Flying blind — lessons from hobby drone photography
It has been three years since launching into the world of drone photography at the hobbyist level. The first UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) lasted until a couple months ago, when the skies beckoned but the wind was too strong at the 100' altitude, and it was carried off into the surrounding suburbs. But the same model* is still selling, so it was easy enough to replace.
The learning curve has been similar to any new tool or toy: anticipation for its arrival with high hopes of great changes in one’s capabilities, infatuation for the first few weeks and the desire to think of all possible applications, workaday relationship for using the device is specific use-cases, and then finally a second wind, regaining a little excitement built on top of the hours of accumulated experience. Looking at the drone and knowing its best uses (abundant light, minimal wind, long views to put a main subject in its surrounding context) as well as its limitations (poor on dynamic range and low-light images, wind resistance nil, and small digital sensor limiting the degree of detail captured), this surge of imagination suggested there are still more ways to put the camera in the sky to good use: street photography from 20 or 30 feet off the ground (buildings alone or in groups; natural formations — trees, topography, gardens and fields), elevated details that are hard to see well from ground level (architectural features, art installations up high or on vast scale), events in the round (showing groups of people or animals in overview patterns), and the special case of looking straight down (patterns of plants, artwork, or the built landscape).
The photo collage at the top illustrates a couple of these situations. On the left half is a series of freeze-frames taken from a launch video clip. The lowest one is eye level for an adult standing and looking at the former factory. The middle one shows the building and grounds from about 5 meters (15 or 16 feet off the ground). And the top frame shows the view near the upper part of the street’s utility poles carrying electricity and telecommunication cables (about 10 meters or 30+ feet in the air). The ground level view is natural or familiar when looking at things day in day out. The middle one begins to tease the viewer with intimations of a bird’s airborne perspective. And the highest viewpoint is almost level with the highest rows of windows in the old building. Which height best portrays the subject, though? The accustomed view from eye-level is not very interesting, because it is so frequently encountered. For some perceptual reason, somewhere between 5 and 10 meters seems to give the building added volume and presence; a better visual representation than what is seen near the ground.
Get GPW’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
The picture on the right side of the collage shows maybe a dozen utility workers with six or more trucks and a crane, as well, to work near the top and middle of the newly planted (replacement) pole. Looking at the activity closer and from the ground, by comparison, can be seen below. From a height similar to the top of the utility pole, a much larger frame for understanding the scene comes into focus. Therefore, events and activities happening around the city streets can also be recorded to good advantage at several feet off the ground: drone for wide context, ground level for closer detail.
Besides this new, expanded set of possible subjects for the airborne camera, other possible things to add to a list of photos to compose come about based on the high angle of view. For example, from publicly accessible parking lots, parks, or sports fields it is possible to launch, rise up to the preset ceiling of 30m in the slower “beginner” mode (about 100 feet Above Ground Level) and then rotate to point the lens at the subject of primary interest. Thanks to the high position, it is possible peer past fences, trees, and other things interfering in a wide and long view of the natural landscape or the built landscape, even when that terrain is inaccessible (difficult or dangerous surfaces) or inhospitable (private property on the far side). The following examples show a country club golf course (right) and an automobile scrapyard (left). Ground level views would be nothing like this. And permissions might be complicated to obtain.
Flying blind normally has a bad meaning when there are no visual cues and one must steer a path forward, literally to pilot an aircraft or figuratively to get through difficult decisions. In the case of hobby drone experiences, the engineers intend most users to use the software on their cellphone to see through the lens and thus compose photos and videos that way. As a practical matter, though, bright conditions outdoors make that difficult, due to solar intensity and also for someone who depends on glasses for peering at tiny menus and pixels.
Thankfully, the remote controller also allows operation of the UAV without using the software and small screen: flying blind, in effect. Since there is no preview of the lens point of view, the files recorded really are composed blindly: contemplate the altitude and the main subject distance, then preset the lens tilt before launching into the air. Zero degrees is the lens facing directly ahead, 90 is looking directly downward; most cityscapes and landscapes call for 4 to 6 “lens down” clicks** to reduce the overhead sky and record more of the foreground, down below. Working at 30m or lower, it is possible to look in the air and gauge the direction that the drone’s head is pointed. Moving the left joystick either to the left or to the right will rotate in that direction (moving the stick up or down changes the altitude), thus allowing an overlapping series of shots from a fixed position in the air 50 or 100 feet above ground level.
In summary, now three years from my first flight, of the many seasonal and notable subjects around the city and surroundings, I have taken one or more sequences of photos already. Now using the expanded use-cases, above, I am making new lists of things to photograph by means of this compact “tripod in the sky.” Interesting bits of architectural detail and hard-to-reach specimens of nature will be good to photograph, as will selected public events and even some parts of the industrial landscape in and around the city (private property). Productive places to use the 90-degree “look down” perspective seems to be less forthcoming. But with each new use for this Sky Tripod, experience grows and with it comes new ways of looking around the cultural landscape.
__________________________
*Holystone hs175d, sub-250-gram weight threshold; so, unlicensed. It is limited to low altitude (line of sight), minimal wind, and batteries for flight times under 20 minutes.
**45 clicks will move the lens its full range of 90-degrees, thus 2 degrees per click.
