Aerial Photography

With drones being so accessible and easy to use, everybody is taking aerial shots these days. But there's nothing like crawling into a tiny Cessna and exploring the skies from a plane for yourself! Here’re 10 tips on how you can do just that.

While drones are easy to get off the ground, it’s another story to shoot cinema quality looking footage. In this video, Matti Haapoja highlights a couple of maneuvers you must master to create the best aerial videos possible.

Your job is boring. Proof: this behind-the-scenes look at an aerial plane-to-plane photoshoot.

Poor image quality cameras such as drones or older DSLR cameras benefit particularly well from this technique, but it does work with any camera.

It's easy enough to get lost in the rabbit hole of YouTube travel videos, but it's rarer to come across a video unlike anything you've seen before. That's what Cinematographer Joerg Daiber managed to create with his short film, "Sudan Surprise."

I love my Mavic. Having flown with drones for a couple of years I have to admit that little machine made photography even more fun. It also improved my photography, my vision, my ability to pre-visualize scenes and it increased the production value of my videos tremendously.

Parrot just announced a new drone that may be able to challenge DJI's domination in the hobby market. Let’s take a look at the specifications and check if the French manufacturer can take on the Chinese leader.

With drones being so popular, aerial stills and videos have become widely available on stock photography websites. Following this trend, Shutterstock is announcing today their new partnership with DroneBase to offer even more content to choose from to their 1.8 million customers.

TIME Magazine's weekly cover is famous as a visual representation of current culture. What better place to display today’s “upper” technology: the drone (958 of them, to be exact)?

After sharing my last article about creating space with the Mavic Air, I felt like it would only be right to share some work that has influenced me to begin flying in such a new way. Though this drone is no FPV drone, it is still a lot of fun to fly.

Images of a Phantom 5 with an interchangeable lens have been floating around the Internet for weeks. The recent addition of two new pictures is fueling the rumor mill, but who is behind these leaks and are they credible? What about the future Mavic Pro 2?

Drones are incredible tools for capturing unique images, but they are susceptible to lost signals, crashes, and other calamities that can hurt your wallet or, worse, someone else. Drone pilots looking to add another layer of safety to the already impressive features on their vehicle will be excited to hear about the latest announcement out of Xponential 2018.

4K is so 2017. This aerial footage of New York City was filmed in astounding 12K.

A couple weeks ago, I noticed a problem with the camera on my Mavic Pro. It seemed to have a few spots that were blurred and because of that I couldn't use it for work. This was my excuse to buy myself a new drone that I could have some fun with.

DJI just released a new Phantom V2.0 that adds a new model to the already crowded Phantom family. This V2.0 variant brings evolutions to the table. So, what’s new?

Drones with stabilized cameras are nice, but capturing serious action shots at close range requires a different type of aircraft with serious piloting skills.

One perk of being an airline pilot is being routinely exposed to some of the best views on (technically, above) Earth. This neat time-lapse compresses an 11-hour flight into four gorgeous minutes.

We all know how annoying it is to put in a request for that waiver to fly in a specific airspace. The process can take a few days all the way up to a month with the number of requests the FAA receives. LAANC is here to help and here's why.

It's pretty rare to even see a Killer Whale in their natural habitat. A photographer stumbled upon the once in a lifetime experience to not only see the creatures but to capture them up close on camera for us all to admire; his footage is stunning.  

Growing up in Syracuse, New York, Tom Drone was only exposed to the beauty of this city at ground level. As time went on and technology advanced, drones became a popular tool for filming things from a new perspective. After years of work in the drone business, Tom returned to his hometown to film it from the sky.

Nano-drones are usually designed as indoor toys but this short video shows how they can be used to create some very unique shots.

The Mavic Air is tiny and films in 4K, but does it deliver? What is the image quality like? Can it handle wind? What about the battery life and range? After a month of intensive use, here is a detailed review of this new drone.

Planning may be one of the most important things when it comes to taking the aerial photos you want. A lot of the stuff I shoot is mapped out thoroughly so I can plan days and times to go shoot what I have in mind.

Everyone loves drones for the obvious reason that they give spectacular views. Irrespective of who is flying, the dos and don'ts remain the same, and it is important that you know them.

Here in NJ we are lucky enough to have four seasons: Fall, Winter, Spring, and Summer. Maybe I shouldn't say "lucky" because it would be nice to have warmer weather year-round but the seasons do make for taking great photos. Though it's the first week of spring, we were just slammed with another big snow-storm and hopefully the last.

A Russian drone pilot managed to fly his little 2.3 lbs drone close to the cruising altitude of most airliners. As surprising as it sounds, the technology used for this flight is very common.

Five photographers were killed when their helicopter rented for a photo shoot crashed into the East River in New York City. 

Drone imagery has radically changed the way we photograph the Earth. It is now more common to see this vertical view, however the changed perspective is still new, still mesmerizing, and still has the ability to startle. See one website that gives you a daily fix of the world from above, a long way above!

This was my second year in a row going to the New York City Drone Film Festival and I have to say that I have yet to be disappointed. Year after year, they manage to find some of the best videos from a variety of different categories to share with the world. Without further ado, here are the winners from the NYCDFF:

Where you can or cannot fly a drone when it comes to United States public lands is a confusing topic with an answer that has to be pieced together by studying multiple government websites. Navigating the gauntlet of online information can be daunting but I'm here to help. 

Many elements have to come together to make a decent short; and I think, in this video by filmmaker Jay Worsley, everything came together perfectly.   

Is it better to fly in a helicopter or use a drone when documenting action sports? Greg Beadle takes us through the gear and how he gets his shots, and we look at what the advantages are of being up in the air compared to flying a drone.

The most famous drone festival is coming next month in New York City. But it’s more than a simple film festival.

We've all had times where we are constantly out shooting, coming up with new ideas, and going out to create them. There are also times where we struggle with new ideas and lose our motivation to create. Over the past few months I feel like I've been going through some stages like this but I always try to stay positive and create when I can.

Cruising in an airplane high above Earth you sometimes get to see places that are nearly impossible to reach, or even view, from the ground. Taking photos of those sights is not only fun but it can serve as a memory that you were sort of there in the first place. If you like geography, geology, or history in general it can also be an excellent reference so that you can investigate the area further once you’re back on terra firma.

French photographer Yannick Cerrutti recently released a breath taking hyper-lapse produced over the Alps with his drone. It required two years of work and the capture of 13,000 DNG images to finish this project. His video has been selected for the 2018 New-York City Drone Film Festival.

This video first caught my attention when I saw the absurd number $2.5 million. I asked myself what could make a vlog so expensive and if it was so expensive to make, then how good would it be? From there, I clicked the link and landed on a video that was actually pretty awesome. So here, in this video, you will see what a few million can do to help you film.

DJI has recently released the winning photos from this year’s SkyPixel Photo Contest. The grand prize winner this year was Florian Ledoux for his image “Above the Polar Bear.” With over $90,000 worth of prizes being handed out, Ledoux was one of over 40,000 people who submitted photos into this year’s competition.

As I was browsing Facebook, my attention was caught by a short video made by Arthur Nguyen. The brief video depicts demolition of two university residence buildings but what got me hooked was the way Nguyen recorded and edited it, which made me want to watch it several times in a row. I reached out to the young artist behind this video to find out more about why and how he created it (and on a student's budget!).

In less than a year, DJI released four entry-level drones, from the cheap Tello to the more advanced Mavic Platinum. The mid-range segment is now occupied by the Spark and the newly announced Mavic Air. In some aspects, the latest DJI drone outperforms the pricier models, which can be confusing. Is the Mavic Air better than the Mavic Pro? Which one should you buy and why? The answer: it depends of your needs. Up next, we provide a complete comparison to help you navigate through the main differences of each drone, including their strengths and weaknesses.

The announcement of the unmanned aerial program by New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo states that drones will be used to support law enforcement on disaster response and traffic safety. This aerial program will be used to assist law enforcement and become more cost effective over police helicopters and planes.

Today, Fstoppers was at the DJI Event in NYC where they announced the Mavic Air. After learning about this drone and seeing examples of photo and video it had produced, I knew that I had to get my hands on one of them to try out. As a current owner of a Mavic Pro, there is no doubt that I questioned whether or not I should get one of these drones. So I went and flew them around a bit and got a little taste of what's to come.

Most of us who know drones know that DJI is one of the leaders in the industry. Over the past few years, they have been making some of the best products for both professionals and consumers. With other companies like GoPro, Yuneec, and Autel trying to compete with some of DJI's main products, DJI is here to claim their place as the industry leader yet again.

DJI will announce a new product on Tuesday. Based on the short teaser published a few days ago, we know that this product will be a foldable drone. Everything beyond that is unknown. However, we can analyze DJI's past strategy and actual technological development to estimate the possible specifications and features that this new drone may offer.

Earlier this month we published an image of a stealth bomber, taken from above, shot by a photographer who hung out a plane. And now you have to see the work of Jin-Woo Prensena, who captures 100-megapixel aerial images of Los Angeles and beyond with a Phase One XF medium-format camera, shooting from a helicopter.

A few days ago I had the idea to shoot a new video. This project would involve three cars driving in a formation next to one another, which means location is key. Over the summer, I went to a spot next to a bridge to do some flying and thinking back to then, this would be an ideal spot to do this shoot. Without any planning, this idea would crumble which is why it is important to always scout these locations beforehand.

City life is always fast-paced, and plenty can change in three years. Seattle is no different, as the footage in this four-minute video proves. Check out just how drastically the city has changed.

One photographer managed to capture the moment a stealth bomber flew over the stadium. That might not sound that remarkable, but the difference was: he caught it from above.

Every time I post a story on Instagram of me flying in the snow, I tend to get a couple of people reaching out to me with questions. “You can fly in the snow?” “Does the cold weather affect the drone?” “Is the drone waterproof?” and so on. When I first flew in the snow, I was definitely worried about how the drone would do up there, but after a few flights in it, I now know that I can trust it as long as I take the right steps while flying.

When trying to get creative, we often get discouraged thinking everything has been done, and no matter how hard we try, our work is going to be inspired or a remote copy of someone else’s idea. However, there are still some exceptionally brilliant minds that find ways to innovate and make the impossible possible. Valentin Delluc, a French speed rider, and Dino Raffault managed to create a unique video that will make your eyes light up even if you don’t know what speed riding is.