For many drone photographers and videographers, the winter season is something of a hit and miss for them. On one hand, capturing some winter drone photography is always a stunning and amazing experience.
On the other, you always run the risk of damaging or losing your drone to the snow or the significantly colder weather, and that’s not a risk that many drone enthusiasts want to take with their drones. But if you manage to take the proper safety measures, then you can end up with some really great winter drone shots.
If this is your first time shooting winter drone photography, you’re going to need all of the help that you can get. Here are some tips that you can keep in mind to keep your drone safe while taking photos and videos, as well as some tips to help make your winter photography stand out.
Keep you and your drone safe
Remember all of those problems you might run into when shooting your photography and videography during the winter season?
It’s very important that you remember these before you take your drone out during the winter season. The cold weather can cause condensation and moisture buildup in your drone, which can damage the inner wirings of your drone. As much as possible, avoid flying your drone if it’s below freezing out.
Another big reason why drones tend to crash more in the snow is because batteries tend to drain faster in the cold weather, which drastically reduces flight time. When first-time drone pilots fly in the snow, they’re unused to the shorter flight time and fail to bring their drones back in time, which results in the crash.
In order to avoid this, keep your batteries warm and fully charged, and give your drone a minute to warm up before flying off. Above everything else, keep a close eye on the indicator on your control.
Use the white of the snow to your advantage
When shooting in the winter, especially in areas that are heavy with snow, the landscape can get pretty tedious because all you can see for miles and miles is just pure white.
While it does look amazing in person, it doesn’t really do much, from a drone photography perspective. However, you can use the stark white to your advantage if you learn how to use your surroundings.
Look for striking colors to use as a way to significantly contrast with the whiteness of the snow. It can be really bright colors, like red and yellow, or a completely opposite color, like black or gray to provide an interesting contrast to the snow.
Learn how to work with the snow
Snow can be pretty hard to work with as a visual medium for your drone photography. Interestingly enough, white balance is going to be a problem when shooting the snow. Instead of white, you usually end up with more of a bluish tinge.
To avoid this, you have to learn how to fix your manual settings to get the right white balance. You might encounter a number of additional reasons simply because of how the environment reacts with the snow, so make sure that you learn how to work with the snow to get a great drone photography shot.