This summer I had the chance to test shooting with a drone. It was the Parrot AR2 of a friend that got it second hand for a very good price. As I always wanted to test these and I was super happy of the opportunity, here are the 3 things I got from it:
1-Flying is piece of cake as long as....
Flying is all automatised! you use an app on your phone and connect to the drone via wifi, super easy! Then you have a button to 'take off' and this button changes into 'landing' when you are flying. If you feel you are loosing control... just land. All the rest is kind of intuitive and requires some practice but after several tests you gain confidence and make progress. After 3 or 4 tests I even did a loop with the drone and my sister in law almost fainted :-) Of course accidents are happening all the time: going on a tree, going too fast and feeling you are loosing it and going to the neighbour garden... all that is possible and mainly due to the wind.
2-Filming from a drone is a great
The type of shoots you get from a drone are just amazing. Just with the limited tests I did this summer, I could film from a completely different perspective. Being above people, trees, houses (...) gives power to a scene. Camera moves are also super nice and very powerful.
3-Not for everyday shoots but always an option
Now my conclusion is clear, drones are not for every projects but if there is a need, a client requirement, a great opportunity, it is on my catalog. I will probably need one or two days of preparation in order to get use to piloting the drone again but other than that, no more fear! I think for professional use it is worth going for very good drones such as DJI phantoms where you can have a gopro or at least a good HD cameras. The one I had was a bit on the edge on that respect but on the other hand, I was recording directly on the phone while I was piloting :-)
Below the short movie I did with the shoots I did during the test. Hopefully, many more to come!
