Drones or Aerial Photography Platforms

This week I want to talk about one of the latest styles in photography, drones or aerial photography platforms. As I am sure most of you are aware, drones have become more and more popular not only as a “toy” like the AirHogs for kids but also the professional drones like the DJI series, which are made for professional photography and cinematography.

This year for Christmas, if you went into ANY of the local stores here in the ATL area that carried RC items, all of them were sold out of drones about a week before Christmas. You’ll also know from my post last week that the FAA just started requiring drone owners to register themselves with the FFA and received a unique FAA ID in order to fly them legally even for hobby.

As someone who loves to photograph landscapes and my Forgotten Pieces of Georgia series, I am embracing the unique perspective you can obtain with a drone. I recently bought a fairly large unit called the Syma X8C, which is the same size and shape as the more popular DJI Phantom series, but at a fraction of the cost. I bought one of these models as most do as a starter drone to learn on and get used to the controls and flying in general. Now I AM planning to move up to the DJI Phantom 3 Advanced, which runs around $1,000 the first part of 2016. My little Syma came with a fairly low quality 2MP camera that can shoot videos and stills and do so from the radio transmitter, but you can modify the unit to carry the GoPro Hero 3+ and other such action cameras and I will be doing that mod to mine as soon as the parts arrive.

Now, what makes the DJI Phantom 3 such an expensive platform? Well the folks at DJI have purposely built the Phantom line with photographer’s in mind. It is capable of take off and landing on it’s own. You can upload GPS WayPoints to the drone to make it follow a specific route and shoot video or stills. It is basically a “smart drone” which means the machine itself can do ALL of the flying, while you the operator concentrate on just shooting with the onboard camera. The Phantoms can come equipped with a 12-16MP high resolution camera that can shoot anywhere from 2.7K to 4K HD video.

The Phantom units and some of the cheaper ones like mine also have FPV (First Person Viewing), which means it can beam what the camera sees live back to ground and onto your iPhone or Android device so you can use them as a remote Electronic Viewfinder and frame your shots properly. DJI’s drones are becoming especially popular with studios as a typical camera boom truck that a studio will rent for shooting a movie, runs around $60,000 a day to rent. Now this cost can be greatly reduced as the studio can buy even the most expensive Inspire 1 professional cinematography drone from DJI at $5,000 a piece and get the same shots they would get with that boom truck for way less money. They can buy 5 or 6 of these drones and use them over and over for movie after movie.

So, how good are the DJI Phantom photography platforms? Well look at the images here or videos online and jude for yourself. Here is a beautiful video from Kauai, HA and he shot all of it on the Phantom 3 Professional at 4K HD video.





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Drones and FAA Registration

So this weekend I wanted to write about something a little different, drones. Drone have become more and more popular especially in photography because they offer a unique new perspective, allowing photographers to photograph from up high or in areas hard to reach by foot.

One of the most popular drones for photography these days are the DJI Phantom series and with good reason. The company that makes this particular drone has done everything in their power to make their drone the most intelligent model on the market. With smart take off and landing capabilities, “follow me” the ability to upload pre-determined way-points for the drone to follow, they have made flying this model kind of “idiot-proof”, so that you can concentrate on taking amazing photos or videos and not worry about keeping the drone in the sky and stable.

Now, of course with drones and their ability to go and photograph basically anywhere, they have caused some controversy, especially when it comes to people’s personal privacy and where drones should and should not be allowed to go and photograph or shoot video. So, now the FAA has stepped in and set up rules and guidelines for the use of drones, also known as Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) for short. For now, the FAA has set up registration for drones that are being used for hobby only via their website. For those that use them for business, you need to obtain a special exemption as they will not have the complete rules, regulations and registration system in place for business use until mid-2016.

Now as far as registration is concerned, it is officially open as of Monday December 21st, 2015 and is fairly basic. All you have to supply to the FAA is your name, address and email address. No information on the make or model of your drone or drones. When you register, you will receive a unique FAA ID number that you must put on ALL of your drones so that they can be identified. They will also email you a certificate that you MUST carry on you at all times when operating your drones, either a printed copy in your wallet, or the ability to pull up the digital copy on your smart phone or tablet is fine as well. The registration is only $5 for three years and if you register by January 20th, 2016, the $5 fee is refunded.

Under the new UAS laws and regulations, you cannot legally fly your drone without having it registered first, to do so you face up to nearly $300,000 in fines and 3 years in prison. Your drone only has to be registered if it falls between the weights of .55 pounds to 55 pounds. You can read more information on the rules and register your drone here,
FAA UAS Registration Page there is also a PDF document with some of the most common models of drones listed and whether or not they meet the registration guidelines.

So, now that you know more about drones and the new FFA registration and rules, get out there and makes some awesome aerial photos and videos and be sure to post them on PSPN!

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Portrait Lenses

Since as a photographer portraits will probably be your bread and butter, this is a question that is asked a lot by photography students, “What lens or lenses are best for portraits?”

As a general rule, we recall people’s feature best from what’s called the 15 feet rule. In the case of facial recognition, when we see a familiar face, our brain is triggered to reconstruct an image of that face and those features as they appear from 15 feet away according to researchers, so,in order to achieve realistic proportions, we need to shoot from around 15 feet from the subject.

Outdoor portrait shot from around 6 feet with my EF 85mm F/1.8

So, what is the optimum portrait lens? Well it depends on how much of a person you are shooting and show much you want showing. If you want the whole person standing, then you would use a 50-70mm lens, if they sit down then a 50-105mm would work great. If you want a tight head and shoulders shot, then you’d want at least a 200-300mm lens since you want to still be around 15 feet away. Ever see a professional model shoot on location? The photographer is usually using a fat lens on a monopod like a 300mm F/2.8 or even a 400mm F/2.8.

Now I am not advocating that the 15 feet rule is set in stone, different photographers will shoot from different distances to get the look they want. I will sometime used a 50mm and get closer to the subject, with the 50mm, the distance is around 5 feet with a full frame body like I use and I also love, as many photographers do, to shoot portraits with my 85mm portrait lens and when using that lens I can stand at around 9 feet from the subject and fill the frame nicely.

Environmental portrait of WWII actor shot from around 15 feet with 70-200mm lens at 200mm

Many photographers these days will just use their 70-200mm F/2.8 for all their portrait work, which is why this particular lens is the most popular and the lens that sells the most by any builder. One thing you do want to remember when shooting portraits is to be mindful of the distance you shoot from as when you get closer you can make the subject’s nose bigger and their ears smaller. Shoot from too far away and you make their face flat.

Also remember your depth of field as generally the idea is portraits is to make the background disappear, you want the background to be blurry and out of focus as your subject is the important part of the image in an portrait.



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Christmas Sales for Shutterbugs

Since we are rapidly approaching the Holidays I thought this would be a good week to post an article on some good gift ideas you can share with your family if you are a shutter bug or gifts you can buy your shutter bug.

Canon released the 7D Mark II not long ago, which has been a very successful follow up to their popular 7D and now the 7D Mark II is $1,049 down from it’s original price of $1,400, but you have to buy it with a PIXMA PRO Printer. If you want to catch this deal, run on over to B&H to get one, according to our friends at SLRLounge.

One again Amazon is blowing people’s minds by dropping the price of the original Sony A7 Full-Frame Mirrorless to under $1000 for the holiday season. You can run over now and get it, body only for $998 here.

Another great deal on the B&H site is Sony SD 32GB Memory cards at 94MB/s for $12.99. That is an insanely low price for such a fast memory card and if you remember my post from last week about memory cards, this is one of the ones you want.

For some holiday gifts for under $50, you cannot go wrong with the following winners for shutter bugs.

Joby Gorillapod tripod now just $39.99 on B&H, I personally have one of these and they are fantastic. You can literally wrap the legs around tress branches, fence posts, etc and mount your camera on it for unique perspectives.

Fotodiox Canon 24-105mm F/4 L IS USM Thermos Cup - $14.95

Pelican 0915 Memory card case - $17.99 This model is for SD, Mini SD and Micro SD cards and is made of Tough Polycarbonate Resin and water resistant. They also offer a model for CF cards (Model # 0945) if you have those as well like I do for $17.48

Last but not least in my opinion is the RAVPower 15 Watt Solar Charger with Dual USB ports that is foldable with iSmart Technology. This is one heck of an awesome way to charge your iPhone, iPad, or camera batteries out in the field. I am getting one this year after listening to my friend SnapChick rave about hers on her YouTube Channel. Currently on sale for $49.35 on Amazon.

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and are lucky enough to be on the receiving end of one of these awesome gifts.


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