Do you want to shoot Aerial Drone Footages guaranteed to captivate and wow audiences? MotionElements has shortlisted best filming tips for you. You can also be a successful aerial drone footage artist by following the 10 tips below when capturing your drone footage.
1. Select a flight location with specific characteristics:
In addition to choosing an open space to operate your drone, we recommend to choose a location where the take-off spot isn’t too far away from your desired filming area. It will also be good practise to try to keep your drone within sight. Although you may keep track of your drone through the monitor screen or FPV goggles, you could better avoid an unexpected situation by following through the actual flying process. Furthermore, to ensure flying safety and a smooth operation during the actual filming, we recommend mapping out the flight route before take-off and to have a few trial runs / practice for better familiarity.
2. Pick a right shooting time and weather condition:
Please avoid operating your drone during a windy day to prevent execessive shaky footage. Additionally, the optimal shooting time is typically during sunrise and sunset where you can get the best lighting. When the sun is close to the horizon, the dramatic texture of the footage would greatly improve and provide a better effect than other timing of the day.
3. Operate your drone at a slower speed:
Try to fly your drone slowly to get a steady and smooth footage, especially during ascending, descending and turning your drone. Slowing down the flying movement could effectively avoid you getting shaky or jerky footage.
4. Use ND filters:
Steam and mist would cause the footage’s color saturation and contrast to decrease while your drone is flying at a high altitude. Therefore, applying a filter to your lens could lessen the impact of the misty air at the same time avoiding the significant contrast of lighting difference.
5. Change shutter speed:
Shutter speed can be altered depending on the effects you want to create. If you want to create a blurry effect, you could lower the shutter speed. On the other hand, if you wish to get a clear and sharp footage, you would need a faster shutter speed to achieve this effect.
6. Adjust flight height to create different perspectives:
While you fly your drone at a lower altitude, you can catch a more interesting picture, such as landscapes, natural sceneries, and animal behaviors, etc., which will give the audience an exciting closer-up perspective. On the contrary, when you shoot from a higher altitude, it will create an effect of bird’s eye view, which allows your audience to experience a panoramic view from above.
7. Use zooms wisely:
Slowly focus on your object to provide your audience an immersive feeling. This technique can easily draw your audience into the image you want to convey.
8. Take multiple shots to find the best angle and view:
We recommend that you take varying aerial shots of the same location, scenery, or movement from different angles. For example, you could use camera movements such as ascending, descending, forward, backward, etc. to create different permutations of the shot. When you have more than one shot of the same subject, it allows you more options when editing your ideal project. Additionally, we suggest you record handlers at the beginning and ending of each shot because these additional static frames will make your editing process more convenient.
9. Apply color grading to the footage:
While editing your aerial footage, you could use plug-ins in After Effects to help you adjust the color difference. Slight adjustments to the color or adjusting color saturation could provide your footage a dramatic effect when used.
10. Share and discuss with other drone fans:
Join aerial shooting or drone-related social media groups or forums to discuss and learn new techniques from other enthusiasts. Use what you have learnt as a reference for future aerial drone shooting practices.
Check out MotionElements’s special curation of Aerial Drone Footage elements.