Gaining the higher ground: Adventures in low level drone photography. Parish Churches in Worcestershire.

Gaining the higher ground: Adventures in low level drone photography

Over the past few years, the presence of small unmanned air vehicles (SUAVs), more commonly called drones has risen dramatically from preserve of military use and high end commercial platforms to affordable devices available to anyone over the High Street shop counter. MIKE GLYDE

SUAVs come in all shapes and sizes, from novelty toys to large 8 rotor beasts as well as fixed wing devices. There are a range of SUAVs that have decent cameras on board capable of 20Mp images and 4k video, most with built in cameras and fixed lenses, others with the ability to attach DSLRs or multi spectral cameras. I am not going to discuss the ins and outs of all this variety, but simply share my experiences in getting into and applying drone photography with regards to heritage. Here I am also not going to discuss their wider legal requirements and restrictions of flying a drone in the UK, but shall focus on the photography, after all this is the RPS. I would like to use this article to share my experiences, methods, and post processing techniques in creating what I consider to be quality photographs encapsulating the essential qualities of photography.

2. The drones eye image displayed on controller.

Subject, composition, exposure, and presentation.

My background as an archaeologist has led me through traditional aerial photography from a Cessna 172, seeking and recording archaeological sites from the air and mapping them. This highlevel photography is very different than what can be delivered from a drone, as they are limited greatly by the height and range that they can operate. What they are ideally suited to is low level oblique photography. In 2018 I purchased a DJI Mavic Pro with the intention of using it for archaeological survey and photography. I undertook formal training and obtained my CAA Permit for Commercial Operations to ensure that I was experienced enough to fly safely and within the law. The Parish Church project came about through a gradual process. I first started photographing churches in my local area just out of interest, the buildings being generally isolated (in this part of the county) and of a wide range of dates and architectural styles. As I photographed more I decided that it would be an excellent project to take low level aerial images of all the counties churches, all 199 of them. I have sought and received consent from the various Parish Church Councils to operate the drone from their respective churchyards in advance of taking the pictures. As a sweetener I gift a copy of the final picture to the parish to use as they feel fit, with the only proviso to credit me as the photographer. So that’s the background, now lets discuss the photography, how is it done, and what lessons I have learned. Firstly, it is important to state from the outset that the operator of the drone takes the photograph, not the drone. The flying may be semi-autonomous, but the camera is controlled solely by the operator. It transmits a live view of what the camera sees to the hand-held receiver and remote control The remote pilot has control over the image in a number of ways. You can shoot in RAW, JPEG or both (I use RAW). The lens is fixed aperture, but you can control the focus, the shutter speed from 8sec to 1/8000sec and ISO from 100-1600. Focus can be set to manual and auto, to focus you tap the image on live view you want to focus on, and the camera focuses on that. You also have the ability to switch between landscape and portrait mode,

with the on-board camera mechanically rotating 90° degrees. The screen also shows a histogram and over exposure warning where high lights are blown out. In fact, apart from aperture control, you can control the image just as any other fixed lens camera. The Mavic Pro produces 12.7Mp sized images. While not as high as later models, as you will see in the pictures reproduced in this article, this still produces remarkably sharp and clear images, further improved with a bit of post processing. The lens is a 35mm equivalent with a fixed aperture of f2.2, capable of focusing from 0.5 to ∞. Having described how versatile and familiar the camera system is, now let’s turn our attention to the three essential photographic qualities.

Subject, Composition and Lighting

Given the small lens size and 12MP sensor it’s important not to try and photograph a subject that will be small in the final image. That’s not to say you can’t get great landscape images, but fine detail wont reproduce properly when enlarged. Buildings therefore make an ideal subject matter (subject to flying restrictions and permissions etc.) as they can dominate the frame and provide the focus for your image. People who know me are very aware that I am a stickler for composition, a well composed images shows you have thought about your image before you have taken it. Just as with ground-based photography, you need to move around your subject to explore compositional opportunities, best lighting etc. Just remember to keep an eye on where your drone is at all times to avoid overflying areas you shouldn’t and hazards such as trees or overhead cables. To help frame an image the display can be overlayed with grids in different formats such as the go to 1/3s which helps you create pleasing compositions. As well as being able to switch between landscape and portrait mode, the camera has the ability to tilt from 10° above horizontal to vertically straight down, so there are all the tools to compose your image how you wish. As with all photography light is key and get the best images you need the good lighting on your subject, therefore days with intermittent cloud and sunshine work best. Sometimes however nature is on your side, and you could have dark rain-soaked clouds and a beam of light from a break in the clouds to illuminate your subject producing a more dynamic

4. Britain’s Finest Baroque Church, St Michaels & All Angels, Great Witley.

image, but that’s luck! When photographing the churches many ducks have to line up. My physical availability, weather conditions and timing. To help plan the best time to take images I use a phone application called Sun Locator Pro ( https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ sun-seeker-tracker-compass/id330247123), which enables you to set a location and a time and it will show you the light and shadow (assuming full sunshine) at any given time. This is useful as I can look at a church on a map of Google earth, then work out where the best light should be, then it tells me the time I need to be there when the light is falling where I want it. I do this for some churches, others it is more of a matter of when I can physically be there! One church that benefited from an evening shoot, was St Michaels at Great Witley, which has a prominent golden cupola which reflects the evening light beautifully. I had planned this shot for weeks waiting for the said ducks to behave and stay in line! One of the greatest restrictions in being able to create a successful image of a church is often something that enhances the location, and that is the tree cover within the surrounding churchyard. It is uncommon for these trees to spoil the appreciation of the church from ground level, but from low level aerial viewpoints they can mask much of the structure and therefore you need to fly higher and further away or photograph it from its less ideal viewpoint. A fine example of this was at St Bartholomew’s, Grimly, which has a very characteristic and charming porch, which was completely obscured by trees when viewed from the air, meaning the final image, which was based on the only usable viewpoint, does not reveal the full character of the building (photo 5) Of course, there are other restrictions and consideration when operating a photographic drone, and this includes flying over built up areas, where minimum height restrictions apply (50m). This makes photographing churches in the larger villages and towns problematic, however where there is some open space nearby it can help set the church in its setting rather than focusing on the church itself. Photo 6 shows Upton On Severn, where the 19th century church with its tall spire, can be seen at

4. The difficulty in finding the best composition with well treed church yards. St. Bartholomew’s, Grimley

the southern end of the medieval high street, with the remains of the medieval church at the opposite end.

Exposure

As mentioned previously, you have full control over the image apart from aperture. However given the fact that you are not photographing anything close up, the depth of field of the images is pretty much front to back when your subject is 20-30m away. Getting the best exposure is not always straight forward as unlike looking through a viewfinder, you need to look at screen, with all the issues of reflection and bright ambient light making it difficult to get right, and often they can be a little

5. The Parish Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul Upton-on-Severn, Worcestershire

overexposed as you try to see what’s right on the screen, and here you need to relay on the histogram to ensure a balanced exposure. Shooting in RAW however means its straightforward to reduce adjust the overall exposure if it’s not quite right, however as photographer I am to get it right in camera. Having completed a flight and returned home, the images are downloaded from the on-board SD card into Adobe LightRoom Classic for sorting and editing. As the resolution of the images is not huge, large areas of similar tone, particularly in the sky, can look quite grainy when zoomed in. I have found that the amazing TOPAZ Denoise AI software does an outstanding job of smoothing out the grain with no loss of overall image clarity, in fact it most often improves it. It also upscales the image slightly. While you do have to pay for this software, I personally cannot recommend it highly enough. So having run the image through Denoise AI, I can apply any basic edits to the image. I do not like going overboard with editing. The image has to

look natural and not over processed. The following work flow is typical for each image, but of course some images may require more or less treatment to get the feel and quality I am looking for. (Photo 7) The drone has a wide angle lens which can sometimes result in converging verticals, or the horizontal plain was not quite horizontal when the image was take, so subtle use of the transform tool. Once the image looks correct, I then crop. As I am hoping to do an exhibition and book, images are cropped to the standard 10x8 format unless for compositional reasons a different ratio works better. Drone images can also benefit with a bit of Dehazing which creates better colour depth. My go to are edits from here normally includes a graduated reduction of exposure for the sky, and localised dodge or burning on the highlights and shadows (Photo 8). What started out as a bit of fun has become a pretty big project. While none of this was aimed for profit, I hope that once all 199 churches have been photographed that I will publish them as photo book. However there are still many churches to go so may be looking at the end of 2022 to complete the project and am now waiting for winter snow to provide atmospheric images for the a number of images. In taking photos of a single subject, it soon became apparent that I was developing a particular image style in the final images. This helps greatly in seeing the collection as a whole and not a disparate group of images. It also meant that when taking the photographs, I began to automatically compose and frame as best I could to fulfil that style, that was further enhanced buy a set process if post processing.

7. Basic image processing in Lightroom.

8 St Peters. Pirton, a beautiful building nestled away in the trees.