Beginner’s Guide To Travel Drone Photography

But why should you consider using a drone for photography?

• Create different compositions
• “Bird-eye” view
• You can take more images in a shorter time (drones are faster than walking!)
• It’s fun, amusing!

So today we’ll go through my step by step guide on how can you take travel photography with your drones!

DJI Mavic 2, don’t even think about it.

When talking about drones, DJI is like Amazon; no competitor comes close to it.

Before you even think of flying a drone anywhere, look at the regulations! Some places require a drone pilot licence so you should be doing some investigation before placing your Drone up in the air!

If you are about to freak out thinking “how will I look at each country’s regulation” take a look at uavcoach, they have summarized everything you need to know!

Be aware of the following: Some countries allow you to fly with a licence, others will allow you to operate without a licence but under certain conditions, and some countries have drones banned.

In my opinion, I don’t even consider taking my Drone with me to those countries. They will likely confiscate it in the custom, and you might never be able to see it again.

For example, flying a drone in a big city where I know I could get in serious problems is a big no. In places like London, NY or Paris, I’d avoid doing it (though it is always tempting ?)

Never fly your Drone during midday or peak hours. That’s when most of the people outside, and when most of the police are doing their jobs. Always check if there is any kind of airport close to where you are. It can happen that some tiny aerodrome could be close to where you are, always check!

Fly your Drone where you are less likely to be noticed. If you came up with the crazy idea of flying it in Time Square, good luck!

I came up with the conclusion that flying a drone could be a fun experience but also a ridiculously stressing one. That’s why nowadays I mostly use it for landscape situations and maybe -repeat, maybe- I’d wake up at 4 am to fly in a city (still not in London).

Grid Lines

Use the Rule of thirds Grid Lines, it is always helpful to remember composition and to create better compositions

Image Ratio

Use 2:3 this way you are not cropping in camera. If later you want to change to 16:9, do it in Lightroom, you’ll have more megapixels to play with.

Image Format

As same as photography regular photography, shoot in RAW. Raw files contain much more information which allows you to edit your images.

For more detailed information on RAW vs JPEG read: Camera Tutorial for Beginners, and scroll to where it says RAW vs JPEG

If you are like me and have a mom that’s always asking for your travel photos, then Shoot JPEG+RAW. This way, you can quickly share the JPEGs.

Focus:

I leave in Auto unless:

• The Drone is not being able to focus on what I want
• I want to do a panoramic

White Balance

I generally leave it in “sunny” because I fly during sunny days. BUT, if I’d fly it under some bad weather, would change it to the respective one.

Anyways, if you are shooting RAW, you can easily change it in post.

ISO

Always try to keep it as low as possible. I’m almost always shooting at 100 and play with the Shutter Speed.

Shutter Speed:

I try to not got longer than 1/50 as the drone is a flying object that moves. That’s why you want a fast shutter speed to avoid blur

Manual Mode

It will help you to have better control of the settings you are shooting

Due to a bigger sensor and camera, with Mavic Pro 2 you won’t be able to get vertical shots, but don’t worry!

Take 3 shots of the scene you want and stitch them in Lightroom!

To merge them, what you have to do in Lightroom is Photo > Photo Merge > Panorama.

Then, the best thing I’d recommend you is to play with the settings they give you and see what works better. Generally speaking, I go for spherical blending, however, I’d always try out what works the best.