Novice photographer, been offered work

[JB117]

Hey guys I just signed up to this forum after a while of reading. I was hoping to get just some general pointers perhaps when it comes to still photographs with my Mavic Pro.

I was out flying the other day and a farmer in a ute pulled up, wanted to see my drone in action. After a few questions and me showing what it can do he actually offered me paid work. He needs aerial birds eye photos of his property, the vineyard, packing sheds etc and wants them then blown up (he hasn't specified how large).

A little photo editing with say a blue marker for his packing sheds, a red marker for the beginning of a particular vinyard, a legend to show what colour means what. This will be on going as he has a few properties.

He's not after anything mind blowing, though the clearer the better of course depending on the weather.

Is there a general ISO and SS setting I should stick with, provided its a sunny still day? Forgive my extremely novice questions here.

 

[Simmo]

I dont know your location. But mostly, for paid work, prior to worrying about settings, you will need to worry about licencing.

 

[JB117]

I dont know your location. But mostly, for paid work, prior to worrying about settings, you will need to worry about licencing.

Right cheers, lets say hypothetical then. A mate wants some birds eye snaps of his property unpaid... I've got my camera camera set to manual, auto WB, ISO is on 100, SS set to whatever suits, image size 4:3, RAW format. Good enough?

 

[Pedro]

Just set it to auto, will be plenty good enough for that..

As for being paid, I'm sure you can find a work around for that.

 

[Simmo]

Agree with Pedro. Photos, straight down, auto. Pay?? What pay???

 

[53-63-6f-74-74]

If your hypothetical customer wants photos enlarged, I would suggest flying fairly low (perhaps 150 feet) to produce the best resolution. The downside is that you will have many more photos, and each will cover a smaller area. I will assume that these properties will require multiple photos, so what you really want is an orthographic photo which can be produced with software such as Drone Deploy or Pix4d. Both have fully functional trial periods and I would suggest checking them out. In any event, the apps remain free and functional after the processing software trial ends, so they will still take photographs autonomously. There is also free processing software available called Open Drone Map or WebODM, that will do a good job as well, if you can get it working properly.

 

[neggy]

you don't sell the pictures, the pictures are free. You are offering editing services and delivering the pictures on a thumb drive that he can then take to his local ( in my case Walgreens) and have printed our.

I have printed some good sized prints without pixelation from Mavic JPEGS.

What do you know about photography?

Enough to go into the manual settings and adjust for each shot, or just enough to push the button and hope you get a good shot?

Can you edit RAW format?

What do you have for editing software?


But you can charge for editing services, and make sure your invoices say so.

It is flaunting the law, but unless something goes wrong you are safe.

 

[53-63-6f-74-74]

you don't sell the pictures, the pictures are free. You are offering editing services and delivering the pictures on a thumb drive that he can then take to his local ( in my case Walgreens) and have printed our.

I have printed some good sized prints without pixelation from Mavic JPEGS.

What do you know about photography?

Enough to go into the manual settings and adjust for each shot, or just enough to push the button and hope you get a good shot?

Can you edit RAW format?

What do you have for editing software?


But you can charge for editing services, and make sure your invoices say so.

It is flaunting the law, but unless something goes wrong you are safe.

I don't want to change the subject of this thread, but it doesn't matter if you give the photos away for free or do the whole job for free, it doesn't skirt the law. It's not a hobby flight (which is defined), and its purpose is for the furtherance of a business, thus requiring 107 certification.

 

[sar104]

I don't want to change the subject of this thread, but it doesn't matter if you give the photos away for free or do the whole job for free, it doesn't skirt the law. It's not a hobby flight (which is defined), and its purpose is for the furtherance of a business, thus requiring 107 certification.

There is a clear clue in his first post that he is not in the US.

 

[gnirtS]

There is a clear clue in his first post that he is not in the US.

The country that uses the word "ute" also requires a commercial license for any sort of paid drone work.

 

[matth1000]

The country that uses the word "ute" also requires a commercial license for any sort of paid drone work.

If you are using the mavic, its under 2kgs.
You said ute so sounds like u are in oz.
All u need to do is go on the CASA website and register for the sub 2kg commercial group. Doesn't cost anything and no license required. You just need an ARN first, also free through same website.
Should be a breeze because you will be flying over private property with property owners consent.

Good luck. Hope this info helps.

Ground station pro is the app u want.
Will fly the photo mission at a predefined height but only up to 100 photos.
No problem just do smaller flights then you can sign up for a free precision mapper account and blend you photos all together.

My preference for Large property like a farm would be to fly just buildings and vineyard and other locations where high resolution photos are required then use google earth for the infill of the paddocks where high resolution is not required.

Matt.

 

[matth1000]

Here is the link
Commercial unmanned flight - remotely piloted aircraft under 2kg

 

[gjmphoto]

You can use Photoshop or some other sw package to stitch together multiple low altitude photographs to make a large one.

I haven't done this with my drone yet...but based on my experience with other cameras I'm pretty certain this sequence / guidelines will work:
1 expose manually and don't change exposure between shots
2 don't change altitude
3 take a shot with the gimbal straight down...then move the drone forward only ... no sideways movements ... until 1/3 of the last image's composition is left in the frame
4 shoot the next shot
5 repeat

When you bring these into Photoshop it will have no trouble creating a large image covering all of the content. The trick is to make sure you overlap a substantial amount of the subject matter between each shot...1/3 overlap is a good rule of thumb. The more overlap the better job PS will do of stitching.

I should point out that the resulting image will have a perspective issue from top to bottom because the camera is moving and not recording from a fixed position. But usually the Panorama will still look good.

Another option is to leave the Drone in one position and take multiple pictures moving the gimbal up until the one third of a lap occurs. That will likely give you a single perspective View and the Panorama may look more natural (OF course, that's also how the panorama mode works)

- Gary

 

[matth1000]

Gs pro is quick and easy. Tell it what parameters u need and it does the rest.
I literally press take off and then start packing up while it is flying its mission.
By the time it lands im packed up. i just download the photos and have a quick look and move on to the next job.

 

[Simmo]

Bloody good info Guys, I learnt more today!