A Dronie is one of the coolest features of the drone that you can go for and have cool shots. In this mode, instead of taking the picture, the drone captures the short video. In this mode, the drone flies up and away from you while keeping the subject in the frame. It captures the true essence of subject and landscape around it. You can also call dronie, an ultimate selfie. You can take this kind of shot while flying it alone or with the group.
But, if you want a good dronie, I would suggest you to ask someone else to fly the drone for you. Ask that person to hide in the place, so that he doesn’t come in the frame. This kind of videos gives a different cinematic look. If you are shooting in a jungle, then it looks like as if you are alone in the wilderness.
You can control the dronie shots manually, or you can also use the auto function. If you are a beginner, then I would highly recommend going with the inbuilt mode, because that will provide you the better smooth video free from any jelly effect.
Drone Selfies are also very popular even there are some drones, specially built for taking selfies. After the popularity of these drones, the videographers and photographers have achieved a new dimension. These kinds of shots are not possible by human photographers and videographers. Earlier, people used to hire the helicopters to take these kinds of shots, but drones have brought down the cost drastically. Nowadays, drones come with advanced features like artificial intelligence, gesture and face recognition, and computer vision as well. You can also use the drone to follow me a mode where you can shoot while driving a car or riding a bike (only recommended for professional drone flyers).
In the below section, we will discuss other important parts of dronie that includes how to take the cool dronie, what are the DJI spark dronie settings, and what all different cool modes like dronie that you can go for?
Let’s take a cool Dronie (6 Factors)
Taking a cool dronie shot requires practice, I mean good practice. The drones which have inbuilt dronie feature are generally costly, so you don’t want to mess with them without knowing their proper functionality. You don’t want to risk your drone for the sake of selfie. Even though you have flown the drones before, I would highly recommend knowing the proper handling of the drone before you start using it for hard modes because all drones have different handling and control. So, Below are some of the important things that you have to keep in mind.
1- Practice: Practice makes a man perfect. You should spend some time with the drone with which you are planning to take a dronie. There are different kinds of variations as well that you can try with the dronie, so try those sequence again and again until you master them. Don’t rush while learning the new modes with the quadcopter. Take your time, and gradually, you will become perfect in it.
2- Location Scouting: This is a very important part that a lot of people miss out. The dronie shots are less about you instead it’s more about the landscape, the location where you are shooting. So, if you are shooting on the road and there is a dump of garbage beside you, believe me, it’s never going to look good, no matter how you fly your drone and how good you look. You can have great shots at hills, nearby lakes, deserts and in the jungle.
3- Have Fun: If you are doing everything by your own, handling the drone, finding the location and then you come in the frame with the remote controller in your hand, it’s going to look super boring right? I would suggest going with your friends, and it will be easier for you. You can take cool dronie shots of your friend while you are hiding in someplace, from where you are not that visible. The point is, shots become more interesting if you are having fun in the whole process.
4- Avoid Pitfalls: When you take these kinds of shots, you will be flying the drone up and away from you. Make sure; you don’t crash your drone in trees or power lines. As you would be flying the drone very high, make sure you are nearby to any aviation area and following all the FAA guidelines. When you are operating in the desert or hill, it won’t be that difficult but when you are operating in the jungle, then make sure from wherever, you drone is taking off, it has a proper open area to take off, there should not be any hurdle. This pitfall cross-checks should be the part of your location scouting. Nobody likes losing their drone.
5- Stand Out: When you are shooting yourself in a dense wilderness, make sure you wear the clothes that are not green. Otherwise, you will be lost in the frame. The subject in the composition should stand out, so make sure if you wear the apparel that stands out. If you are shooting for your friend and you want to hide, then you can wear something that is not very visible, and your friend can go with some funky, colorful attire. So, preplan it properly, your outfit should look different from the location so that when the camera zooms out, you are easy to spot in. People who are not supposed to be in the frame can blend in.
6-Avoid Bad Weather: A bad weather can jeopardize everything. If your doing is not moist proof and the weather is cold, and it’s drizzling; it’s not good for the quadcopter. Also, make sure that it’s not windy as well because that will hinder the stability of the drone and you might see some jerk in footage, and that will not look good from any angle. The important factor of a dronie that the camera zooming out process should be very smooth and stable, a slight jitter will ruin it entirely. So, check the weather forecast, sometimes, you go far away for the location and then find the rain waiting for you. Try to shoot around noon time, because clear blue sky in the background gives a different look altogether.
How to take a Dronie in DJI Spark
A lot of DJI Spark users were asking recently, what are the settings options of DJI Spark Dronie. So, steps are very simple, for mavic pro and phantom, it would be slightly different. So, follow the below points for DJI Spark dronie.
- First thing, you need to open the DJI Go 4 app in your smartphone and set your drone in P Mode.
- Then in the Menu options, go to Quick Shots.
- Once you have entered the quick shots mode, you can select the subject in the frame by dragging the box over it.
- Then you can select the circle mode from the bottom menu. With the help of circle, you can adjust the diameter around the subject.
- After tapping the circle, you can adjust, how far, the drone should fly away. Make sure while selecting this setting, you also keep your surrounding hinderance into consideration.
- Once you click the GO. The drone will start circling and will make a 10second clip.
- Once the shot is completed, the dronie video is recorded, the drone will automatically safely return to the locked home position.
Cool Modes like Dronies
There are several other cool modes like dronie available as well that you can try and showcase your videography skills. You can also call these, alternatives of dronie mode. These modes come with high-end DJI drones and might not be available with some drones. So, let’s dive into them one by one.
1- Rocket Mode: This is a pretty cool mode and simple as well. In this mode, instead of drone going away, it only goes up, and camera points down. The feature is available in Mavic Pro, Inspire and Phantom as well. When you are going on the bike trip, and suddenly you want to take some cool video, you can put your bike on the stand, lie on the seat and let drone take care of the rest. These types of shots are very popular among some Instagram influencers and some youtubers as well. If you watch Arthur Moore, you might have seen him using this shot very often on his channel.
2- Helix: This is similar to the orbit mode that you get in some DJI drones. In this mode, the drone orbits around the subject and goes away. It is not that simple, and you will need some time to master it. There are. Also, you have to feed to the quadcopter that includes, radius, speed, rounds, etc..
3- Active Track Mode: This is one of my favorite mode also known as follow me mode. It is specially made for moving objects. Let’s say, if you are moving on a bike and you want the drone to follow you then this mode would be the right choice. To have a good quality, the subject must be different from the background; it should stand out. Before starting this mode, you have to select the subject on the screen and then it will follow up as the subject moves. Make sure; you also don’t drive too fast as well. If you are flying the mavic pro, then the max speed of the moving object should not be more than 30mph.
4- Tripod Mode: If you want things to be slow then this is the mode that you should try. You can also call it the opposite of the sports mode. Once you put your quadcopter in this mode, the speed of the quadcopter will drastically be reduced. According to the DJI, it would be around 2-3mph.