Maximize your minutes in the air

A drone's battery drains over time, and since perfect moments don't last forever, it's unfortunate if you spend too much time adjusting settings during flight.

The following tips are for making the most necessary settings quickly. These settings only take a minute to master, but once you get the hang of it, you can make much more efficient use of your available flight time.

Tip 1: Adjust the axis of the gimbal (camera stabilizer).

Enter the live image window of the DJI GO / DJI GO 4 application. Press and hold the screen of your smartphone until a blue circle appears. Then drag the circle in the direction you want the camera to face. (Moving the camera along the horizontal axis is only possible for the Mavic 2 , Inspire and Matrice series.)

Tip 2: Specify the limit of the upward movement of the camera stabilizer

Enter the camera stabilizer (gimbal) settings and activate the upper limit of the gimbal. By activating this setting, you can avoid the shadow of the propeller being visible in the footage.

Tip 3: Quick gimbal settings

Set the C1 and C2 buttons to the "Camera forward/down" command, with which you can quickly control the camera's tilt angle with just one or two button presses so that it looks straight ahead or all the way down.

Tip 4: Grid lines

Enable the display of grid lines in the DJI GO 4 application, which help you compose the shot. Place the main themes and points of the image along the grid pattern and at the intersections. Shots composed in this way appear more dynamic, more interesting and pleasant to the eye.

Tip 5: Automatic exposure

This feature allows you to find the right exposure values ​​with just a few taps on the screen.

Tip 6: Fix automatic exposure setting

This function records your current automatic exposure settings. In this way, you can avoid that the exposure settings are canceled by accidentally touching the screen of the smartphone or tablet.

Tip 7: Change to automatic or manual focus setting

Depending on the situation, switch to automatic or manual focus setting.
We recommend that you use manual focus in poor lighting conditions, for static subjects and for close-up shots. On the other hand, if you want to take shots with a lot of movement, or if you want to focus on certain areas, then switch to autofocus. If you use autofocus, try to compose the image in such a way that your subject always stands out the most, it should be the most contrasting element of the shot.

8. Advice: Adjust the brightness of the display

In bright sunlight, unfortunately, it may happen that the image of the drone's camera is barely visible on the screen of the connected smartphone or tablet. To prevent this, always set your devices to full brightness when taking off in strong sunlight.

Tip 9: Full Screen - Touch with two fingers

By using this setting, you can avoid switching the display to full screen display by accidentally touching the screen. This feature may not seem important at first, but anyone who has ever experienced the hassle of a full screen created by an accidental touch has learned to appreciate this feature.

10. Advice: Histogram

The histogram graphically displays the different lighting areas of a recording in pixels. Simply put, it shows the amount of dark and light pixels in the shot. The amount of dark pixels is shown on the left side of the graph, the middle tones are shown in the middle, and the amount of bright parts of the recording is shown on the right side. This is a very useful function for adjusting the exposure, it helps to avoid that the shot is underexposed or overexposed.

Example of an underexposed image:

The exposure of this image is quite balanced:

An example of an overexposed image. Look at the right side of the histogram:

Conclusion: Practice makes perfect

In the case of any advice, the most important thing is to get used to it, to practice the new movements before trying them live. You don't want to make a mistake in the perfect shot. It's best to test the use of these features by taking test shots to see what works for you. Before you know it, you'll be on your way to becoming a professional aerial photographer.