My Early Adoption of Drones

Contributed by Bruce Hedge

Wow...a huge new area of photography has developed (ouch!) in only about eight years. I've had a business doing aerial photography in Central Victoria, Australia, since the mid 1980s. The main platform was a Cessna 172 from the local Aero Club, flown by an exceptionally skilled pilot.

I looked at helium balloons as a platform, but they were not practical in any sort of wind, and had all sorts of other complications, so I gave that a pass. For some jobs, I jumped in a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter, but the cost per hour and the float fee generally prohibited that option. Roll on 2013, and the first DJI Phantom came on the market. I immediately saw the potential to use it as an aerial photography tool, but it did not have a camera attached. After a bit of research, I settled on the Nikon J1 camera with 10mm (28mm equivalent) lens. It had the required quality sensor, weighed only 300 grams, and, most importantly, could be set to take a photo every five seconds.

I rigged up a Heath Robinson plywood and styrofoam platform underneath to hold the camera pointing forward and slightly down, not having a clue about the potential aerodynamic effects. I was very pleasantly surprised at the results. What a game-changer in my aerial photography business! The DJI was deployable anywhere, (my Royal New Zealand Air Force piloting in a previous life meant I was fairly sensible about how, when and where I flew until rules were developed very quickly by the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority). I set the camera to take a pic every five seconds, took off, eyeballed the position, and got good at positioning the camera to take fantastic unique photos of properties for local real estate agents at a cost much less than photos taken from aircraft.

The flight time of those early DJIs was only about seven minutes without the camera, and it dropped drastically to about four minutes carrying the 300g payload, but most flights produced at least one usable photo out of the 50 or so taken. (There was no remote video vision to guide you in those days!) I bought another eight batteries, and used the setup for three years, even at weddings, where it created quite a talking point!

I had three first generation DJIs, crashing two, and cobbling together one last one out of the bits from broken ones. As the technology raced ahead I fell behind, and finally realised the competition was using state-of-the-art DJI Mavic Pro and better units. They had such luxuries as collision avoidance, much longer flight times, and absolutely astounding photo quality from very small sensors, plus, of course, ability to see where the camera was pointing. Extraordinary gimballed image stabilisation and amazing video (from which you could extract frames) were the icing on the cake.

I've also discovered the artistic side of low-level aerial photography, being able to get previously impossible photos. Most TV docos, adverts, and travel movies have a significant number of drone sequences, but the restrictions about where you can fly them have limited some otherwise great pics. Unfortunately, idiots will always be with us.

When I think of the "Model T Ford" DJI I started with, and what is now available on the amateur market, I wonder what will happen in the next eight years. We live at an amazing time!

Bruce

Book o' This Week:

Peter Lindbergh On Fashion Photography, with text in English, French, and German. Original coffee table version or small 40th Anniversary version, take your pick. Both are hardcovers. The links above will fly you through the air to Amazon.

Original contents copyright 2020 by Bruce Hedge. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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[Stephen Scharf]

The FAA is implementing stict new regulations with respect to flying drones (UAVs). Bottom-line is that drones must be registered and meticulous record-keeping will be required. Also, many flights now required LAANC authorization.

There is over 300 pages in the night flight/flying regulations around people document that the FAA has released. This kind of language is all over the final rule, especially in relation to requirements for Category 1-4 verification. Without proper record keeping (flight logs, real ID data, maintenance) you will not be certified to fly over people. Real ID integration will do away with “flying under the radar".

https://www.faa.gov/uas/getting_started/register_drone/

KittyHawk.io is just what you need to stay compliant. Right now the FAA Is taking an “education” stance but once RealID is in full effect that will change. No compliance, no fly. FYI if your drone is <250 grams but are still recording and posting that is a 107 flight and requires registration.

Bottom-line is that flying drones will soon become as regulated as flying aircraft. I've listened to podcasts from a couple years ago from people who were seriously injured from drones dropping out of the sky and hitting people on the head. Additionally, in 2019, there were a number of instances of drones interfering with, or colliding with aircraft doing water drops in Southern California during the catastrophic fires there.

[Stephen Scharf]

Just another tidbit of very useful UAV flying information from my friend and fellow TWiP* Pro member, Fredy Sedano. Fredy is a professional videographer based of the Inland Empire area of SoCal.

https://youtu.be/hXEKbU5rouQ

*– TWiP Pro: This Week in Photography Pro, a paid membership-based photo community

[Aaron Hines]

My first serious drone was an original Phantom. To capture images, it was fitted with a gimbal, GoPro, and wireless video transmission system so that one could see what the camera was pointed at. Like your solution, the camera had to be set to whatever capture mode you wanted before takeoff, as there way no way to control it once airborne. The GoPro's image quality left much to be desired, and I eventually upgraded to a Phantom 4 Pro. I have tested DJI's larger-sensor cameras (X5 and X7) on larger drones, but came away unimpressed with their output compared to the P4P, especially considering the cost of the drones needed to carry those cameras. Sony's new drone platform looks very interesting (with A7 camera payload) but the cost has not yet been announced...

[Bob Feugate]

Mitchell Kanashkevish has some terrific aerial shots trailing his van as he heads up into the Andes, undoubtedly done with DJI or similar tool. The video context suggests that he's managing all of this by himself in pretty much the middle of nowhere. They're well worth viewing; look for MitchellKPhotos on YouTube.

[Robert Harshman]

Hi Bruce, Yes the drone/photography/video market has advanced at a typical modern technology rate. Too fast for many and not fast enough for some.

For the past 12 years or so I have been a key part of the biggest aerial photography company in the US, www.skypanintl.com Yes, that's the company that was fined by the FAA one million $ while it worked for years to try and help the FAA to develop drone (or RC - Remote controlled preferred term ) rules. While skypan was able to get that greatly reduced it still felt bad as Skypan was so active in trying to help the FAA draft drone rules and regulations. Anyway, that's also all in the past.

And to the claim that Skypan was the biggest aerial company in the US, we shot all the new super tall billionaires developments in NYC and pretty much all of Hudson Yards, plus thousands of projects in NYC, Miami, Chicago, Hawaii, LA, SF, and on. I have thousands of aerial 360's on over 80 terabytes of backups in a safe. It's a good thing I guess as a few days ago I had a British request a few 360's from the first major project we shot in 2011, what is now known as 1W57 in NYC - it was the first new major development after the 2008 recession.

Today a five year old could easily fly a drone and make great images safety. That's a huge change from even 6 years ago. We use to use a drone that was essential a mini heli - single blade - that could have killed you if the blades hit you. Think of a carbon fiber sword hitting you at 2,000 RPM. Not a pretty site.

Now we use a pro level quad for DSLR work and various DJI models when the client budget is limited, but still viable to make a bit of money.

The aerial market has like many other forms of pro photography basically been in a price collapse since late 2011-2016. It's now entering a period where you most likely can not make a reasonable living from it. The modern tech simply makes it too easy for the side job person to undercut you and provide a perceived good enough work. Note, most buyers of commercial photography have no idea of quality vs OK.

The collapse of professional commercial will continue. As of now I would estimate for most areas of this it's down at least 50%, the aerial market is probably closer per provider to 60%+

Times change, we all hopefully move on.

[Malcolm Leader]

OK, time to investigate this. Thanks for the info.

[Mani Sitaraman]

"Heath Robinson", in the Australian and British Commonwealth variants of English, is the exact equivalent of "Rube Goldberg" in American English.

Heath Robinson (b. 1872) was a British cartoonist who drew impossibly complicated machines that did extremely simple tasks—in the most roundabout way possible. The American cartoonist Rube Goldberg (b. 1883) did exactly the same thing, but on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.

Each of the two men appears to have worked separately, unaware of the other.