Learning Aerial Photography with Drones

- Hello, and welcome to this course on aerial photography. We're gonna explore several different techniques that you can use to capture great images using a quadcopter, drone, or UAS. My name's Rich Harrington, and we're gonna be taking a look at several different things today. And my background is that I've been flying a drone as an amateur for several years. I'm in the process of working on getting certified as a professional pilot, but I also make a living creating images and helping others learn more about how to use tools like Photoshop, Lightroom, and Photomatix to create great-looking images.

And I'll share with you today several practical techniques, both from the point of view of someone who's newer to flying and how to get great-looking images during post. And joining me is Francis. Francis, why don't you give folks a little bit about your background? - [Francis] My name is Francis Torres. I'm a certified FAA drone pilot. I've been flying drones for about four years. And I've shot a wide range for both video and photo, and I've also shot for broadcast television. - [Richard] Great, and today we've got a lot of different topics to help you get more out of your aerial photography. Francis, what are the things we're gonna learn? - [Francis] Well, first off, preparing for a flight is very important, so we will cover things from rules and regulations when it comes to flying drones, to registering your drone, to taking your drone on a commercial airline and having a pre-flight checklist.

- And these are important things to make sure you know because if you're not registered, you can get yourself in trouble, and there's a lot of planning that you need to do. - [Francis] Then, we cover essential techniques when it comes to flying and shooting with a drone, such as taking off and landing strategies, to operating the drone to achieve your desired shots, to monitoring and boosting the range between you and your quadcopter. - And it's gonna be important that you know how to safely handle your gear, otherwise this is where accidents can happen. So, we'll head out in the field and make sure that you know how to safely take off and land using both the automated assistant mode if your drone supports it, as well as how to do it manually.

- [Francis] When you're in the air, there are different factors when it comes to aerial photography. We will go over what are the best settings to shoot and techniques on getting the best images. - It's essential that you shoot in RAW, and we'll explore this in depth 'cause this will really unlock the power of the sensor on your drone. If you shoot JPEG, there's a whole bunch of data that's gonna be lost, and this can be a problem with aerial photography. - [Francis] The only way to keep your drone is to land it, so it's really important to establish a landing zone for your drone and knowing when to land. - [Richard] And by landing, we mean safely landing, not crash landing, so (laughs) we'll cover a lot of different strategies here.

- [Francis] Once you're done flying, it's time to develop and enhance your images using Photoshop and Lightroom. - With this, we'll make sure that you know how to use a lot of the core techniques, but of course, you'll find additional content available in the online library to help you go further. There's a lot that could be done when developing the RAW files, and we'll show you how to use the standard industry tools. - [Francis] We'll also get familiar with how to shoot and develop aerial panoramic images and correct lens distortion, and even develop immersive 360 panoramic images. - [Richard] This is one of my favorite types of photography, and it creates really cool experiential content that people can consume online or that you can make larger prints from.

- [Francis] Lastly, we'll cover tips and tricks when it comes to shooting and developing HDR photographs. - And with that expanded dynamic range comes an opportunity to see even more detail. So whether you know a lot about HDR or just a little, we'll make sure you know how to get the most from an aerial copter or drone. So we got a lot of ground to cover. Why don't we go over a couple of ground rules, and then we'll get started.