Lesson Info
23. Camera Moves
Lessons
Class Introduction
05:31 2How Dirk Got Started With Drones
19:43 3What is a Drone?
21:50 4Registering Your Drone
08:53 5Drone Terminology
05:03 6DJI Go App
04:22 7FAA Drone Rules
07:40 8Apps for Flying Drones
03:02Pre-flight: Drone Flight Checklist
07:05 10How to Fly Overview: Take off, Hover & Land
14:36 11Straight Line & The Simple Box
04:34 12The 180 & The Box With Yaw
05:17 13Drawing Shapes
12:50 14Q&A
11:40 15DJI Intelligent Flight Modes
15:32 16DJI Go App: Photo Settings
29:02 17Tips for Capturing Drone Photos
28:40 18Creating Panoramas
09:58 19Post Processing for Drone Photography
29:10 20DJI Go App: Video Settings
13:41 21Accessories
19:10 22Tips for Capturing Drone Video
06:01 23Camera Moves
10:23 24Post Processing For Videography
07:02 25Simple Color Correction For Footage
07:48 26Adding Music & SFX
09:48Lesson Info
Camera Moves
So let's talk about some camera moves. I mentioned to you guys thinking about the light first. Remember, the sun is your main light source, obviously. You don't have artificial lights. So it's really easy to think about it like well, if you have the sun behind you, it's gonna light what you're looking at. That makes sense. You see in a lot of my shots, I tend use the sun as a subject. So that means I have to watch my exposure, right? But one of the things I want you think about is where is that light source, where is your subject? And when you have those things, like, record extra time, follow through, then it's like, what are you doing? What's the move? What's actually going on? And I want to encourage you guys, as I talk about these moves, is to focus on smooth movements. It's not about being hard on the sticks and jerking 'em. It's just easing into all the shots. And remember, one of the tips from the question that we got asked earlier was how do you adjust that? I said you can go i...
nto exponential curves, which is in the menu. Have a tutorial on that on FromWhereIDrone.com. You can go check that out. But you can start to customize the drone to your preferences. The settings in here go deep, so you really can make it your drone, how you fly. But the key is, my encouragement is to not be jerky. To just be nice and smooth and easing into stuff. So one of the first camera moves I wanna share with you guys is the reveal shot. I love this shot because basically what it does is it's getting you to think about what is my foreground object? And in this case, this example I'm gonna show you, my foreground is actually this hill right here. So right away you do get some clues over here of what's gonna be on the other side, but you still don't know what is on the other side. Maybe there's just a couple windmills, Maybe there's a bunch. Maybe there's something else. So the reveal is hiding something in the background. So I'll play that for you. And we crest over, and it's like dang, that's a lot of windmills, right? But what's really cool, again, I'm using the sun as my subject. Or as a subject. That light fills the frame, and now I've created a slightly more dynamic shot because I have multiple planes moving. I have some light coming in. I get this nice glow. So this is called the reveal. I love this shot. A cool way for you guys to maybe put this into practice is to maybe fly past a tree and show what's over that tree. If you're feeling really comfortable you can find an opening in trees. And you could fly through it. Maybe even cooler is you can fly through it and then reverse it, and then it looks like, oh, a scene, and then you go through trees, and people are like, whoa, how did you do that move, right? So that could be another way. So my encouragement to you is the idea. What you do with it from there, though, is how you can make it even more dynamic. I say try adding altitude. Try doing it while ascending. While to do it while descending. Try doing it backwards, right? Trying flying through something. These are multiple ways to make the shot more interesting. Tilt reveal. Man, my favorite shot. I love this shot. You guys saw in the opening of my demo reel, but the tilt reveal is really cool because you're moving towards a subject, but the camera is looking down. And as you move toward your subject, you're tilting the camera up as you're pushing towards it. Super cinematic. I probably even overdo it, but let me show you it. And the birds. Cherry on top, right? So why do I love this shot? I love it because, remember I've been trying to tell you to think about a story, a concept? I've been trying to make you think about what can you convey to your viewer? Well, my initial feeling that I'm trying to convey is a sense of mystery. Because you guys are like, what is this? Is this a floor, or sand, like, what is this? And then I'm like, wait for it, wait for it. Check it out. And look, birds, right? You're like, dang. It's a little more interesting. It's more dynamic, right? So this is the tilt reveal. I love this shot. It's great for an establishing shot, if you need to kinda set the stage. Maybe you're looking down on the city and then you're opening up and you see the sky line, right? Or out here, man, you guys got the water, right? We're just looking at the city, and then you pan up, and it's like, you got the water and all these boats, and the sunset. It's like, epic, right? Looks so cool. So my tip for you guys is try this. Maybe try doing this backwards. Film and then tilt down to maybe end the scene. Maybe try this while ascending up, and you're going higher, or try it really high looking down, and go down, and have the camera go up. There's so many ways to play with this. So that's my encouragement to you. Start to play with this shot. Three, the top down. Super simple. But man, I love it. You saw a lot of my photos are top down photos. This is cool because it's really just playing with the idea of there's no other way to get this shot. To be able to do this top down shot, which is this clip right here, it's simple. I'm just pointing down. I'm not really showing anything out. I'm just looking straight down. No oblique angles or anything like that. It's just like, oh, this is super unique. It's a unique angle. Everything is compressed. Can't really get a sense of height. And what's cool about this shot is you can actually make things a little more abstract sometimes. You're definitely showing a different angle. Some people call it God's view. So it's like the God angle. Like, what it looks like with God looking down on us, right? And I love doing this shot by mixing up, by maybe going really low to the water and then going straight up so I'm gaining an altitude. I love descending down on a subject and it feels like I'm coming, like, it's like, am I gonna stop? Like I'm falling down on them. So you can create some really interesting effects by playing with altitude. Another cool one is maybe you guys remember from my little skate video, and my little baby announcement video, I'm twisting, I'm yawing as I'm doing it. And now, having planes shift, flattened planes shifting. It creates a really dynamic scene, right? So this is a really cool effect. I encourage you guys to try it. Point of interest. I'll let you know about that intelligent flight mode if you have a DGI drone. And point of interest is really interesting. I'll actually use this quite a bit because this feature is so great and it's so exact. But what it is, is it's basically letting me arc around a subject. So here's that desert shot I told you, my friend standing on the dune, and I'm just coming down. Can you guys see I'm lowering in altitude? I'm getting lower and lower. And I could eventually wrap all the way around her. But what's cool about this shot is not only are there planes that are merging across the scene. When I'm descending in altitude, so is their height and scale. So you're creating a really interesting dynamic effect moving on multiple axes, right? So really, really cool. I encourage you guys to try this while also not just ascending up or descending down like you see here. I encourage you guys to try this while going even further out from your subject and they get even smaller and smaller. So you're arcing around them, and you're just going further and further. I told you that if you use the DGI intelligent flight mode point of interest, you can easily capture a scene like this and just pull back on the sticks and it will go further and further and arc at the same time. So cool. You definitely gotta try this shot. Tilt while tracking. I thought I'd throw in a slightly more advanced, just so you have something to aim for. This is a shot that I like to do, but it can be hard, so it always takes me a few times to practice it. Basically I'm gonna fly towards my subject, which, we'll say is this little cross right here, and I'm gonna fly past it, but I'm gonna try to follow and track it the whole time. So I'm gonna fly and I'm gonna track on it. Did you see that little jerk at the end? The Gimbal can't go any further. So in post I would have cut it, but I left it here so you could see. I cut right before it does the ding. But what's so interesting about this shot, to me, oops, no, but what's so interesting about this is all these layers are compressing and moving and you can kind of create a vertigo effect. If you go on my website, I have an example where I'm tracking a boat, and man, it took me like 10 times to get that shot of different boats. I was in the harbor. Because I would be coming at the boat, and the boat's moving, and I'm trying to track it, and I'm tilting, and it's not even in the frame. It's like, okay, gotta go slower. Okay, boat's going. Tilt it. And it went by. It's like, to match something moving is really hard, but aim for it; try it. You can try this shot while descending as well. While ascending. You could try this shot while also orbiting. Trying to track and move around in an arc. Really the key is take these things and merge it. Like, merge it. Make your scene more dynamic. That's really the key that I'm hopefully leaving you with today.
Ratings and Reviews
MARGARET NICOSIA
Dirk really did a nice job taking new students thru exercises to gain confidence. The work in Lightroom and Photoshop was helpful, but I wish more time could have been focused on flying or tips. Dirk has presets that he offers. It would have been helpful to see the results using those presets. Looking forward to the free which Drone to buy class and the advanced class
JBPhotoDesign
I definitely recommend this course if you are thinking about getting into drone photography looking for the fundamentals. I now feel pretty confident I can get started and that my learning curve will be greatly shortened thanks to the technology available today and a great roadmap of getting started. If you are already started... follow up with his advanced topics... I know I will.
MikeD
Super class. As a beginner I had little idea what to expect and never got started because of all the talk of people crashing drones right and left and losing a fortune. Dallas made it seem simple. So I bought a Tello beginners drone (great starter by the way), got hooked and am now flying a DJI Mavic Pro 2 and studying for a commercial license. Not sure, this is a great class to start with.