First Time Drone Owner

Kml100 · Apr 18, 2023

dopeysw20 said:
Greetings from sunny Cali! I finally bit the bullet and purchased my first drone, a Mini 3 with the built in screen remote! My current experiences with flying anything is about 15 minutes of a Mini 2 that I borrowed from a friend to decide whether to get a Mini 2 or Mini 3.

I've been an amateur photographer for some years now and wanted to start expanding out my hobby to aerial photography/videos.

I plan on going through some tutorial YT videos on how to learn the basics (and best practices) on flying a drone but have been running into difficulty on finding a location to learn. I live in the SF bay area (closer to the south side by Mountain View) and it seems pretty much all the local city parks and county parks do not allow drones. The state parks have a general rule of allowing drones but to check each individual park site and each one I've checked in my area all state no drones allowed.

It looks like the Santa Clara county parks may allow drone flying via a park permit so I'm going to try applying for one of those, but looking to see if anyone has any suggestions on other places to learn. I've also seen some posts mention Bayland park, so I'm going to swing by there and ask any onsite staff to confirm.

Nice to meet you all and happy flying!

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Have fun, fly safe and register your device with the FAA.

Mrktn · Apr 18, 2023

A very warm welcome to the forum!

twickers14 · Apr 18, 2023

Welcome to the Forum.

Gagey52 · Apr 19, 2023

Greetings mate, welcome to the forum from the outback of Australia.
Regards

MavicFlyer2 · Apr 21, 2023

Hello from Minnesota and welcome to the Forum....Congratulations on your Mini 3...There's a lot of good quality teaching/feedback going on in here. Just ask, and the experts are great on providing good sound advice for you to apply and use... Remember to always Fly safely and fly smartly representing all of us drone hobbyist well.

DaveS · Apr 21, 2023

Welcome. Where to fly will take time, research and some driving on your part. As to the rest of the drone experience, my advice is to always think like a photographer. That means thinking about the shot, composing it, making adjustments to f-stop, ISO, etc, then hit record. Get ND filters. One of the best pieces of advice I saw here also is, don't get hung up on moving your drone just because you can. Sometimes the best stuff just happens in your shot when you set up a good shot and hold still. Shoot at a variety of heights and angles. Don't be afraid to shoot straight down but not too much in one video. Oh yes, editing. For video that's a whole different world than for stills. Look for other topics on this forum about that. Most of all, HAVE FUN! Good luck. We look forward to seeing what you create.