Show us what you shot.
- Thread starter ZAxis
- Start date
Efliernz
Pete
Stacky and I had a trial shoot yesterday over a local university. We both have diy HoverflyPro quads + Gopro2's - my quad was finished and test-flown Saturday (and I got my Gopro2 Thursday)... so off we went to do a bit of testing.
We shot a heap of video first and a few hundred photos (at 2 sec intervals) later in the day. I have a bit of jello to get rid of but generally a great day's flying / testing. I flew over 45 minutes airtime myself. I suspect Stacky will play with the video and present a best-bits at some stage... but most of the day was learning our limits.
My quad rocks... and I took it over water at the end of the day despite Stacky sharing with me what he thought of my confidence :dread:
Below are stills from later in the day and one video frame capture. I love this time of year... :tennis:
View attachment 4157 View attachment 4158 View attachment 4159 View attachment 4160 View attachment 4161 View attachment 4162
Pete
We shot a heap of video first and a few hundred photos (at 2 sec intervals) later in the day. I have a bit of jello to get rid of but generally a great day's flying / testing. I flew over 45 minutes airtime myself. I suspect Stacky will play with the video and present a best-bits at some stage... but most of the day was learning our limits.
My quad rocks... and I took it over water at the end of the day despite Stacky sharing with me what he thought of my confidence :dread:
Below are stills from later in the day and one video frame capture. I love this time of year... :tennis:
View attachment 4157 View attachment 4158 View attachment 4159 View attachment 4160 View attachment 4161 View attachment 4162
Pete
Attachments
Here's a quick vid a neighbor and I did yesterday, just practicing some video moves, the first two are pretty much the same, the 3rd and 4th are kinda the same but from a different angle, and the 5th one is fun. I have a little vibration still but I know what is causing it. I plan on fixing that soon. At the same time we were able to do this just on sight alone and no downlink.
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tstrike
Its a morph to say, It a xaircraft mc130c but because of all the vibration off the frame and the motor I am constantly building a mount my own that attaches to the xaircraft frame. I have been shaping Aluminum, drilling here, adding gel pads from Dr. Sole inserts there, lots of tape supporting the quads arms which are enforce with flat aluminum. Constantly something, I am planning to dismal the frame keeping everything from the bottom plate down in tact. My plans are to get a F550 and mount my landing gear to that and see where that will leave me.
Its a morph to say, It a xaircraft mc130c but because of all the vibration off the frame and the motor I am constantly building a mount my own that attaches to the xaircraft frame. I have been shaping Aluminum, drilling here, adding gel pads from Dr. Sole inserts there, lots of tape supporting the quads arms which are enforce with flat aluminum. Constantly something, I am planning to dismal the frame keeping everything from the bottom plate down in tact. My plans are to get a F550 and mount my landing gear to that and see where that will leave me.
Efliernz
Pete
Thanks Andy.
It is a beautiful campus but being the groundsman would suck!!! We have bad weather due over the next week so most of the colours / leaves will be gone by the time the customer decides if they really want us to shoot :upset:
Pete
Gunter
Draganflyer X4
Thanks Ross. I spoke to the agent today and he asked if I could do the pics from a lower altitude! I personally thought that the height was perfect, you get a good mix of perspective on the house, as well as seeing the surrounding gardens etc but he didn't think it was ideal...
Never mind, I'll try it again and see what I can do...maybe just a tripod on a couple of bricks will do the job
Gunter.
Kilby
Active Member
Thanks, Ross. This agent had worked with full size aircraft in the past and was able to to tell me exactly what she DIDN'T want. I think that made all the difference.
I'm also using a tripod mounted monitor now to frame the shots instead of viewing through the FatSharks. Much easier and more relaxed that way. The agent was able to view over my shoulder as well and see what she was getting in real time.
Macsgrafs
Active Member
Thanks Ross. I spoke to the agent today and he asked if I could do the pics from a lower altitude! I personally thought that the height was perfect, you get a good mix of perspective on the house, as well as seeing the surrounding gardens etc but he didn't think it was ideal...
Never mind, I'll try it again and see what I can do...maybe just a tripod on a couple of bricks will do the job
Gunter.
Tell him, you stick to your job of sellign houses & I'll stick to mine of providing the photography
That's my Mrs department...I concentrate on flying or should i say trying to sort out orientation problems
Ross
MombasaFlash
Heli's & Tele's bloke
...and the next one will ask why you didn't go higher!
Are we allowed to critique without upsetting anyone? Here is what I think.
To be honest, looking from an estate agent's point of view I would have to agree with him. Pic #2 is a good height, as are the last two of the office block. The others have good composition but are not attractive angles of the houses themselves. From those angles the pics need to be taken from even higher. The first shot of the office block needs some straightening out because the combination of the wide lens and the acute angle has created too much distortion of the foreground vertical edges.
To illustrate the last point, the first pic below is straight out of the camera, the second has been cropped and had the perspective sorted out to reduce the distortion of the verticals:
Gunter
Draganflyer X4
Of course you can, that's why we are all here! And yes, the second picture does look better with distortion corrected. That is something I should start taking note of.
I personally think that the main idea of elevated photography is to capture the surroundings as well as the focus point. (For real estate photography) If you compare a ground based shot with an aerial shot, in my eyes, the elevated photo will always get my vote, because you can see how the house sits in its surroundings. So I struggled to see why the estate agent didn't like a photo showing all of the house and surrounding gardens, it seems he wants to see slightly less! But then, as they say, "each to their own!"
I've been asked back anyway, to take some more pics on a sunny day. It's not all bad
G.
Gunter
If I may offer a few words of wisdom in this regard. Successful commercial aerial photography is all about capturing the image in a better way than your competitors do. Timing is of the essence because whether you are shooting in a studio or outside, the light is the critical factor. Half an hour can make a lot of difference sometimes. Shooting with flat lighting may show some extra detail in the shadows but your customer will always want to see good color on a bright sunny day. You may need to shoot one elevation in the morning and another in the afternoon. So the sun position is the key factor. Partial cloud cover on part of the image is also a no no. Planning is therefore a very important part because you don't want to be shooting into the shadows. As Mobasaflash said, wide angle distortions don't cut the mustard. I shoot with a 50 mm lens in portrait and then stitch the panos. It is a technique that is widely used in architectural photography.
Another technique to create a low light highly manipulated effect, showing the lights on inside the house with that warm glow. This is done about an hour before dusk and then darkened slightly. This is an art form in itself and one that needs to be developed if you want award winning pictures. Most of this stuff can be done in Photoshop.
When you consider that most of the modern camera ISO tests start at 500 ASA and then go up to 25,000 ASA then you can see that low iso settings of say 100 are not going to give you any benefit, The opposite is true in fact. because what you need is the optimized performance from the lens which will be somewhere around F8.
A setting of 100 ASA or less is what we use for differential focussing effects in cinematography. Often used with a Neutral Density filter to cut down the available light. This creates a very narrow depth of field which is NOT what we want in AP.
Hope this info can be of benefit as you develop your business. There is no novelty factor these days, only the best can survive.
If I may offer a few words of wisdom in this regard. Successful commercial aerial photography is all about capturing the image in a better way than your competitors do. Timing is of the essence because whether you are shooting in a studio or outside, the light is the critical factor. Half an hour can make a lot of difference sometimes. Shooting with flat lighting may show some extra detail in the shadows but your customer will always want to see good color on a bright sunny day. You may need to shoot one elevation in the morning and another in the afternoon. So the sun position is the key factor. Partial cloud cover on part of the image is also a no no. Planning is therefore a very important part because you don't want to be shooting into the shadows. As Mobasaflash said, wide angle distortions don't cut the mustard. I shoot with a 50 mm lens in portrait and then stitch the panos. It is a technique that is widely used in architectural photography.
Another technique to create a low light highly manipulated effect, showing the lights on inside the house with that warm glow. This is done about an hour before dusk and then darkened slightly. This is an art form in itself and one that needs to be developed if you want award winning pictures. Most of this stuff can be done in Photoshop.
When you consider that most of the modern camera ISO tests start at 500 ASA and then go up to 25,000 ASA then you can see that low iso settings of say 100 are not going to give you any benefit, The opposite is true in fact. because what you need is the optimized performance from the lens which will be somewhere around F8.
A setting of 100 ASA or less is what we use for differential focussing effects in cinematography. Often used with a Neutral Density filter to cut down the available light. This creates a very narrow depth of field which is NOT what we want in AP.
Hope this info can be of benefit as you develop your business. There is no novelty factor these days, only the best can survive.
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MombasaFlash
Heli's & Tele's bloke
Denny is right. The novelty of having an image shot from the air wears off frighteningly quickly - if it hasn't largely done so already. After that the attention shifts back to the basic artistry of the photography. Light and composition. Half an hour can make the difference between 'OK' and 'Wow' but, yes, you have to balance shadow detail with contrast.
Gunter, I totally agree with your feeling that an aerial should show the surroundings. It is pretty much the whole raison d'être. But this facility still has to be used selectively. The shots you took of Fountain Court, Wellington Park, Field of Dreams etc. are taken at an appropriate altitude and show the extensive grounds or surroundings much as the eye wishes to see. In contrast, Pool Cottage seems way to close from that angle and the result feels 'uncomfortable'.
Gunter, I totally agree with your feeling that an aerial should show the surroundings. It is pretty much the whole raison d'être. But this facility still has to be used selectively. The shots you took of Fountain Court, Wellington Park, Field of Dreams etc. are taken at an appropriate altitude and show the extensive grounds or surroundings much as the eye wishes to see. In contrast, Pool Cottage seems way to close from that angle and the result feels 'uncomfortable'.
Aerial photography was dominated by the cowboys who flew 6 hrs a day in a Cessna shooting domestic properties and then sending out sales people to sell a poor image for 50 pounds and then barter down to ten. A lot of companies did this. A few are still doing it. Along the way they would pick up commercial assignments which saved the day. Only those who were reasonably good at selling and photography have survived. When you introduce MR operations into the marketplace then everybody starts to think cheap. The MR market is going to be a very tough one as things start to develop. The first requirement will be to have a full photographic training on the ground and have those skills available to the client.
Macsgrafs
Active Member
I agree 120%.
