Mounting cameras on to drones is becoming an increasingly popular practice, with many people taking their cameras to the skies to capture some incredibly beautiful aerial views. However, sometimes the images do not come out the way you’d like them to, and people are sometimes confused about what they can do to remedy the situation. We’ve put together some top tips for you on how to take the best photos from your drone.
Experiment with bracketing
Bracketing is where you take more than two photos of the same thing with multiple different camera settings, to get a broad range of different results. This can be helpful to you in many different ways because you can capture certain effects or certain events happening in the background. There are also tiny mini drones that are available if you are looking for something easier to bracket with. If you’ve missed something that you feel would compliment the photo, then you’ll have most likely captured it within the background of one of the shots you’ve taken. As well as this, you’ll have multiple images to select the best ones from.
Try and use RAW footage where possible
The majority of professional photographers will agree that taking raw footage of something is the best way to capture the picture correctly, and this is no different for a drone photography session. Allowing the drone to capture what could be slightly inferior quality images from up high is better than trying to compress them into a condensed but higher quality format. The advantage of being that when the drone lands and you have access to the photos, you’ll also be able to use programs like Photoshop, which will allow you to manipulate and edit the photos to get the quality back.
Use a lower ISO
It is advised that you shoot with a lower ISO than a higher one because a lower ISO will help to reduce the noise and grainy quality that plagues some photographs. For example, there’s no need to have a high ISO when you’re shooting in bright light. Finding the perfect balance between ISO and the light levels you’re shooting in is important because otherwise, the images turn out blurry and grainy. The more blurry and grainy an image is, the harder it will be to correct with applications like Photoshop, so the clearest pictures are your best bet.
Make sure the drone is in tip top condition before you fly
If you find the perfect thing to photograph, you’ll want to ensure that your drone is in excellent condition, and won’t suddenly dive off and ruin your shot. Calibrating the drone to make sure it’s GPS is in a good state will help to insure that it doesn’t suddenly drop 10 feet in the air due to an uncoordinated GPS. As well as this, making sure the compass sensors are working fine is important. Making sure that there aren’t any signal disruptors like transmission lines or metallic elements that will interfere with the signal means that the drone is not likely to suddenly collapse mind flight.
The above tips will help you become a better aerial photographer but bear in mind there will be limitations depending on the equipment you are using. For example, if you are flying with a drone made for kids then the camera on it is unlikely to be powerful enough to capture the kind of shots you maybe were hoping for.
