Edward Burtynsky, who is famous for his huge landscape and mega-engineering photography, uses drones for aerial photography. From an interview:
Twilley: From the point of view of a photographer, then, it might seem equally interesting that there are now all sorts of new types of photographic systems on the rise—quadcopter-mounted 3D scanners, drones, and even smart ammunition equipped with cameras that can loiter in an area taking aerial photographs. Simply on a technical level, I’m curious about where you see the future of photography going. Do you see a time when you’re not going to be riding in a helicopter over Los Angeles but, instead, piloting a little drone that’s flying around up there and taking photographs for you?
Burtynsky: I’m already doing it.
Twilley: You have a drone?
Burtynsky: Yeah. I use it to go into places where I don’t have any air space. I work with a team. One guy runs the chopper, one guy runs the head, and I take the shutter release and compose. For example, there is no civil aviation space in China, so I was using it there. I used it to shoot the big [Three Gorges] Dam area [shown above], and I used it to photograph agriculture.
So I am already using that technology. It offers new ways of entering into places that you would never have considered going—or that you couldn’t even go to—before.
(Via Kottke.org)
Comments
Doesn't sound like anything new here. Aerial photography from helis is a well developed technique - RunRyder and APLanding are sites that have a long track record for the 'serious' operators. I wouldn't classify a pilot controlled heli as a drone...
Yep you were
Heh, am I the only one who thought the crane was extending out of the image (via the drone tail fin)?