Since a drone’s battery life is limited and perfect moments usually don’t last for very long, you should not waste too much time on adjusting settings while your aircraft is in the air.
The following tips show you how to execute fast adjustments for essential settings. Learning these skills will take you around one minute each, but after mastering them, you will be able to use your flight time more efficiently.
Tip 1: Adjust the Gimbal Axis
Enter the live-feed window in the DJI GO/DJI GO 4 app, press and hold your smartphone’s display until a blue circle appears. Then drag the circle in the direction you want the camera to face. (Control of the yaw axis is only available for the Mavic 2 series, Inspire series, and Matrice series.)
Tip 2: Limit Upward Gimbal Movement Range
Go to the gimbal settings and enable the upward gimbal tilt lock. With this mode activated, you can avoid unwanted propeller shadows in your FOV when shooting.
Tip 3: Quick Gimbal Controls
Set the C1 or C2 button to “Camera Forward/Down” to create a shortcut for quick gimbal axis adjustments. Face the camera directly downward or forward just in one or two taps.
Tip 4: Grid Lines
Enable the grid lines in the DJI GO 4 app to help compose an image. Align the main subjects or points of interest along the grid lines or place them on the intersection points. This will add a more dynamic effect to your image.
Tip 5: Auto Exposure
Use this feature to find the right exposure for your shot in just a few taps.
Tip 6: Lock Auto Exposure
Lock the auto-exposure feature to keep the preset exposure settings. This way, you can avoid changing the exposure by accidentally touching the smartphone or tablet’s screen.
Tip 7: Switch between Auto & Manual Focus
Switch between auto & manual focus depending on the situation.
We recommend you to use manual focus when shooting in dim areas, scenes with no motion, and extreme close-ups. But if you want to shoot scenes with a lot of motion or focus on certain areas of the image, you should switch to autofocus. Always choose a frame with clear contrast when using autofocus.
Tip 8: Adjusting Screen Brightness
Shooting footage with a drone while the sun is up in the sky can make the screen of your smartphone or tablet unclear. In this case, you need to set the screen brighter to make it more visible.
Tip 9: Full Screen – Double Finger Tap
With this feature activated, you can avoid entering full-screen mode accidentally. It might not sound like a great feature, but if you have experienced the struggle of enabling full-screen mode unintentionally, you would appreciate this little extra.
Tip 10: Histogram
The histogram provides a graphical view of the different illuminated pixel count in your frame. In simple terms that means the number of dark and bright pixels in the frame. The left side of the graph corresponds to the dark pixels, while the center shows the mid tones and the right side represents the highlights of the picture. As a very useful exposure tool, it will help you to avoid under- and overexposed images.
This is an example of an underexposed image.
The exposure of this photo is quite balanced.
Here is an example of an overexposed image. Take a look at the very right side of the histogram.
Final Word: Practice Makes Perfect
With any tip, it’s important to get used to new habits and train new skills before testing them in the wild. The last thing you want to happen is ruining a perfect photo opportunity with a mistake. Instead, take practice shots to see how to best access these tips and see what works for you. Before you know it, you’ll be well on your way to being an expert aerial photographer.
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