- Hey guys, what is going on?
In this video, we're talking about
how you can get better photos with your drone.
(bright pop music)
So as you can tell I am not at home.
I am actually on a cruise ship right now.
I'm on the Royal Caribbean's Symphony of the Seas.
It's one of its first voyages through the Mediterranean.
We're going to some pretty awesome spots.
We started in Barcelona, Spain.
We're headed to Italy, we're going to France.
Lots of good stuff on the horizon.
I thought this was a great time to show you guys
some cool tips to help you improve your drone photography.
So today we're in Mallorca and I went out
with another Instagrammer, Jordan Hammond
and we decided that we wanted to go get
some cool shots that were outside the main city.
So we rented scooters and basically the goal was
to get to this location that was up in the hills.
This really cool curvy road.
It would make for some awesome drone photos.
And so the first tip when you're planning out your drone
photography is that you need to research your location.
So wherever you're traveling to
make sure you research and look at some cool spots.
Different places that you could get some cool drone photos.
You're not gonna just show up somewhere and necessarily
get good photos without doing a little bit
of research on the front end.
When you research you could see what other photographers
have found and maybe find places where you could shoot
a different perspective with a different type of camera.
So we only had a few hours in port,
we rented mopeds and we headed down the highway.
We got to some cool little Spanish town.
It was a really awesome adventure.
And then just in doing a little bit of research on
the front end we got to experience something that we
would not have found on our own just by going out there
because this was actually pretty far away from port.
However, when we got to the location, because of the weather
and because of our timing, we weren't able to drive all
the way to the actual spot that we wanted to shoot.
So this brings up my second point, and that is
if things don't go the way that you planned them,
don't let it completely discourage you,
but start looking at the environment you're in and find
some spots where you could get some cool drone photography.
The idea is that you want to find a unique perspective
where getting a drone up in the air will shoot something
that you don't normally get with other cameras.
So that is my third tip
is that you want to find a new perspective.
So think about how a drone can enhance
the environment that you're in.
Now you might not have planned out this specific spot,
or you might have been that perfect spot that you've found,
you've researched, but how can your drone enhance
the photography and not just be the same shot
that everyone else is getting.
So because a drone can go above, shoot straight down
or shoot at an angle where you're high above
and you can get that perspective that,
like I said, other cameras just can't get.
And when you're doing this, make sure you shoot
a ton of shots and you get different perspectives,
cause that's the best way you're gonna learn what works best
for the drone, and how you can use your environment
with a flying camera to get the best type of shots.
So instead of taking like one or two shots
and then moving on, get your drone up and fly around
and shoot a bunch of different perspectives.
You're gonna learn what works and what doesn't
the more you shoot, and the more you know, you mess up.
I mean that's just part of photography.
You have to win some and lose some.
You don't always get the perfect shot all the time.
So when we got to this little town, I shot a ton of photos
and there is only a few that I actually liked out of
the sequence and out of these three photos there's only one
that I really wanted to like play with and start tweaking.
And that is because of the placement of the cars in the shot
So when you're out shooting, you're gonna want to find cool
patterns in nature or man-made objects that look unique
when you shoot them from the sky
and you shoot them with a wide angle.
So for example you have the curvy roads.
That was what we were trying to shoot.
We were trying to shoot curvy roads.
We found a different set of curvy roads,
but you want to not only find the curvy roads,
but potentially find something in that
that shows the scale of what it is that you're shooting.
So I wanted to use the cars to show the perspective.
Now when I was on the curvy road, it was a lot of gray
and white cars, which don't stand out that well,
whereas when I was in town, I was able to get
some cool shots with a red car in the frame,
and the red car is gonna stand out
because of the color contrast.
So you're not only looking at like an object,
but you're looking at the color of an object.
When you shoot a big, wide landscape,
and you have a lot of the same types of colors,
so in this photo it's a lot of greens, it's a lot of yellows
Something like a red is really gonna pop.
So you'll see this with a lot of photographers.
You find that one object or that one specific thing
that kinda contrasts either in terms of light
or color that will make the scene pop.
So out of all the photos I took, there is one photo
in particular that I really wanted to hone in and edit,
because I was able to capture the environment,
as well as get an object in there.
Something that shows the depth and the scale,
and also gives you a glimpse into the city,
and the kind of the Spanish life out in the hills.
And one more thing while you're flying,
I always use a polarizer when I'm shooting my photography
because a polarizer is gonna reduce reflections,
and it's gonna just make your colors pop.
So I always try to use a polarizer when I'm flying a drone.
My favorite are PolarPro's ND filters
that have polarizers on them.
Those are the ones I always fly with.
Now that I got the photo, let's talk about editing
and how you make this really pop.
So when you're editing, the first thing
you wanna do is find a color look.
Something that will just make
the image look that much better.
So I like to use presets.
It's always a great way to start photos.
Sometimes they work, sometimes you have to do
some tweaking from the preset, but for this photo
in particular, I'm using one of Jordan's presets.
He's an awesome photographer and he's got rad presets.
So I used one of his to really just make it pop and then
I dialed in the settings a little bit more
to make it work perfectly for this photo.
And if you're interested in some of Jordan's presets,
I've put a link down in the description
so you could check those out.
And once your photo is colored,
I'm gonna move into Photoshop.
So there's a couple things I'm gonna do.
So this photo in particular, I'm using it for Instagram
so I'm gonna crop it to four by five because that's
the framing that you want to use when you're on Instagram.
And then what I'm gonna do is go in
and start photoshopping some of the elements.
So in this photo in particular, you could see that
there's a few cars in this shot, and there's
some smoke out in the distance, and there's
a few other things that I just don't like.
They draw my attention away from what it is
that I want the viewer to look at, which is the red car.
So I'm gonna put the red car in my thirds.
So if you cut your image into thirds both directions,
you put your car right in one of your thirds.
It's gonna draw your eyes to it.
So the next thing I'm gonna do is photoshop out
all the other cars using my Clone Tool.
So it's a really easy tool to be able
to cut things in and out of your photos.
You go through, you can wipe out all the cars
and the next thing I wanna do is take out the smoke
and I'm gonna use the same thing.
I'm gonna use the Clone Tool.
And then if there's anything else that's really grabbing
your eye, now is the time to go in and tweak it in Photoshop
Like there's some red in the buildings down below.
I'm gonna desaturate that in Photoshop
so it's just specifically on that building,
because I want only thing red in my photo to be that car.
Now that I've got it all photoshopped,
I got everything cleaned up, I'm gonna take it back
into Lightroom and then I'm just gonna do
some final adjustments will finish up the photo.
And so basically from start to finish, that's how I would
go out and get some drone photos when I'm out traveling.
The idea is that you want to show perspective,
you want to show a space, you want to show a culture.
So like I was saying, when we went out and shot,
both of us shot a ton of photos and there's only one
that I found out of my whole sequence that I actually
thought worked because all the elements aligned and I
was able to edit something out of it
that really makes it look that much better.
Alright guys, I hope that was helpful in giving you
some ideas on how to approach your drone photography
when you're out traveling.
Guys, I'd love to hear your thoughts on some of tips
and some of the different things I talked about
in this video, and like I said earlier in the video.
All about trial and error, so you just gotta go out there
and shoot a ton of photos and you'll start finding the ones
that work and the ones that don't.
Don't worry if you don't get
a perfect photo every time you fly.
It really takes time to learn how to find all the elements
in your frame that will make a good photo in post.
Alright guys, that is it.
Like I said, check out some of the presets
in the description below.
Jordan Hammond has some awesome photography.
If you haven't followed him already,
make sure you go over to his Instagram, hit that Follow
because he's got some really cool stuff.
And if you haven't already
make sure you hit that Subscribe button.
There's a lot of awesome photography
and filmmaking tutorials on this page.
Alright guys, that is it.
I will see you on the next one.