With some practice and a good drone, you can develop an eye for the best aerial angles, perspectives, and camera settings. These tips are applicable to both ground and aerial photography Melbourne. These drone photography tips are easy to implement.

Drone Photography Best Practices

1. Take all aerial photos in RAW format

The first tip, which is extremely simple to implement, is to shoot all of your aerial photos in digital RAW format, which provides significantly more versatility in post-processing. Aerial photographs captured in RAW format are lossless images captured directly from the camera sensor. Lossless compression reduces the size of an image without sacrificing its quality.

2. Check the weather forecast for UAV flights and plan your photography session

Websites and apps for UAV forecasting provide critical information for planning your drone photography session. All you have to do on these UAV websites or apps is enter the location where you intend to fly your drone. The UAV forecast will include information about restricted areas, the weather for the day, solar activity, and the number of GPS satellites active in a particular area, among other things.

3. Pack Spare Parts and Accessories

As a drone photographer wishing to capture the best images possible, you must plan for the worst-case scenario. Bring spare batteries, propellers, cables, chargers, and filters for your drone. 

4. Keep It Simple

When you’ve looked at your subject and decided on the composition you want, think about how you can make it look bigger or different.

Use a slow shutter speed. When a slow shutter speed is used, the sensor is exposed for an extended period of time. The shutter speed’s primary effect is motion blur. If you use a slow shutter speed, moving subjects in your photograph will appear blurred in the direction of their motion. This effect is frequently used in advertisements for automobiles and motorcycles, where blurring the moving wheels conveys a sense of speed and motion to the viewer. Typically, long shutter speeds exceed one second.

5. Invest in High-Quality Lens Filters for Your Drone Camera

Utilizing aerial lens filters on your drone camera will elevate your aerial landscape photography to new heights. You simply need to understand how they work and the various types of filters they offer. Camera filter kits are now available, which include a lens filter ring adapter, a microfiber cleaning cloth, and a carrying pouch. A complete camera filter kit would typically include the following lens filters:

  • Ultraviolet UV
  • Neutral Density (ND2, ND4, ND8)
  • Close-Up Macro
  • Yellow
  • Red
  • Purple
  • Blue
  • Green
  • Orange

While there are numerous lens filters available, only a few are commonly used for landscape photography. By using lens filters, you can significantly improve your drone aerial photography Melbourne.

6. Counterpoint, Juxtaposition, and Abstracts in Aerial Shots

Occasionally, the rule of thirds is not the best option and a better aerial shot is available. Here are some suggestions: Divide your aerial shot into halves, quarters, and so forth. Assume your aerial shot captures a snow-capped mountain reflected in a lake. Then an excellent aerial shot would be to capture the top half of the scene with the snowy mountain and the bottom half with the lake’s reflection.

7. Capture From Different Angles and Perspectives

Consider a variety of angles when photographing the various elements in your photographs. The majority of modern 4K camera drones, particularly DJI drones, feature intelligent flight modes that enable you to capture aerial photographs from a variety of perspectives.

8. Check for Proper Lighting

If you must photograph during the day with a strong sun, use directional lighting for your aerial photographs. This means that you should avoid photographing directly into the sun, as this will result in nearly black images. With directional lighting, you can photograph parallel to the sun, away from the sun, or at an angle to the sun in your aerial photographs.

If you must shoot directly into the sun, expose for the brightest part of the scene and leave the rest of the scene in shadow. Today’s cameras are excellent at retaining details in the shadows of a photograph. Because of this, in post-production after taking the picture, you can get a lot more information out of the shadow on the ground.

9. Use aspect ratios of 3:2, 4:3, and 16:9.

The native aspect ratio of your drone photographs is determined by the camera’s sensor’s width:height measurement. In most cases, you can change the native aspect ratio of the drone’s camera by changing the settings on the remote controller or the app for the drone.

The 16:9 aspect ratio is typically offered as a camera setting on drones used for filming because it corresponds to the ratio used in wide-screen television cropping. As a drone photographer, you may believe that a 16:9 aspect ratio gives an image a nice panoramic feel. This is true, but before you even get to the editing table, you’re already cutting pixels.

Conclusion

Remember that it is critical to have fun while flying and learning about aerial photography. Having a drone capable of taking excellent aerial photos and videos is also critical. As a drone photographer, you want to use as many pixels as possible on the image sensor when taking a photograph. More pixels captured equates to more pixels available for post-processing.