By Nick Sievewright of Footprint Photography
You’ve probably heard of drones, usually the ultra sophisticated combat versions or the small helicopters used by hobbyists. There’s another type though, the large hi-tech commercial versions used by professionals like us at Footprint Photography.
I’m Nick Sievewright, a professional photographer who does both ground and aerial photography. I have 2 drones in my “squadron” and both shoot 4k video and high definition stills. I am CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) approved for aerial photography and fully insured too. I’m based in the Sheffield area but travel nationally as required by my clients.
I normally shoot with the DJI S900 which is a large 6 armed drone that supports a Panasonic GH4 digital SLR in the gimbal below (see my blog Panasonic GH4 for a review on the camera) but last week we also added the new DJI Phantom 3 Professional which is an excellent addition and a great back up to the large aircraft I fly.
We’ll have both drones on display at SheffEX in December where we’d love to chat to you about this fascinating cutting edge technology.
On one of our more unusual projects, Nick Brooks from Martin-Brooks Roofing Specialists asked me to take aerial photographs of a large prestigious project they are working on at a private stately home near Rotherham.
His team are repairing or replacing the roof on the main hall, a stable block and a chapel in the grounds. I met Nick Brooks on site and spent an hour or so taking a variety of photos at different heights and angles. The advantage of having the client with me was that I could show him all the photos I was taking in real time and he could approve them on the spot so he know he was getting the images he wanted straight away.
At the moment there is a lot of scaffolding around the main hall but this is due to come down in the next few weeks and it is planned for me to return then to do a further series of aerial photographs of the finished project.
I was recently doing some aerial photographs for AB Roofing Solutions, they had just replaced a huge roof and wanted some photographs of the work done at Roy Hatfield Ltd in Rotherham.
Whilst on site one of the Hatfield directors approached me and asked if I could return and do a series of ground and aerial photographs and then produce a YouTube video from the air too.
The blog of the aerial photography shoot in Rotherham for AB Roofing Solutions is here Please Click and the ground and aerial shoot I did for Roy Hatfield Ltd is here Please Click
The video was shot in 4k for maximum quality.