Lessons

Lesson Info

Introduction to Aerial Photography

welcome and good morning. And thanks for having me back. Well, this is the last four classes out of in this creative photography Siri's, which I'm very excited about. Um, today is the scariest day edible. 10 classes because aerial photography specifically we're gonna be dealing with the deejay I Phantom Copters is my latest and greatest passion. It's my newest addiction, and fortunately we have an audience a world renowned expert in the area of aerial photography. 15 years. They hear that you've been doing it. So I'm very, very thankful Teoh to that situation. But before we get started, actually would like to introduce the class that we have here that's going to join us again. One of the things I love about creative life is this, uh, students quote unquote in the classroom and that extra energy that it generates. I've been teaching computer graphics for almost 30 years now, and usually when I do my little instructional videos, it's me and my studio darkened room, you know, in caved, e...

nclosed, encrusted. And it's me speaking into a microphone, and that's what I've done for 30 years. So this is so fantastic. Multi camera shoots is incredible crew here. Everything that's being done to add to this value, really, for me is one of most exciting things about working with creative life is the energy and the passion that can come across. But with that, let's start over here. And if you could introduce yourself and what you do related to photography and your interest in aerial photography specifically, Yes. Uh, I'm Kathy Toffler. Um, I'm a local here. Bellevue and I've been doing amateur photography for a number of years, and I'm hoping to move into more the professional space. Um, I think aerial photography is very cool. I haven't done anything at all with it. I thought it would be just kind of interesting to explore. Okay, you will find it's incredibly cool, and it's incredibly addictive as our next guest is going to share. I'm sure so welcome. I think we're gonna have a great time with it. Yes, my name's Adam Henley and Azi mentioned I've been flying drones for about 15 years, originally starting with gas helicopters really large, noisy and dangerous machines. But as you said, it's addictive, and you can't really quit once you get started. So once I actually achieved the ability to see the world from above and capture those beautiful images that you're totally hooked. So have you been doing that professionally in the sense you've been shooting the video or stills for companies originally shooting stills? Only because video from the copters wasn't wasn't good quality. But you have property for listings, that sort of thing. OK? And he's still doing that now that it's just well, you know, you have to be careful just because there's regulations in process. It wasn't a concern to the FAA previously. Now, many more people are doing it, which, which is a great thing. But they're just looking for safe ways to integrate that into the U. S. Airspace about that a little bit. And so, yes, talking about an evolution of technology I can't even imagine the gas parrot, non gyroscopic, stabilized, non GPS enabled helicopter back in the day. You're a brave man with huge braveness to you, so that's great. And thank you again for being here. I hope you don't mind us taking advantage of your expertise. Yes, I'm Laurie Doughty from Gig Harbor here locally, And, um, I have been a hobby photographer as well for many years. And I'm just starting a business, actually with an inspirational video putting it, putting the pictures into video format, um, three uplifting, different than anything else. And I have been doing the same kind of photography for most of these years, really ready to do something new and different and explore other avenues and, you know, expand that creative elements. So this was a perfect opportunity. And you're gonna be for the other classes as well. The er macro and mobile photography. I have yes. And I've done some night photography, and I really, really love that. And I would like to know a lot more about that as well. So that's my, you know, sort of particular direction. Good. Well, that night photography, we actually did it with ah, co teacher of mine brand. Forbes was in here. We did our night Productive class, great class again. Brand was another renowned expert who came in to help me in that area. But that really is. What this whole 10 part series is about is kind of recharging the creative batteries and especially this idea of different ways of seeing. It's not just different ways of shooting the different ways of seeing. And that's one of the things you mentioned. Adam that's so unique about aerial photography is that nobody has really seen this view before. Even if you've shot from an airplane or you were fortunate enough to go up in helicopters, the intimacy of these small, remote controlled Ural devices is totally unique. It's never the planet has never been seen that way before, and that just should give you goose bumps and especially the fact that we have these devices and why I love the D. J I and their Siri's. They're especially the vision vision Siri's within built in cameras. It's a complete set up super nut, you know, out of the box. So anyway, I'm very excited about it. And I'm glad you here for the whole rest of these four classes as well. Yes, Jon Keyser. Um, I'm sort of, ah, self documenting landscape course racing, etcetera. Photographer. And I've done aerial photography from air aircraft, but this is a new direction, and I'm excited to learn more about the drone aspect of flying. Well, that s special. Like you said, if you're a landscape photographer, um, this is something you've never experienced before. The God's eye view is we call it is amazing. And that actually is why will just start in a switch over to our, um, computer here and start showing some samples. You have to show your daughter just because you know that. You know, I had a nickel for every shot of waving at the camera. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm guilty as charged, but, you know, especially it blanket clad and across the field. But for me, this is an example. This is taken down in a certain canyon we won't name taken before. Theo. The National Park restriction on drone flight came into effect in July of this year. And, um, it really is going to be a very unique view, especially here, even though you can take a regular helicopter down into the canyon. If you've done that, if you've done the Las Vegas trip and you've done that sort of flying before, very limited in terms of your time and the amount of time you have And you know, unless you're actually paying the pilot, they can't do, they certainly can't do any hovering or anything like that completely out of the question. They're very limited in terms of where they can go, how they can fly. And again, that's the case now with the restrictions. Because you've heard, I'm sure you've heard of Yellowstone and other places of people flying drones into, You know, Kaiser's and things like that. I'm actually very, very glad that there have been restrictions put on the use of drones in these places because it's just ridiculous. People are, you know, are flying them into national monuments and things like that. But that being said in terms of the beauty of being able to be in a spot and seeing it, especially for the people who know these certain areas and have a love and passion, If you know this canyon, this again can give you goose bumps because you've never seen it from this perspective, you've never seen both the water and the sky and the rock in this sort of intimate intimacy. Before again, I have played around not commercially for real estate photography, haven't charged any money. It's just things that I've done for fun for friends. But, um, the idea of putting together landscapes and specifically panoramas where you're able to get a huge amount of detail by stitching together. Maybe a dozen different shots is just fantastic. In terms of being able to tell a story of this house down in San Diego, there's really no other way that you're going to get a feeling for this. It would take shots for a person to get a fillet ver of feeling for this particular property, property and its location out in the foothills of San Diego. This is shot again and a commercial shot of Hotel del Coronado down in San Diego. But if you've never been Teoh Hotel Del to be able to see its proximity to, um, the bridge and, of course, the coast, this is at Christmas time, so it has an ice skating rink. I mean, the storytelling possibilities by getting this God perspective, is amazing. It's absolutely amazing in terms of storytelling. And as mentioned, if you're a landscape photographer for you to be able to bring this, you know, looking out into the basically the desert of San Diego, the mountain tops the entire bay going into Mission Bay all the way out to Point Loma and maintaining, you know, a quite a good resemblance. Even this. Unless you've been up in a copter. You've never seen that this sand dunes spell out Coronado. That's something that you You may have lived there for a 1,000,000 years and you'd never know that was part of the landscape. Um, if you'd hadn't seen it from this guy. So again, for me, it's exciting. This is obviously a stitch panorama. We're gonna be doing a few different stitching processes because basically, when you're shooting with these drones, for the most part you're working with a fish eye lens. Unless you're using um, or serious payload endowed copter that can shoot within a DSLR, you're usually going to be one of using one of these onboard cameras either go pro or the ones built into the phantom vision, Siri's. And with that comes some very interesting challenges. With I'm Sitting Panorama is because by definition you can't stitch a fisheye image. You just can't. It's just not meant to. Of course, with the advent of photo shop and all the jiggery pokery weaken due in post processing, you can matter. Fact, In this case, we get a razor sharp horizon line and everything else will be talking about that the second half of today about how to do this and different techniques for doing that. But again, here's a single shot from that same vantage point. These the great thing. I also love about the phantom vision Siri's and they're onboard cameras. This happens to be with the vision to Plus is that they could shoot raw. And that's the one thing usually that the two things that you're gonna be deciding upon when using one of these basic drones is whether you're gonna be using a GoPro camera or whether you're gonna be using an onboard camera that comes with the copter. And that's the one thing that the GoPro right now isn't shooting raw. They can shoot four K video. Actually, the brand new hero for that just came out can shoot 30 frames a second four K video film quality video, and it's beautiful. It's gorgeous. And because of the gimbal setups that you can get with that for video, it may be the way you want to go, even though it's gonna be a little bit more involved with using and doing a first person view from a GoPro, as opposed to the built in one's on the Phantom Vision. Siri's It's awesome! May I'm not a videographer. I love video. This is obviously I'm getting me excited about video, but I'm or in this for the stills and for that the phantom vision. Siri's even the 1st 1 They actually the brand new one that just came out. They got a low cost, $100,000. All of those gonna be able to shoot. I'm really great. Still images so you can actually get started nowadays shooting raw using exposure compensation again. Another thing that's not really easy to do with the GoPro between raw shooting and exposure compensation be able to shoot true HD ours. It really is. The reason why I've gone The Phantom vision route is because of this all in one solution, especially for photographers. So we'll be talking about that in just a bit this morning. These are some of my first shots taken with the Phantom. This is the phantom vision to not the two plus in front of my house in San Diego, and, um, we should just be illegal. This is just should be absolutely illegal for you to be able to do these sort of coastal shots and basically suspend yourself over something that you normally could not do in this case, whether the coast or out in the ocean, this were back to another. This is actually right by that coast area right here. Friend's house, not commercially. Did not get paid. Don't come after me. Um, but again, in terms of telling a story about this particular property, it's amazing. Especially since what they're looking at there is here, Right here. So those two images, if you were to sell a house, those things right there, you know, obviously make a huge difference. But get back to Swamis Point. I'm a surfer. So this right here in terms of your elements, you know, the waves are going to be a magnet for me. This is the story. If you're not a surfer than your eyes going to go all sorts of different places, it's interesting. Based upon your cognitive background, what is going to draw your attention in an image? From my standpoint, the storytelling from this guy is one of the most exciting things about the drawing photography, same scene that we were just looking at another panorama stitch in this case, this is over 360 degrees. You can see that this is the coastline looking up the coast looking down the coast. This is my house right here and again Swamis point in all its glory with a nice little swell running So again, just giddy these right here. When I initially was shooting with the Phantom, I was shooting all in J Peg because I would just launch the camera, put it in, but is basically an interval ometer mode and just let it go. And even though now if you're you've got the money shot, we're gonna be talking about how to shoot raw and actually do exposure, compensation and even shoot hdr syriza bracketed pears. It's amazing what you can get away with with single shots and in this case, shooting a panorama simply by very gradually moving the copter in real time, not even stopping it. So there are cheating ways, simplified ways of being able to get away with murder and yet still end up with some beautiful imagery. There's that same house. Now you can see it's view vantage point, and that really there's no way that you would be able to tell this story unless you were up in the air. You can't see the property, the front yard, backyard house orientation in view, in one fell shot. This actually is a two shot panorama looking down and then looking up this well, but again in photo shop, able to do some great stuff, not a drone shot. Um, it does. It is quite aerial. It's part of a shoot. You're going to see some video footage. Neil, um, bombing and associates from filmic pro. Probably the definitely the world's best video app for mobile video work company Filmic Pro. Um and I, uh, they asked me to come down and help out with some of the filming down in the Caribbean for Star Clipper cruise lines and the world's biggest commercial square Riggers. Absolutely amazing mind bendingly cool. My drone, of course, got lost in the luggage on the way down there for the entire week could not catch up with me. At the end of the week, I was able to do some test shots, so I was relegated to the crow's nest, which was awesome, because actually, that made her great footage and and Neil did amazing job shooting from a rubber raft, which you're going to see in a bit Me. This is an IPhone shot. And when we have mobile photography later on in the week, if you've ever shot a vertical pano with straight lines in it, you know this is also an absolute impossibility. You cannot shoot wide angle vertical Pano with small straight lines and ever hope for its lineup. But of course it does, because this one happens to have a built in gyroscope. But I'm digressing this You're gonna see some footage. I'm coming up from this with the drones. In that case, he had a phantom two with a GoPro and you'll be seeing that footage back to swamis. Even abstracts. This is a pano stitched sunset. Just something that I would not have gotten over the water without the drone. Here is that shot from down the Caribbean. So here we are, now elevated up, and we've got some bracketed pairs to do hdr looking directly into the sun down in the Caribbean, absolutely love it again. Speaking of landscape, even from the crow's nest, I would have been able to get this I'm sort of shot. This is one of my cooperate co patriots and crime partners in crime. Ricky Cook, National Geographic photographer over Molokai, Hawaii. Just a couple weeks he and Dwight Jones, another National Geographic ex National Geographic photographer, have both got addicted. And here is, um, a shot of Ricky and his drone, and I bring this one in here because it looks like this was actually taken with one drone shooting another drone. But actually, this is the poor man's drone, and I'll be showing this with you in a bit. When we go into equipment somethingto have in your bag Teoh imitate drone photography for those of us who are too cheap to buy a copter. Okay, another one back in here, Lee said. Obviously, I love the coast. Here we're back. Another situation. Where would be impossible to actually get this with anything other than than a drone? Especially, as you probably know, If not, we'll tell you now. The limitations in terms of flying our mobile tripods as D. J. I likes to call it the Aerial tripod is that they have to stay below 400 feet. Commercial photographer commercial aircraft manned aircraft has a limit of 500 feet as the lower limit. And a remote controlled automated device has an upper limit of 400 feet, giving us a little bit of a gap. But so I could not shoot this with a like a standard helicopter or plane. I'd be too low. Terms of the cliff This is over in a Tamarack in San Diego, so really literally. This is the only way that I could get this shot is with one of these remote controlled vehicles that can be low, close enough down to the water to get this feeling of the cliffs at sunset, you'll notice that this is actually the son has already gone down. So now we're shooting low light, low light J. Peg moving around in a mobile device I'm shooting, Um, you know Spano's, um to cool. It's just that's why you're talking about adding things to your photography, why people such as yourself are addicted. It really is a drug. And this my drone was keeping up known that this is another area of the aerial photography. Hopefully, you all are shooting out of your jet airplanes every chance you get. It's amazing how many people will watch bad TV on airlines or read bad magazines. When heaven is outside their window, you are flying in heaven. And yet people are not looking out the window. Great resource. If you've never read Julianne Cost book Window seat. She did entire book on Shooting out of Jet Airliners. I Love It, Holly recommended, but again, other ways of thinking about drone photography. There is where that other Siris was taken. There's the Hotel del Coronado, and here again is just a jet painting over her beloved San Diego. Over on Molokai. Another panorama back to swamis again. The capabilities to get, you know, high resolution work. And evening, Very low light Point Loma. You get the idea. Individual shots, including our little paddle surfers. Okay, beating the proverbial dead horses, a lagoon again, some or real estate shots here, coming up, more swamis. I do love the sports aspect of it. This is where you'll see some video clips where shooting the surfing. It is a wonderful way of shooting action sports. There are some new drones coming out that have follow capabilities not quite in the d. G. I area yet, but a lot of there's a two or three that now have a follow feature where basically, you put some sort of transponder on your body and it's gonna follow that based upon your movement another panorama in this case, a real estate for a friend. I believe if I'm doing it for a friend and not getting paid, then it's legal. And again, this is the house right here. And without this, there's no way this one there, obviously the view, any view that you'd get would be a limited water view. But to showing its proximity to the coast, you get the idea that storytelling possibilities with Ariel is tremendous. And this was last night here in Seattle, over at Woodland Park. A stitch panorama. I think we will stitch this one in class this afternoon. We have the wonderful fall colors up here. It didn't start to rain while I was shooting this. So it was a short flight. Um, but again, with those colors, fall colors reflected in the water was just beautiful from my standpoint. So this is last night and back to that. So those some of the reasons why I've gotten excited about the drone photography this is a well, just open this one up of shot. Speaking of that footage down in the Caribbean, this is a little movie that helped put together with Neil for this cruise line. So these air shot with the, um GoPro. That would be an IPhone from me and Crow's Nest. So we're switching between different shots here. Wow. Another Portuguese professional photographer was on board. He was doing some amazing work as creative lives own. Susan Broderick was also a shooter on this trip. Yes, there waas a rainbow rainbow is interesting. The rainbow from the air was just amazing. This was a color graded as it's known the video in light room and then finalized in Photoshopped. So we'll be talking about that idea of being able to optimize. I'm your video as well as your still images. If you ever get a chance to do a star Clipper a highly recommended. Like I said, it is a true sailboat. It is a square rigger. It's absolutely amazing in terms of them as a adventure. If you're a sailor, it's really the only way that you're gonna want to on leeway to fly. That's the end. This one that, um this was before using the current vision to plus, which is now a gambled based, um camera set up for the d. J. I. And so this is there's the hotel del. There's my terminally handsome son, um, and hiss terminally good looking girlfriend, and you're going to notice the shakiness. Like I said, I wasn't using the video and, uh, on these, uh, and that I wasn't using video at any time with this particular phantom just because it really does not have a true Gimble based set up for the video. Great for stills shoots raw, great set up like their current, low cost phantom. Um, it's a great way to go, especially if you're not interested in video. Like I said, for that, you'll want to go a different route. But, um, to be able to be up here in the clouds as it were even on a cloudless night was just absolutely tremendous. We are going to this afternoon go into Premiere Pro Adobe's Premiere Pro to do some video stabilizing this one here. We've got a cock eyed horizon line, and things like that is not something where you'd probably stabilize it. Stabilizing is for small little shakes. You've got some little movement. If you've got any significant sort of movement like that, the way that image stabilization works is basically is a cropping and zooming where it's going to rotate the image. And so, uh oh, I'll show you the, uh, some footage to show you what you don't want to dio in terms of stabilizing, but we'll get into that literally.