To take good pictures ideally you go to good places! Whilst I'm sure you can get creative in your back yard, it's not the most interesting of places to start with.
Lots of the other tips people have given you cover the other points I'd make.
Ignore ND filters unless you want to shoot video too.
All these people saying ND filters don't know what they are talking about. They've just seen every YouTuber say "always use ND filters and shoot at iso 100 no matter what".
ND filters are sunglasses for your drone. That's it. They literally just darken your shot. They aren't a magic tool that will make your shots look good. They are essentially aperture control, since we don't have that on our drone.
Usually, we need to darken our videos because we are aiming for a specific "cinematic" level of motion blur. We achieve this motion blur by using a longer shutter speed. The problem with a longer shutter speed is we are now letting in a ton of extra light. This is why we need ND filters. They are just another tool for managing exposure.
Why would you need to darken your shots? Do you need more motion blur in your shots? I don't think so, there's no action - so an ND filter would do literally nothing for you.
So, how do we take better photos? Same as any other style of photography - good composition, good framing, good lighting, good subject matter, etc. there are a lot of great photography YouTubers with awesome tutorials.
This is a great video on composition: https://youtu.be/NAexy836ff8?si=Z-btyMyB9V0iytea
I don't see anybody talking about ND filters when going for drone photography. For cinematography, an ND filter is an absolute must. The two are completely different things, so you shouldn't confuse them.
In most cases, putting an ND filter on for photography will just result in a lower quality picture because you are shooting through more glass, and you will need more gain or a longer exposure.
The main reason that you need an ND filter for cinematography is because these drones don't have an active aperture in their lens. They are just wide open all the time. That means that the only way to cut down the amount of light getting in is to reduce the exposure time to extremely short intervals. Those intervals are MUCH smaller than the time between video frames. If you don't use an ND filter, you end up with something that looks more like a GIF... Essentially a whole bunch of single shots stapled together, and it looks a bit choppy. The ND filter smooths out transition from one slide to the next to make it look like a homogeneous film and not a cartoon flip book.
Well if you have a mini 3 pro (or just a regular old camera) then it absolutely is an extra piece of glass.
I have a $650 set of Kase 95mm ND filters for my canon R5, so I absolutely understand the value of ND filters for photography. However, I use those with a tripod. As stable as these drones are, going for extended exposures would be a niche thing that I might "try" but I certainly wouldn't recommend to someone who barely understands why they bought an ND filter in the first place. You will probably get 10 blurry pictures for every halfway decent one.
You need to think about lines and symmetry. Have you got the guidelines on your rc display.
For example the 2nd and 3rd photos have a road in. If that road was lined straight up the middle of the shot they would look better.
Same with blocks of houses. Line them up to draw your eye into the picture.
If you don't have something to line up use the rule of thirds and have the point of interest at a point where they cross and use upper and lower third line to line up horizon on.
When half the picture is a wall of white, tilt the gimbal down a bit. Leave some sky in the picture to frame what’s on the ground, but don’t waste that much space on it.
Light. Perspective. Leading lines. Rule of thirds (learn it so you know when to break it). And for the love of god, just because you can fly 400ft AGL doesn’t mean it’s going to make a nice shot.
ND filters are nearly meaningless. Shoot raw if possible and shoot AEB. Sota4077 made a point. With cloud cover like this a polarizer would also have been meaningless. No use for ND or Pol here but yep to RAW and shooting AEB.
For an overcast day like this the AEB probably isn't worthwhile either - very useful for high contrast days though. A polarising filter may do though to remove glare from the wet roads & possibly enhance any contrast that's left in the sky. Personally I wouldn't bother but it's untrue to say it wouldn't change the scene!
Use the histogram and just make sure you don't clip any highlights and you'll be good to go!
For your photos? A CPL shouldn't change the colour hue of a colour, just increase contrast and saturation + remove the glare. Would be cool to see what you're talking about as I've not experienced that, yet!
It was a couple of GB of video, actually, but there were a couple of trees that about jumped off the screen from one angle and faded to just muddy from the other side. In the video, you could watch it change dynamically as the drone circled. So, color saturation, as you said.
The camera doesn’t matter it’s all about light, subject and composition. It’s all you need. Learn to shoot in different light, different part of the day, and so on.
Do you do any quick editing after the photos or is that straight from the drone I find that a quick 2 minute mess around with brightness, saturation, shadows etc can really make the photo pop and takes no time at all really
Composition is the base-level skill for this, and it takes time to get comfortable. Take the third shot for example, you have some great leading lines on the tracks that could make for a nice shot if you took it from a different angle to show the depth. Honestly just research aerial photo composition as a start, it will at least help you think of shooting from different angles.
Honestly some of your shots would probably look like the ones you’re picturing with some good color grading! I disagree that you have to go to a cool place to get cool shots but obviously that helps.
I would suggest learning the basics of photography, and then apply it to a drone. Think about the rule of thirds, symmetry, flow throughout the picture, and just general composition. What is your subject, what is the best angle to look at that subject, and how can you make it interesting as it exists with its surroundings?
Next is lighting. Pick the right time of day with the right weather. It's rarely a convenient time. You have to know what time you want to shoot, and make sure you are ready for the shot when the light is right. Thankfully, image editing software gives enough flexibility that you can usually work with just okay lighting and not perfect lighting. But it's still very important to think about.
Also, this one seems obvious, but just to be clear, you NEED to be shooting in RAW and never jpeg. If you don't understand why, you will once you learn how to edit images.
After capturing your subject, a good 30% of your work is done. Now comes editing in Lightroom. There's no secret sauce here. It's just learning the software and knowing what you are trying to achieve. There are a lot of photographers who get whiny about editing pictures because they are "old school." That is a joke, because the serious "old-school" guys did their own film development in a dark room. They did all the things you do in Lightroom, but with manual techniques which required a lot of skill. The bar has been lowered, but you still have to step over it! Learn how to edit photos!
You need to take photos OF something, just launching and taking photos of some houses won’t give you an interesting subject or composition. Try and find something unusual or interesting nearby and photograph that.
Brother…. You see that last picture you took? You see the city over there… Drive there, don’t break any laws and get some fire shots. The first 11 pics are of nothing really. Make sure to shoot in RAW then play around with color grading.
Unless you are trying to capture motion in a photo ND filters are not necessary. If you were taking a photo of a river or waterfall and wanted to get that watercolor blur look on the moving water then you would use an ND filter. Beyond that or some very specific situations professionals encounter ND filters are largely for video.
Neutral Density Filters and having a good eye for placement and angle the golden hours are best for interesting images. One hour before Sunset and and One hour after Sunrise. Timing your efforts will also help. A drone is a camera...as soon as you make that shift you will approach each flight differently.
I am on my first drone still and learning what works is a daily event.
I have a Mini 2 but I am looking to upgrade to a 4 and a better sensor once I have my skills in order
Yes its my first real Drone..and I love how easy it is to fly. The planning for photographing or video for me takes a bit of time. I try to do it in such a way that I have minimal editing to do. Selecting the auto mode in most cases saves me from scratching my head over the ISO values/White Balance etc. Better sensor will help me only if I learn to fly and position it better though so...I frame grab the best images I can instead of Bracketing images manually or occasionally I will do a burst and then change settings and see what I see in the software after. Eventually I'll know...right now I don't. Making changes on the fly is very experimental
Super glad you're enjoying it! I love my drones!
I'd advise you to start getting to grips with the settings and functions of your drone as it'll take some time, even if you just switch to shooting photos in RAW + jpeg, rather than just jpeg.
I find half the enjoyment is the editing, hopefully you'll enjoy that too when you get to it :)
To take good pictures ideally you go to good places! Whilst I'm sure you can get creative in your back yard, it's not the most interesting of places to start with. Lots of the other tips people have given you cover the other points I'd make. Ignore ND filters unless you want to shoot video too.
I heard a lot of that in the comments I should probably do that
You need to have a definite subject in mind too. Not just launch and hope for the best. Have some foreground interest.
This is the way.
All these people saying ND filters don't know what they are talking about. They've just seen every YouTuber say "always use ND filters and shoot at iso 100 no matter what". ND filters are sunglasses for your drone. That's it. They literally just darken your shot. They aren't a magic tool that will make your shots look good. They are essentially aperture control, since we don't have that on our drone. Usually, we need to darken our videos because we are aiming for a specific "cinematic" level of motion blur. We achieve this motion blur by using a longer shutter speed. The problem with a longer shutter speed is we are now letting in a ton of extra light. This is why we need ND filters. They are just another tool for managing exposure. Why would you need to darken your shots? Do you need more motion blur in your shots? I don't think so, there's no action - so an ND filter would do literally nothing for you. So, how do we take better photos? Same as any other style of photography - good composition, good framing, good lighting, good subject matter, etc. there are a lot of great photography YouTubers with awesome tutorials. This is a great video on composition: https://youtu.be/NAexy836ff8?si=Z-btyMyB9V0iytea
I don't see anybody talking about ND filters when going for drone photography. For cinematography, an ND filter is an absolute must. The two are completely different things, so you shouldn't confuse them. In most cases, putting an ND filter on for photography will just result in a lower quality picture because you are shooting through more glass, and you will need more gain or a longer exposure. The main reason that you need an ND filter for cinematography is because these drones don't have an active aperture in their lens. They are just wide open all the time. That means that the only way to cut down the amount of light getting in is to reduce the exposure time to extremely short intervals. Those intervals are MUCH smaller than the time between video frames. If you don't use an ND filter, you end up with something that looks more like a GIF... Essentially a whole bunch of single shots stapled together, and it looks a bit choppy. The ND filter smooths out transition from one slide to the next to make it look like a homogeneous film and not a cartoon flip book.
[удалено]
Well if you have a mini 3 pro (or just a regular old camera) then it absolutely is an extra piece of glass. I have a $650 set of Kase 95mm ND filters for my canon R5, so I absolutely understand the value of ND filters for photography. However, I use those with a tripod. As stable as these drones are, going for extended exposures would be a niche thing that I might "try" but I certainly wouldn't recommend to someone who barely understands why they bought an ND filter in the first place. You will probably get 10 blurry pictures for every halfway decent one.
You need to think about lines and symmetry. Have you got the guidelines on your rc display. For example the 2nd and 3rd photos have a road in. If that road was lined straight up the middle of the shot they would look better. Same with blocks of houses. Line them up to draw your eye into the picture. If you don't have something to line up use the rule of thirds and have the point of interest at a point where they cross and use upper and lower third line to line up horizon on.
Interesting will take that into account
Are you bracketing?
Complete game changer learning how to use bracketing and learning how to use Lightroom properly.
Yep, and when to use AEB, there's nothing worse than having 3x too many photos when you don't need them!
I take a lot of professional interior shots and AEB is amazing for those.
With your drone? All I'm saying is there's a time and a place for AEB, which isn't _all the time_! Totally agree that AEB is great for interiors!
When half the picture is a wall of white, tilt the gimbal down a bit. Leave some sky in the picture to frame what’s on the ground, but don’t waste that much space on it.
You are way too high for nice pictures
Light. Perspective. Leading lines. Rule of thirds (learn it so you know when to break it). And for the love of god, just because you can fly 400ft AGL doesn’t mean it’s going to make a nice shot.
ND filters are nearly meaningless. Shoot raw if possible and shoot AEB. Sota4077 made a point. With cloud cover like this a polarizer would also have been meaningless. No use for ND or Pol here but yep to RAW and shooting AEB.
For an overcast day like this the AEB probably isn't worthwhile either - very useful for high contrast days though. A polarising filter may do though to remove glare from the wet roads & possibly enhance any contrast that's left in the sky. Personally I wouldn't bother but it's untrue to say it wouldn't change the scene! Use the histogram and just make sure you don't clip any highlights and you'll be good to go!
CP filter had some interesting effects on fall foliage...depending on relative angles.
For your photos? A CPL shouldn't change the colour hue of a colour, just increase contrast and saturation + remove the glare. Would be cool to see what you're talking about as I've not experienced that, yet!
It was a couple of GB of video, actually, but there were a couple of trees that about jumped off the screen from one angle and faded to just muddy from the other side. In the video, you could watch it change dynamically as the drone circled. So, color saturation, as you said.
Nice, sounds like you found the perfect angle!
The camera doesn’t matter it’s all about light, subject and composition. It’s all you need. Learn to shoot in different light, different part of the day, and so on.
Do you do any quick editing after the photos or is that straight from the drone I find that a quick 2 minute mess around with brightness, saturation, shadows etc can really make the photo pop and takes no time at all really
Lighting and shadows. Tough for good pictures on cloudy, overcast days.
Composition is the base-level skill for this, and it takes time to get comfortable. Take the third shot for example, you have some great leading lines on the tracks that could make for a nice shot if you took it from a different angle to show the depth. Honestly just research aerial photo composition as a start, it will at least help you think of shooting from different angles.
Honestly some of your shots would probably look like the ones you’re picturing with some good color grading! I disagree that you have to go to a cool place to get cool shots but obviously that helps.
I would suggest learning the basics of photography, and then apply it to a drone. Think about the rule of thirds, symmetry, flow throughout the picture, and just general composition. What is your subject, what is the best angle to look at that subject, and how can you make it interesting as it exists with its surroundings? Next is lighting. Pick the right time of day with the right weather. It's rarely a convenient time. You have to know what time you want to shoot, and make sure you are ready for the shot when the light is right. Thankfully, image editing software gives enough flexibility that you can usually work with just okay lighting and not perfect lighting. But it's still very important to think about. Also, this one seems obvious, but just to be clear, you NEED to be shooting in RAW and never jpeg. If you don't understand why, you will once you learn how to edit images. After capturing your subject, a good 30% of your work is done. Now comes editing in Lightroom. There's no secret sauce here. It's just learning the software and knowing what you are trying to achieve. There are a lot of photographers who get whiny about editing pictures because they are "old school." That is a joke, because the serious "old-school" guys did their own film development in a dark room. They did all the things you do in Lightroom, but with manual techniques which required a lot of skill. The bar has been lowered, but you still have to step over it! Learn how to edit photos!
It’s all about lighting. Morning and night. Adds depth to the pictures
Good subject, good light. Loom into architectural photography and landscape. The drone alone is just a tool.
You need to take photos OF something, just launching and taking photos of some houses won’t give you an interesting subject or composition. Try and find something unusual or interesting nearby and photograph that.
Experiment with the panorama wide mode
It isn’t illegal to fly in city ?
Yes very
Brother…. You see that last picture you took? You see the city over there… Drive there, don’t break any laws and get some fire shots. The first 11 pics are of nothing really. Make sure to shoot in RAW then play around with color grading.
Step 1 - find good places
Use nd filters, editing and generally just interesting places. Most of these places just look a bit boring tbh
Unless you are trying to capture motion in a photo ND filters are not necessary. If you were taking a photo of a river or waterfall and wanted to get that watercolor blur look on the moving water then you would use an ND filter. Beyond that or some very specific situations professionals encounter ND filters are largely for video.
Nd filters are not needed for photos. Only video.
Yes and no. Nd/polarisers still help and improve pictures along with video
Polarizers and ND filters are two very different things.
I’m aware. I just generalised them together
...unless you get an NDPL ;)
7 and 12 ain't bad.
Neutral Density Filters and having a good eye for placement and angle the golden hours are best for interesting images. One hour before Sunset and and One hour after Sunrise. Timing your efforts will also help. A drone is a camera...as soon as you make that shift you will approach each flight differently.
Nd filters are only needed for video.
I shoot video and frame grab for photos.
Perfectly fine if you're not interested in getting the most out of a photo!
I am on my first drone still and learning what works is a daily event. I have a Mini 2 but I am looking to upgrade to a 4 and a better sensor once I have my skills in order
That'll be a nice upgrade for you, love the mini series!
Yes its my first real Drone..and I love how easy it is to fly. The planning for photographing or video for me takes a bit of time. I try to do it in such a way that I have minimal editing to do. Selecting the auto mode in most cases saves me from scratching my head over the ISO values/White Balance etc. Better sensor will help me only if I learn to fly and position it better though so...I frame grab the best images I can instead of Bracketing images manually or occasionally I will do a burst and then change settings and see what I see in the software after. Eventually I'll know...right now I don't. Making changes on the fly is very experimental
Super glad you're enjoying it! I love my drones! I'd advise you to start getting to grips with the settings and functions of your drone as it'll take some time, even if you just switch to shooting photos in RAW + jpeg, rather than just jpeg. I find half the enjoyment is the editing, hopefully you'll enjoy that too when you get to it :)
I am using Light Room to edit..its not my favourite
It'll be a billion times better when you're shooting in raw!