The Drone We Use and Love

Drone photography has gotten more and more popular, and earlier this year Trey and I decided we wanted to give it a try. We got a few recommendations from friends and after doing a little more research, we decided to buy the DJI Mavic Air (with the Fly More combo). We’ve taken it on a few vacations this year already and have also used it at home. For example, the photo above was something Trey wanted to try, and we took it just in our front yard. Ha.

Here is a photo we took of the resort we stayed in a few weeks ago for our five-year anniversary. I always love getting ocean photos with the drone now because you get to see all the color variations from seaweed and other ocean life.

Trey and I both LOVE photography. As you may already know, Trey runs our app company, A Color Story, so he’s pretty immersed in phone photography all the time. I mainly take food photos and other things like that for our blog. So when we go on vacation it’s probably not surprising that getting to play around with photography (on our phones, DSLRs, or a special camera like our drone) is one of our favorite activities. Our drone is super easy to use and works with a remote that attaches to your phone. I would recommend flying it a few times before taking it on a vacation, or flying over large bodies of water just so you feel really confident landing it. But it’s seriously super simple and you do not need to be tech-savvy to use it.

The only real drawback is it is quite loud when it’s taking off or landing. If you’ve never flown a drone, or been around someone who was, it sounds kind of like a giant beetle or something. It makes a pretty loud buzzing noise, as it flies with propellors, similar to a helicopter (a mini one, anyway). For this reason, flying a drone is a bit, well, embarrassing in certain settings. It can feel a little disruptive, so just be aware of your surroundings. There are also some areas that do not allow drones, so for sure check into that if you don’t know. This really isn’t a big deal though. I remember feeling super self-conscious to pull out my big DSLR camera in certain settings. It’s kind of a similar thing to that. The main thing to remember is that if you’re not disrupting others—IMHO it’s OK to enjoy your hobby. 🙂

Just like high-quality DSLR cameras, drones are also quite an investment. If you don’t love photography like we do, then it’s probably not worth it to you.

Here are a few photos we took on our Norway trip earlier this year. I love getting aerial photos of oceans or buildings, but a drone also just allows you get higher up so you can get better landscape photos in some settings. Trey also loves to get short video clips with the drone, which is why we bought one that works well for both video and still photos. I really enjoy video too, but I really love framing photos (or just printing for our annual photo album I do), so still photography is where it’s at for me.

Sometime this summer, I’d really like to get a drone photo above a swimming pool somewhere. Not sure when that’s gonna happen but it’s on my summer bucket list. 🙂

Anyway, I just waned to share what drone we use for some of the photography you’ve seen Trey and I post (he’s @williamgeorgeiii on IG), in case you’re thinking about getting one.

And two other photographers I LOVE who also use drones in their work are Arielle Vey (@ariellevey) and Colby Moore (@colbyshootspeople), so check them out if you want to get inspired! xo. Emma

Credits // Author: Emma Chapman. Photography: Trey George. Photos edited with A Color Story.