Serge Ramelli takes the DJI Phantom 4 for a spin and shares his tips and tricks for drone photography

 

 

Los Angeles-based French photographer Serge Ramelli has a great YouTube channel with a lot of helpful videos and tutorials for photographers. With the launch of the DJI Phantom 4 he decided to get more into drone photography. He has previously used Phantom 1 and 2 drones, but he crashed them and was excited by the anti-collision technology in the Phantom 4. In the video below, Serge takes us through how he uses the DJI drone to capture images. He also explains his retouching process.

After going through some basic initialization steps for the drone, controller and DJI app, Ramelli shows some drone footage. Following the neat footage, we go into Lightroom to see how Serge edits his drone photos. One tip he has for capturing photos with your drone -- at least with the DJI Phantom 4 -- is to make sure you're set to ISO 100. He didn't realize how noisy images would be at a higher sensitivity.

Looking at raw photos from his quadcopter, Ramelli remarks that he doesn't process them as aggressively as he would with raw files from his dedicated camera. For example, rather than push shadows +100 in Lightroom, he typically settles around +50 when working with drone photos. His Lightroom processing tips in the video below apply to all sorts of landscape photography though, not just aerial photography, so check it out below.

For more information on the DJI Phantom 4, see our overview and this nice video review from Lixi Studios. Visit Serge Ramelli's website to see more of his work and tutorials.

(Seen via ISO 1200)