Introduction to drone photography

Learning goal

You will be able to explain which views a flying camera, that is, a drone, opens up for a photographer that can't be reached from the ground. You will see the difference between the straight-down view, which turns the camera right down, and the oblique view, which also shows the horizon, and choose according to what each one tells. You will calculate how the same scene turns into something else from ten, forty and a hundred meters, and how, as you rise, people and details become part of a pattern. You will read how, when the sun is low, the long shadows of objects and people on the ground become the real shape in an overhead view. In frames shot from above, even though the people are small, you will protect the color of their skin without turning it orange with exaggerated saturation. You will take the first step of the drone and aerial track.

The question

When the flight is over, the drone's owner, a retired geography teacher, folds the propellers and holds out their phone. On the screen the island's coves are turquoise and navy stripes, the olive groves orderly rows of dots, the white houses' roofs like a chessboard. The umbrellas on the beach are colored circles, the swimmers small shadows in the sea. Your friend has been walking on this island for a week, but hasn't seen any of it like this. The same place, a completely different picture only when looked at from above. Why is the bird's-eye view so captivating?

Context

In the composition lesson on point of view, you met how the camera looking straight down at the ground from right above removes depth and turns the scene into a map, that is, the bird's-eye view (Lesson 14.6). In the symmetry and pattern lesson you studied the pattern formed by a shape repeating enough to fill the frame, and the rhythm of spaced repetition (Lesson 14.3). In color editing you also told apart from saturation the vibrance setting, which raises muted colors more and skin tones less (Lesson 17.5).

The bird's-eye view was once possible only from a plane, a balloon or a tall building. Small drones fitted this view into a bag. Over six lessons this track will take up rules and permits, safe flying, composition from above, exposure and aerial video. Before all of them, there is the question of what looking from above changes.

Simple explanation

How do you look from above?

A drone camera gives two basic views. The straight-down view is the bird's-eye view with the camera turned right down: the horizon disappears, depth is erased, the world turns into a map, a pattern or an abstract picture. An oblique aerial, on the other hand, is a frame with the camera tilted down at a certain angle, where the horizon or a distant background also enters the frame: a coast reaching out into the sea, a road winding between hills, a village's place in a valley. The oblique frame shows a place with its context, the straight-down frame only with its surface.

The two answer two separate questions. The oblique frame answers "where is this place, what is around it?"; it is very well suited to being a travel series' opening frame. The straight-down frame answers "what pattern is this place from above?"; it brings forward the order, repetition and color never seen from the ground. Shooting both from the same place gives two frames that complete each other in a series.

What changes as you rise?

An altitude step is the same scene turning into a different subject from different heights. A drone camera equivalent to twenty-four millimeters on full frame, looking right down, sees an area on the ground roughly one and a half times as wide as its height. From ten meters this is an area fifteen meters across: people, though their faces don't show, read by their posture and movement. From forty meters an area sixty meters across shows: people shrink, streets, gardens and the beach gain an order. From a hundred meters an area a hundred and fifty meters across shows, and people turn into the dots of a pattern.

That is why height is a framing decision. Going higher isn't always better; often the most interesting frame sits at an in-between height where a scene's shape still reads but its pattern has also appeared. Rising slowly over the same spot and shooting frames at several heights shows at which step the scene is strongest.

What do we read in an overhead view?

An overhead shadow is the long shadow of objects and people on the ground in a low sun that, seen from above, looks more distinct than the objects themselves. In a straight-down view a person is a small spot of head and shoulders; but in the low sun of morning or late afternoon, the shadow falling on the ground becomes a long, recognizable silhouette of the whole body. Trees, poles, a grazing flock, all are told by their shadows. In the noon sun, though, shadows shorten and the overhead view flattens.

In frames shot from above people are small, but their skin isn't erased from the frame. Raising saturation to show colors vivid in aerial frames is a common habit. Saturation raises all colors together and turns the skin of the small people on the beach into orange or red spots; light skin looks burned, dark skin looks painted. The vibrance setting, on the other hand, raises skin tones less and leaves the skin in its own color while bringing forward the color of the water and the plants.

Visual evidence

Before returning from the island, your friend goes with the drone's owner to the edge of a cove, and with their permission watches the flight and chooses the frames together with them. They first explain to the family sitting on the beach what they are going to do and get their agreement. The drone rises to ten meters: the family lying side by side under the umbrella reads by their posture, though their faces can't be picked out.

At forty meters the beach turns into an orderly row of colored umbrellas, the sea into stripes stretching from turquoise to navy from the shore outward. At a hundred meters the whole of the cove appears as a curve and the people come down to dots. When they tilt the camera from the same height and take the horizon into the frame, which corner of the island the cove is in also reads.

In the late afternoon, when the sun drops, they shoot a straight-down frame over the same beach. The two women walking along the shore are themselves small spots, but their shadows are two long silhouettes stretched over the sand. The drone's owner had edited the frame by raising saturation; the dark-skinned woman's skin is a painted orange, her light-skinned friend's red. When they undo the saturation and raise the vibrance, the sea and the sand are vivid again, while the color of the two skin tones is as it is.

Common mistakes

Summary

The bird's-eye view is captivating because it shows the order, pattern and color never seen from the ground: the straight-down view turns the world into a map, while an oblique aerial shows a place with its context. The altitude step decides at what height the scene is strongest, and in a low sun overhead shadows turn small people and objects into long silhouettes. Raising colors with vibrance instead of saturation keeps the skin of people who look small from above in its own color.

Mini assignment

In this assignment you will discover the view from above by trying it even without a drone.

1. From a high place, a bridge, a building's terrace or a hill, shoot a frame of the same scene both looking right down and showing the horizon.
2. From different heights, for example a house's balcony, a building's top floor and a hill, shoot the same kind of scene and look at how people and details turn into a pattern.
3. In a low sun, shoot long shadows from above; if there are people in a frame, compare in editing how saturation and vibrance affect the skin.

Check yourself

• What does each of the straight-down and oblique frames tell?
• At which height are the scene's shape and pattern strongest together?
• In the frame edited with vibrance, is the skin in its own color?

Glossary

Mini quiz

1. What is the difference between the straight-down view and an oblique aerial?

• A) The straight-down view shows the horizon, the oblique frame doesn't
• B) The straight-down view looks right down and gives a map, the oblique frame also shows the horizon or background and gives context
• C) The two are the same
• D) The oblique frame is shot only at night

2. Looking right down from forty meters, roughly how wide an area does a drone camera equivalent to twenty-four millimeters see?

• A) Six meters
• B) Four hundred meters
• C) Forty meters
• D) Sixty meters

3. Why are people easier to recognize in an overhead view in a low sun?

• A) Because their long shadows drop a recognizable silhouette of their bodies onto the ground
• B) Because their colors are more vivid
• C) Because they look bigger
• D) Because their faces show

4. Why can the skin of small people shift to orange in aerial frames?

• A) Because the drone camera doesn't detect skin
• B) Because saturation raises all colors, skin tones included, together
• C) Because height changes colors
• D) Because the shadows are long

Answers

1. B — One shows the surface and pattern, the other the place's relationship with its surroundings.
2. D — At this angle the width seen on the ground is roughly one and a half times the height.
3. A — From above the head and shoulders are a small spot; the shadow, though, draws the whole body.
4. B — Vibrance protects skin tones while saturation exaggerates them too.

Summary card

• The straight-down view shows the map, an oblique aerial the context.
• Height is a framing decision: find the step where shape and pattern meet.
• Twenty-four millimeters equivalent: a width on the ground one and a half times the height.
• In a low sun, overhead shadows are the real shape.
• Vibrance, not saturation; the small people's skin in its own color.

Bridge to the next lesson

Back home, your friend decides to buy a small drone, but someone at the club warns them: "Before you fly, look at the rules; you can't fly everywhere, and sometimes registration and permission are needed." Around airports, military zones, above crowds, national parks; your friend doesn't know which is forbidden and why. What do you need to fly a drone? The next lesson takes up the rules, registrations and permits you need to know before flying a drone.