A wide-angle view of the prospects of drone-aided photography

Yoursquove seen them at weddings those fourarmed devices buzzing overhead halting midair right before the bride and groom You have also been awestruck by how it altered the cinematography of television seriese like Game Of Thrones and movies such as The Wolf of Wall Street and The Hobbit Drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles UAV have stretched the panorama of aerial photography as they help create wideangle images capture data for agriculture wildlife conservation and enable remote monitoring of utilities such as transmission towers gas pipelines highways railways etcA birdseye view of Dadar East taken for a developer group to promote an upcoming property Thanks to their ability to rise up to a kilometre above the ground level they also help track natural disasters shoot sports events with a renewed finesse that helicopters cannot matchEarlier this week researchers at IITKanpur showcased three different kinds of UAVs as part of their project and even companies such as Amazon Google Apple Intel and Qualcomm have been researching in this technology for yearsIn India two types of drones are available in the market mdash small fourarmed quadcopters which are ideal for lifting lightweight cameras like the GoPro and larger six to eightarmed drones that can easily lift the heavy 5D camerasBuy what you seeThe realestate industry has been extensively using drones for the past one year Today it is one of the biggest users of this technology ldquoTo sell underconstruction flats easily builders often get photographs of the view clicked from certain heights to give the buyer a better perspective of the upper unfinished floorsrdquo says Pranshu Dubey founder of PixelDo Media Pvt Ltd a fiveyearold company specialising in interactive media projects and panoramic photographyAerial image for Chetak Circle taken for urban improvement department of Udaipur PIC COURTESY PIXELDOInterestingly Dubeyrsquos company created Indiarsquos first and largest digital interactive image for the government of Rajasthan mdash a 16gigapixel panoramic image of Udaipur cityscape made up of 1456 individual images on February 3 2014 for the Udaipur government to help civic engineering and tourism in the cityCloser home Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavisrsquos dream project Mumbai Next an initiative to transform the countryrsquos financial capital into a global financial and entertainment centre launched in February this year ldquoWe were roped in to provide aerial footage to help map the cityrdquo says Mohit Gurjar of BrainWing a company that provides droneaided aerial cinematography services to the entertainment industrySuperhuman featsRonnie Singh founder and director of Shutter Grey media agency says the drones have simplified their tasks ldquoEarlier one would have to climb trees buildings and walls to capture aerial shots Now you just mount the camera on a drone and it does all the leg workrdquo says Singh adding that this is the next step to aerial photography after helicopters which had space constraintsSudhir Chaudhary says the ease with which one can maneuver a drone makes it a cinematographerrsquos darling Having used it extensively during the shoot of Subhash Ghais Kanchi 2014 he says ldquoOnce the camera is mounted on the drone you need one person to operate the drone while you can watch what the camera is sees on the monitor and click the shots you want with the help of a remote Compared to a jib a boom device with a camera at one end the drone captures better angles A helicopter would need a helipad to land but a drone can land even on a piece of ply Also if we need a retake it is easy to get the drone back up in the air within minutesrdquoIt has become quite a fad to use drones for video and photo shoots at weddings Apart from the novelty factor the drone helps capture pictures from angles where the human hand cannot reach Photographer Rajdeep Banerjee from Jodi Clickers says ldquo It helps taking shots at places and moments where it is impractical for direct human presence shots that move down from high up zoom through little space or from intimate spaces to panoramic shots Also there is no worry of people blocking our view The drone captures what we on the ground may miss outrdquo says BanerjeeSafety watchDrones have played a crucial role in charting rescue operations in during the 2013 Uttarakhand floods and gauged the situation of the 2014 Saharanpur riots ideaForge founded by a group of IIT Bombay graduates with the vision to inspire a surge of unmanned systems created the worldrsquos smallest and lightest fullfeatured autopilot in 2009Today the company works closely with the Defence Research and Development Organisation DRDO labs and the defense and paramilitary forces ldquoWe developed NETRAv2 UAV a surveillance quadcopter that can be deployed for myriad activities such as search and rescue riot control border management for Border Security Force BSF counter insurgency operations CRPF infiltration monitoring Indian Armyrdquo says cofounder and CEO Ankit MehtaToday one can buy advanced drones for R 12 lakh while small ones are available for Rs 50000 While rentals costRs 20000 a day onward miniature models cost less than Rs 5000Agriculture and politicsAerial photography is also deployed by agricultural companies to predict crop conditions ldquoThis helps decide the course of action for both remedial measures as well as production planning for industries that utilise agricultural producerdquo says Tanuj Bhojwani technical head of Quidich This aerial photography company collaborated with a news channel during the last Assembly Elections and shot panoramic views of some of the most important constituencies such as Varanasi Muzaffarnagar and AmethiFuture perfectldquoIn future we will see autotakeoff auto landing flying a preplanned path and direction cruise control waterproofing app based control on wifi image detection object detection etcrdquo says Gurjar While Dubey is excited about the followme mode ldquoWith this you would not require the knowledge to fly a drone All you have to do is just install an app in your mobile and press a follow button and the drone will follow you and capture your activities This will be an amazing tool to document adventure sports Virtual reality is also getting involved with aerial imagery to give a complete new experience to the end user All you have to do is wear the VR virtual reality glasses and it will give you the feel of flying like a birdrdquo