Launch Pad: Everything You Need to Know to Get Started Flying & Photographing with Drones - Spring 2024

Are you interested in drones or drone photography? Maybe you have a drone, want to shoot photos or videos, and don’t know where to start. Maybe you’re just curious about drones and want to learn more about them and/or how to fly legally. Maybe you’ve been flying awhile and want to improve your techniques – both flying and cinematic abilities.

Our day-and-a-half drone photography workshop will help you explore the exciting world of consumer and “pro-sumer” drones. We’ll explore drones available for purchase in the US and their characteristic and capabilities. We’ll help you understand what’s required to fly drones legally, easily, and almost free (your Starbucks drink costs more than this.) We’ll introduce you to drone controllers and their settings, and their relationship to drones themselves. We’ll discuss flight hazards and how to safely avoid them. Then we’ll build on your knowledge of photography and videography, generally, and demonstrate the excitement you and your audience will feel – when your camera flies and can function in three dimensions, not just two.

Your instructor pilots will also show you excerpts from their drone photography / videography catalog. We know you’ll be inspired. And that’s just day one! During our second half-day, weather permitting, we’ll take to the field and our senior pilots will demonstrate all you’ve learned using their own DJI drones. There may even be a chance to practice all this with your own drone if you have one.

TOPICS INCLUDE

• Survey of drones available
• Drone characteristics and capabilities
• Staying legal: You, the FAA, and your neighbors
• Drone cameras and setting: Still photography; videography
• ISO & Noise
• Shutter & Blur
• Aperture & Depth of Field
• Image resolution
• Frame rate
• Resolution
• Examples of your instructors’ still and video works
• Introducing your drone’s controller
• Safety settings
• Flight settings
• Control sticks
• Automated flight modes
• Battery considerations
• Flight planning software and techniques
• Editing software and techniques

Students may bring their own drone (if they have one) and controller. Your instructors will bring theirs.

INSTRUCTOR BIOS
Mark Erskine is a private (single engine land) pilot and an FAA 14 CFR Part 107 commercial drone pilot.He is an Emmy-award-winning writer, producer, and videographer. His career spans broadcast TV, corporate media, and communications among the Fortune 100. At Boeing, he oversaw a large team of Photographers, Videographers, and Editors located nationally and internationally. His TV broadcast production career went from being a videographer/editor/producer to Executive Management at major market television stations, as well as founder and owner of his own broadcast production company. There he produced complete series for HGTV, Discovery Communications, Food Network, and more.

Chuck Porter is a private (single engine land) pilot and an FAA 14 CFR Part 107 commercial drone pilot. He is an internationally recognized, award-winning photographer and adventure traveler. He's traveled to nearly 80 countries during his consulting career, and as a photographer, diver, motorcyclist, and commercial drone pilot. He has taught and continues to lecture at Seattle University, has held numerous advisory and search roles at the University, served as their Chief Information Officer, and currently sits on the Seattle University Board of Trustees. He is a commercial photographer specializing in travel, landscape, adventure, architecture, and astro-photography. He's been published in BMW Owners News magazine, Alaska Airlines in-flight magazine, numerous books, and numerous client commercial websites.

Images © Sky Safari Drone Photography