The Modern Photographer? Seeing more and more of these, unfortunately not always flown appropriately. This guy was at Portland Bill (UK) and was generally well behaved although he did...

magnetoman Loc: Purbeck, Dorset, UK

Seeing more and more of these, unfortunately not always flown appropriately. This guy was at Portland Bill (UK) and was generally well behaved although he did fly it over a cafe with people sitting outside, which seemed a bit off to me. Trust all pilots have public liability insurance!
A visit to our local electrical appliances and computer superstore was an eyeopener - the number and variety of drones left me gobsmacked.
Do you own one, or have a craving? I'm still in two minds but reckon if I don't get one the wife will!

(Download)

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

magnetoman wrote:

Seeing more and more of these, unfortunately not a... (show quote)

And I thought it was going to be about an old defunct magazine. Nope, I don't own a drone. But I do have a friend photographer with one and it might be interesting to watch him work with one sometime.

Bloke Loc: Waynesboro, Pennsylvania

I have one, and use it quite a bit. Mine has 6 motors/props, unlike the Phantoms which only have 4. I don't have any pictures of the drone flying at the moment, though. I tend to shoot 4K video and pull stills from that, as there is terrible shutter lag when shooting stills directly. It's great fun, but you *do* have to be careful - I was shooting at a church softball match, and crashed into the 'fence' behind home plate... Somewhat embarrassing, but at least nobody was hurt!

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

My brother in Maine has one and besides doing videos for real estate property sales as well as one town for its tourism bureau, he is involved with search and rescue, taking high resolution images that are analyzed by experts:
https://bangordailynews.com/video/drone-being-used-to-help-search-for-missing-bangor-man/
http://deemi.org/wordpress/suas-uav/

UHH user Dook posts photos shot from a drone: http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-537631-1.html

As a hobby, for me it's like video on a "regular" camera - zero interest... except I do recall one highly compelling treetop view of snow patterns on roads and icy trees, so guess you never know

I just remembered there is a UHH specialty forum!
http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/s-124-1.html

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magnetoman Loc: Purbeck, Dorset, UK

Bloke wrote:

I have one, and use it quite a bit. Mine has 6 motors/props, unlike the Phantoms which only have 4. I don't have any pictures of the drone flying at the moment, though. I tend to shoot 4K video and pull stills from that, as there is terrible shutter lag when shooting stills directly. It's great fun, but you *do* have to be careful - I was shooting at a church softball match, and crashed into the 'fence' behind home plate... Somewhat embarrassing, but at least nobody was hurt!

Yours sounds like the bees knees Bloke, sort of pro standard. Embarrassing crashes it what puts me off them the most I think! I guess your ‘stills from video’ are pretty good quality?

magnetoman Loc: Purbeck, Dorset, UK

Linda From Maine wrote:

My brother in Maine has one and besides doing vide... (show quote)

Yes, search and rescue, and police use is fairly common nowadays. In fact the police offer a day’s training locally which would probably be worthwhile - at least one would know how to keep on the right side of the law.

So we already have a section for them? Sign of the times again.

I’m still unsure that, once the novelty value has worn off, I’d get much use - like you Linda, I’ve never been into video.

Bloke Loc: Waynesboro, Pennsylvania

magnetoman wrote:

Yours sounds like the bees knees Bloke, sort of pro standard. Embarrassing crashes it what puts me off them the most I think! I guess your âstills from videoâ are pretty good quality?

Yeah, it saves them as full 4K resolution. I have them saved as tiff files, and will be processing through LR when I have something worth doing. So far, it has just been test images to make sure it worked. Here is one which I opened in Irfanview and saved as jpeg. No other processing at all. Not a great image, granted, but it shows what the equipment can do...

(Download)

magnetoman Loc: Purbeck, Dorset, UK

Bloke wrote:

Yeah, it saves them as full 4K resolution. I have them saved as tiff files, and will be processing through LR when I have something worth doing. So far, it has just been test images to make sure it worked. Here is one which I opened in Irfanview and saved as jpeg. No other processing at all. Not a great image, granted, but it shows what the equipment can do...

Indeed it does! Modern photographer, modern selfie. Certainly a decent quality.

rook2c4 Loc: Philadelphia, PA USA

Something I'd like to get into in the near future. With a drone, one can capture views and perspectives which would be either difficult, prohibitively expensive or altogether impossible to achieve otherwise.

ebrunner Loc: New Jersey Shore

magnetoman wrote:

Seeing more and more of these, unfortunately not a... (show quote)

I had an opportunity to see one being flown by a good friend of mine. I can see some use for video and have seen many youtube videos that use the tool for their videos. For still photography I would probably want one that could mount dslr and fly around. I would imagine that large prints would not look terribly good with the cameras that are included in the "affordable" drones. There are definitely possibilities here. I'm not hooked yet, though.
Erich

Bloke Loc: Waynesboro, Pennsylvania

rook2c4 wrote:

Something I'd like to get into in the near future. With a drone, one can capture views and perspectives which would be either difficult, prohibitively expensive or altogether impossible to achieve otherwise.

Yep... Plus, it's a heck of a lot of fun!

Another test shot, extracted from 4K video, no processing other than converting to jpeg for upload...

(Download)

cambriaman Loc: Central CA Coast

Linda From Maine wrote:

As a hobby, for me it's like video on a "regular" camera - zero interest... except I do recall one highly compelling treetop view of snow patterns on roads and icy trees, so guess you never know

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As I often do, I find my self agreeing with Linda from Maine.

They can produce interesting points of view , however.

magnetoman Loc: Purbeck, Dorset, UK

rook2c4 wrote:

Something I'd like to get into in the near future. With a drone, one can capture views and perspectives which would be either difficult, prohibitively expensive or altogether impossible to achieve otherwise.

Yep, they have definite advantages. Thanks for looking-in.

magnetoman Loc: Purbeck, Dorset, UK

Bloke wrote:

Yep... Plus, it's a heck of a lot of fun!

Another test shot, extracted from 4K video, no processing other than converting to jpeg for upload...

Connections too poor here to download but that looks like another decent shot Bloke.

magnetoman Loc: Purbeck, Dorset, UK

ebrunner wrote:

I had an opportunity to see one being flown by a good friend of mine. I can see some use for video and have seen many youtube videos that use the tool for their videos. For still photography I would probably want one that could mount dslr and fly around. I would imagine that large prints would not look terribly good with the cameras that are included in the "affordable" drones. There are definitely possibilities here. I'm not hooked yet, though.
Erich

Looks like my reply didn’t get off the ground at the last attempt Erich - that will be due to my travels.
I agree a slr would be great - but you need to be pretty confident to launch all that dough into the unknown! Perhaps try a cheap version first?