A New Perspective

1 minute read

Ordinarily when taking photographs, the limit on where a photograph can be taken is limited to where you can place your tripod, and how high or low you can get it. By mounting a camera on a flying platform like the Dji Phantom 2 quad copter, one have no such restrictions, and it´s possible to take images from almost unlimited new and previously impossible perspectives.

With this new technology it´s possible to make images that could not be me made in an affordable way before. It makes it possible to get to areas such as rivers, swamps and mountain sides in an easy way. It makes it possible to have a new artistic interpretation of a scene.

Dji Phantom 2 and GoPro

The equipment I currently use to experiment with this kind of photography is a Dji Phantom 2 quadcopter and a GoPro Hero 3+ camera. The GoPro i mounted to the Phantom with a Zenmouse H3-D3 gimbal, to keep the camera stable in 3 dimensions when flying. This means that no matter how the Phantom flies and moved, the camera will always be level to the ground. This technology is amazing, and have to be seen.

The good stuff

Using the GoPro Hero 3+, video is good from this platform. And the Phantom is easy to fly if you read the instructions and watch some of the videos on Youtube before flying the first time.

The bad stuff

Still images is lacking in quality, with only jpeg available on the GoPro Hero 3+. This will often result in blown highlights i the sky because it is auto everything without a RAW format to support sufficient dynamic range. And the resolution falls short of what I wish for.

Conclusion

I sold off the drone after about a years use. While it’s possible to get drones that can lift a DSLR into the air to get really high quality still images, those drones are big and expensive. That is more money flying in the air waiting for an accident than I am willing to risk..

So I continue to wait until there is reasonable priced drones with good still image quality that can be flown under the regulations that are in place now.

Ronny A. Nilsen

Sample Images

21 images in gallery.