extensively about the advantages of aerial photography in a previous series, but that was in the context of hand-held shooting from an aircraft, and in any case, these advantages need to be presented here if this series is to be self-contained. I’ll rephrase them shortly in a way that better relates to droning.

What the drone offers compared to ground-based shooting is as follows: you have a miniature friggin’ helicopter in your hands, and it allows you to shoot aerials, get the shots from any angle, get there quickly and safely, all without any real danger to your body (caveats to that coming in the future).

Need to separate compositional elements that overlap from the ground? No problemo – take the drone higher and viola – objects are separated. Want to shoot flowing lava without burning your ears off? The drone feels no pain. Can’t walk on water? Can’t breathe toxic fumes? Can’t fly? Too lazy to hike? Send the drone. You get the idea, let’s explore some examples.

Infinite Perspectives

Landscape photography is all about composition – the base layer to any image. Good light and colors are nice, but without an underlying arrangement of objects that’s appealing to the eye, you have nothing. An aerial perspective and the choice over the height, angle and distance from which an image is taken allow for an unprecedented degree of control over composition.

The towers of this ice-castle fit perfectly in the dents in the cloud-cover. I took the drone up to a height which would show this concordance, yet allow separation of the elements.
DJI Mavic II Pro, 1/30 sec, F8, ISO 100. Disko Bay, Greenland

Natural elements often look totally different from the ground level and from the air, but it’s also true that different aerial angles also result in completely distinct compositions. The two images below are the same exact iceberg. Both were taken from the air during one shoot. Would you have guessed? This goes to show the extent of diversity offered by shooting from the air.

More examples: Mount Zinn is a beautiful mesa erosion-mountain in Israel. Taking the drone around it during morning twilight and sunrise resulted in several distinct compositions.

Hidden parts of the photographed natural elements can be discovered and conveyed to the viewer in a visually pleasing way when shooting them from the air. It’s sometimes unbelievable how many phenomenal features are hidden in plain sight, simply because we lack the aerial perspective.

This amazing whirlpool was hiding about 10-20 meters from where I was standing. There was no way I could’ve detected or shot it without the drone.
DJI Mavic II Pro, 1/80 sec, F4, ISO 100. Haukland Beach, the Lofoten Islands, Arctic Norway

Top-down shooting, albeit sometimes over-done, can also be a good creative tool for imagery. It doesn’t always work, though – bear that in mind when trying it.

Amazing natural colors and patterns in the Argentinean high-altitude desert. Shooting this top-down gave the image a painting-like appearance.
DJI Mavic II Pro, 1/240 sec, F9, ISO 100. Puna De Argentina
Lava surface-flows in Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii. A top-down perspective resulted in a deliberate lack of depth, which in turn allowed me to concentrate the viewer on the shape of the flows.
DJI Phantom 4 Pro, 1/25 sec, F6.3, ISO 400. Taken outside of Volcanoes NP, Island of Hawaii.

Separation

A specific aspect of composition is the separation between the different compositional elements. Separation serves to make the composition more appealing. Not having subjects obscured by others is satisfying for the eye, and helps the image have a cleaner, more ordered feel.

A gigantic iceberg floating in Disko Bay, Greenland. The position of the iceberg meant is was impossible to get separation of its two parts when still showing the light passing through the arch and hitting the back segment from the water level. Another clear advantage is the fact that the submerged part of the iceberg is beautifully showing, in addition to debris from a recent collapse in the arch.
DJI Mavic II Pro, vertical stitch, 1/40 sec, F6.3, ISO 100

Separation is especially important where the photographer struggles to convey the grandeur of a location. When shooting Cono Arita (see below) from the ground, it’s impossible to convey the cone’s true shape or its place in the salt flat, not to mention separate it from other elements.

Cono Arita is a sandstone hill in the middle of the Arizaro salt flat in the Argentinean Puna (high-altitude desert). When morning light strikes, the beautiful shadow is cast upon the plain. Taking the drone up allowed me to show this, while creating separation between the cone, its shadow and the surrounding hills and mountains.
DJI Mavic II Pro, 1/60 sec, F8, ISO 100. Salar De Arizaro, Argentina

Just as a ground-based photographer tries to separate his or her foreground and background, the aerial photographer has the same exact considerations – only many more options, as the height constraint is relaxed. See, for example, the near-far composition below.
The drone allowed me to separate the five volcanoes visible in this image: in the bottom of the frame is Ijen crater. To its left, the lush, green Gurung Ranti. Then farther away, from left to right: Pendil, Raung and Suket. There was even room for the shadow (bottom-left to mid-right) cast by Gurung Merapi, just behind the camera.
DJI Mavic II Pro, F8, 1/25 sec, ISO 100. Kawah Ijen, Indonesia

Separation doesn’t always mean the subjects aren’t touching – it can mean a subtler expansion of the distances between the subjects, to create a more pleasant arrangement.

I used the aerial perspective to expand the distances between these interlacing hills and their shadows at sundown.
DJI Mavic II Pro, 1/60 sec, F10, ISO 100. Desierto Del Labirinto, Puna De Argentina

In the next article, I will continue discussing the advantages of the drone, specifically its availability.

Erez Marom is a professional nature photographer, photography guide and traveler based in Israel. You can follow Erez’s work on Instagram and Facebook, and subscribe to his mailing list for updates.

If you’d like to experience and shoot some of the world’s most fascinating landscapes with Erez as your guide, take a look at his unique photography workshops in The Lofoten Islands, Greenland, Namibia, the Argentinean Puna, the Faroe Islands and Ethiopia.

Erez offers video tutorials discussing his images and explaining how he achieved them.

More in This Series:

  • Landscape Photography with a Drone – Part 1: Forward / What is a Drone?

Selected Articles by Erez Marom:

  • Parallelism in Landscape Photography
  • Winds of Change: Shooting changing landscapes
  • Behind the Shot: Dark Matter
  • On the Importance of Naming Images
  • On Causality in Landscape Photography
  • Shooting K?lauea Volcano, Part 1: How to melt a drone
  • The Art of the Unforeground
  • Whatever it Doesn’t Take
  • Almost human: photographing critically endangered mountain gorillas

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Landscape photography with a drone – part 1: What is a drone?

15 Sep

Ever since I started shooting landscapes, I’ve been fascinated with aerials. There’s little doubt that aerial photography offers a very different perspective on a landscape, not to mention the excitement one experiences when witnessing nature from a bird’s eye viewpoint.

I have written extensively about the good and the bad, as well as the reasons for shooting aerials in the first article of my series about aerial photography. But drone photography is VERY different to being up there in an aircraft and shooting with a hand-held camera.

Drones have utterly changed the world of landscape photography, and are the best thing to happen to it in the last two decades

There are substantial advantages and disadvantages when comparing the two, and one could even claim they are two different disciplines altogether. After all, apart from the fact that in both the photographer is shooting from the air, there is much more difference than similarity. This provides justification for an additional series that deals with drone photography.

In this series, I will try to elaborate about shooting (natural) landscapes using a drone. I will claim that drones have utterly changed the world of landscape photography, and are the best thing to happen to it in the last two decades. I will show examples from my shoots around the world and discuss how the drone enabled me to get images otherwise impossible.

I’ll try my best to survey the different options available today, and try to cover the legal and moral aspects, as well as etiquette. Finally, I will tell about some interesting personal experiences I’ve had while droning.

It’s important to say that I’m a nature still-photographer, so I will concentrate on that most of the time. That said, there is no reason why the series shouldn’t be relevant for other styles and fields of photography such as urban landscapes or even wildlife photography.

So, what is a drone anyway?

“Drone” is the common name for a remotely-operated or autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). There are many different drone sizes and designs – some are fixed-wing and some rotor-based. Fixed-wing drones are often used for scientific or military purposes. Since they require short runways to take off, and since they lack the maneuverability of rotor-based craft (specifically the ability to hover in one place and to move very slowly), they aren’t commonly used for photography purposes, and so I will not be discussing them here.

The Mavic Air – a quad-copter drone manufactured by the Chinese company DJI

The drones we are interested in – camera drones – are rotor-based. The vast majority of those are quad-copters (i.e. mini-helicopters with 4 propellers), but not all. There are hexa-copters (6-prop) and octo-copters (8-prop) out there as well. They are sometimes known as VTOL drones, for “Vertical Take-Off and Landing”. As we will see, the VTOL property offers a critical advantage for nature photography, or any field-based photography for that matter.

Design

Drones are typically made from composite materials to reduce weight and to absorb vibrations, which in turn reduces noise and motion blur in images. They have several motors and propellers, most commonly one propeller on top of each motor (but some drones have dual propellers for each motor). On a quad-copter, two of the propellers rotate clockwise and the other two counter-clockwise.

The motors are controlled by the drone’s flight controller, which uses, among other things, gyro stabilization technology and accelerometers to maintain control of the drone in real time, and to keep it flying smoothly and steadily. All this is powered by a battery, which is usually inserted to a cavity in the body of the drone.

Controlling a drone with the remote’s 2 joysticks

The drone carries a camera, usually on the front or bottom of the drone’s body. The vast majority of modern drones have an integrated (native) cameras, whereas in the past more drones were designed to carry a separate camera system, be it a small camera like a GoPro or a large DSLR (or even larger systems). A native camera, naturally, allows for much more user control in real time.

The camera, native or otherwise, is mostly mounted on a 3-axis stabilizing gimbal, which disconnects it from any vibration or sudden movements coming from the drone’s main body and allows the camera to move independently from it.

The small camera mounted on a 3-axis gimbal in the first generation of the DJI Mavic

Control

Virtually all camera drones have a ground controller unit (commonly known as a remote controller), which allows the user to control the movement of the aircraft and of the gimbal, and enables live first-person-view (FPV), i.e. video streaming from the drone’s camera and shown on a screen, either integrated into the controller or of a mobile device (such as a smart phone or a tablet), typically connected to the controller via wire.

The video stream doesn’t only show the drone camera’s view, but it also includes important flight information such as a map, flight altitude, speed, distance from the control unit, battery status and more. Using the information sent from the drone, the controller can also warn the user in case of strong winds or nearby obstacles.

The video feed received on a smart phone through cable connection to the remote. Note how height (relative to point of origin), distance from origin and velocity are displayed at he bottom, and photographic parameters at the top.

Everything here serves the purpose of being able to control the drone as delicately and as accurately as possible, and to not rely on seeing the aircraft from the operator’s ground position. As we will see in future articles, FPV is a large part of what gives a drone its overwhelming advantages compared to other kinds of photography.

A Short Survey: Types of Camera Drones

Camera drones are plentiful, with the Chinese company DJI dominating the market without a doubt. It is, however, possible to divide the drone world into several tiers, which differ in the technology featured in the drone, specifically it’s camera and sensor, gimbal, battery, controls, weight and size, among others. Let’s shortly survey the different tiers, and see what differentiates them.

Fun and Toy Drones

  • DJI Tello (about $ 100)
  • Parrot Mambo (about $ 50).

These drones have a simple built-in camera with very low resolution. There is no stabilizer (gimbal). The devices are very sensitive in the wind and usually have no GPS function, making it very difficult to get good flight precision and decent pictures. They are, however, very affordable and fun to use.

Entry-level Drones

  • DJI Spark (discontinued, to be replaced soon)
  • Parrot Anafi (about $ 650)
The tiny DJI Spark can fit in the palm of your hand.

These drones feature better control and stability than toy drones, but don’t expect any miracles in terms of image quality and stabilization. The mechanical two-axis gimbal requires shorter exposure times to prevent camera shake. Range and duration of flight are below average.

Semi-professional Drones

  • DJI Mavic Air (about $ 750, $ 930 for a combo including extra batteries, props, carrying case and more)
  • DJI Mavic Pro (about $ 930 for a combo)
  • DJI Mavic 2 Zoom ($ 1240, $ 1590 for a combo)
  • DJI Mavic 2 Pro ($ 1500, $ 1800 for a combo)

Drones in this category feature an electric three-axis gimbal, at least 12 megapixel photo resolution, long exposure abilities (and the stability to make them practical) and 4K videos. The Mavic Air may be limited in range, as WiFi in city centers may be more susceptible to interference than the “Pro” Series transmission technologies.

The DJI Phantom series is much larger than the Mavic Air, and packs a better camera.

The equally affordable Mavic Pro has a long flight time, but only a 1/2.3-inch sensor, while the top model Mavic 2 Pro with a 1-inch sensor expects. Not only does it deliver a higher resolution (20 megapixels instead of 12), it also exhibits significantly improved noise performance in the low light range.

Rather an exotic animal in the line-up is the Mavic 2 Zoom. Also equipped with only a 1/2.3-inch sensor, it has a 2x optical zoom, which enables it to get different perspectives for a given framing (perspective depends on subject distance), and even a very cool aerial mode called Dolly Zoom. With the exception of Spark, all these models are compact and easy to transport. The Mavic 2 Pro offers the maximum picture quality among these and is very portable, making it the current go-to drone for many photographers, your truly included.

Professional Drones

  • DJI Inspire 2 Pro (theoretically starting from $ 2800 but with a better sensor and exchangeable lenses it’s more like $ 6400 and upward)
  • DJI Matrice (from $ 6340 with a gimbal, not including a camera)
  • FreeFly Alta 8 (from $ 18500)

Drones in this category have different camera options with interchangeable optics. From the integrated gimbal with Super 35-millimeter sensor (Zenmuse X7 to Inspire 2) to the digital film camera (Arri Alexa Mini to FreeFly Alta), almost everything is possible here for money. The take-off weights of these devices start at approx. 4 kilograms, which considerably increases the administrative effort. The design allows the camera to move independently under the drone at a 360 degree angle. These drones are often controlled by at least two-person teams and are suitable for professional film productions.

What’s Next?

Now we know, more or less, how a camera drone is built and how its parts are connected. We know that today’s camera drones are mostly quad-copters, with native stabilized cameras mounted on a gimbal. But what can these aircraft do? Why choose a drone over a helicopter or a plane? How has the drone changed the world of landscape photography? I will cover all this next.

Erez Marom is a professional nature photographer, photography guide and traveler based in Israel. You can follow Erez’s work on Instagram and Facebook, and subscribe to his mailing list for updates.

If you’d like to experience and shoot some of the most fascinating landscapes on earth with Erez as your guide, take a look at his unique photography workshops in The Lofoten Islands, Greenland, Namibia, the Argentinean Puna, the Faroe Islands and Ethiopia.

Erez offers video tutorials discussing his images and explaining how he achieved them.

Selected Articles by Erez Marom:

  • Parallelism in Landscape Photography
  • Winds of Change: Shooting changing landscapes
  • Behind the Shot: Dark Matter
  • On the Importance of Naming Images
  • On Causality in Landscape Photography
  • Shooting K?lauea Volcano, Part 1: How to melt a drone
  • The Art of the Unforeground
  • Whatever it Doesn’t Take
  • Almost human: photographing critically endangered mountain gorillas

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
Comments Off on Landscape photography with a drone – part 1: What is a drone?

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