A recent drone stills photography job I did about a month ago on a very special piece of New Zealand Coastal property for sale.
The Brief
The brief from my Realtor client was to get 5-6 hero drone stills of a 813 acre coastal property and luxury lodge. This first shot was actually two shots stitched together in Adobe Lightroom.
The whole property for sale looking south
Sunshine finally on the Lodge
The Challenge
The main ‘challenge’ to this job was that the property was at the other end of the South Island of New Zealand from where I live. It was a whole days plane and car travel to get to this remote location. We had 3 days to get the job done which was effectively only one shooting day as we needed the other two days for travel.
Added to this was that we were relying on the property owners to predict a good weather window 3 or 4 days ahead which is no easy feat on a coastal New Zealand property!
The Tasman Sea
Looking North
Shoot Day
Our one and only shoot day dawned heavily overcast unfortunately but myself and the interior stills photographer charged ahead regardless as we couldn’t return home empty handed.
Overcast conditions and things weren’t looking their best
However the weather gods decided to play the game at about 1:30pm in the afternoon after spending the morning shooting in overcast conditions. The benefits of going through the motions in the morning mean’t we knew exactly what spots to go back to to get the shots we needed once the sun popped.
We were also fortunate that once the sun did appear it was a nice and flattering late afternoon sun. Its also winter here giving a good low sun angle to help make things look good as opposed to a high and harsh overhead sun angle we get in mid summer.
A bit of wind sculpturing!
Limestone Cliffs
Your own private beaches included
Equipment Used
I shot the whole job with my DJI Inspire 2 and the Olympus 12mm lens (24mm focal length). I shot in full manual mode with a very stock standard 5600k white balance and used the DJI app’s auto-bracketing feature for each shot which gives you approximately 0.5 – 0.8 of a stop each side of your exposure. I shot it all in raw and editing the pictures in Adobe Lightroom. From memory I think I went through 5-6 pairs of batteries on my Inspire 2.
Nikau Palm Forest
Was the Client happy?
Yes the client and the property owners were very happy with the drone shots and the interior shots that my colleague took. It would have been a bit disappointing if the sun had not appeared and we returned with only the overcast shots. I would have loved to have shot some video of the property but neither my Realtor client or the property owner were interested in getting a video done. I need to work on selling the benefits of video better!
The Lodge on Dusk
The Purchase price?
In case you are interested in purchasing a slice of prime and remote coastal New Zealand, including the lodge, its selling for NZ$23,995,000 or approx US$16.5 million. Let me know if you are interested!
First let me say they are outstanding photos that show the property in all its rural and sea coast magnificence. And yes, I love to see and read about the brief, the problems (makes me feel better) and see the best of the results. I think my heart would have been in my mouth letting my propeller’d baby get so far away from me. My worry is not just loosing contact at distance but if the battery starts suddenly expiring, can I get home before loosing the last dregs of charge. And I can believe you went through that many batteries. And what a great demonstration on just how much a good sun quality light makes an image come to life. And I did not see you in any of the shots although I tried. How far out did you get from your home? And what altitude did this require for the “whole property” shots? My favorite is actually the Limestone Cliffs with the sun making a magical glow behind them.
So do you put your batteries on charge as you drain one? You shot in the morning, then again in the afternoon and then just as the sun was about to set. That’s a lot of flying and ground for the drone to cover. Lots of juice. So did you fly out of where the building was or did you also have to drive around to different locations?
Sad with that fabulous tableau not to also get video. Could you have clicked on the video record button as you flew back to home base? Just to get it in the can? Easy to say since I was not there.
How do you charge for travel? The rule of thumb I have used is half my day rate but that was back when I charge a half or full day rate and all expenses on top of that in the days when those expenses ran on average 50% of my day rate. But I have not charged travel since the advent of the digital age.
But thank you for sharing this. Its inspirational.
Thanks Peter- yes I had a couple of “moments” with my drone getting the big wide Peninsula shot when the drone lost contact with my controller…twice. I had a spotter with me and it was out about 1200 metres and was quietly praying that the return to home feature would work, which it did. We had the owners son with us who was driving us around to all the locations in a Can-Am style farm buggy as I never like my drone to be too far away from me when operating. That also allowed me the luxury of getting batteries back to base for charging as I only have 3 sets for my Inspire.
The big wide shot of the Peninsula is actually two shots I stitched together in Lightroom as I couldn’t get far enough away or wide enough with my 12mm lens to get the whole picture. That picture was also at the max altitude of 400 feet and I took 3 shots to cover the property and managed to stitch it with 2.
Fee’s wise I negotiated with the Realtor who was more than happy to pay my 3 days at my full day rate. Often in the past with video I will charge 60% of my full day rate for travel days. Cheers
Grant, thanks for that additional information. When you say 3 sets of batteries, I am assuming that the Inspire actually will mount 2 batteries at a time. That is a great feature. Since it can take some time to get out there and back, it must give you a lot more time to get a variety of shots.
And I appreciate a rule of thumb for billing for travel time. Very nice to get paid full day rate!
And I would never have guessed you had stitched together those shots. Worked very well indeed.
Yes the Inspire takes two sets of batteries at a time, supposedly to give some redundancy should one battery fail but yet to test that! It still only gives approx 18mins flight time with the two batteries which actually is a lot more than I’m used too. Cheers
Great job and information Grant! I’m especially impressed with the twilight shot. Which has me question how high you raised ISO for that shot and what shutter speed and f-stop were you at? Oh and any sky replacement? There doesn’t appear to be any significant noise. Nice!
I just looked at my Adobe Lightroom info for that shot and it was taken at ISo 400, 1/50th shutter at f3.2 I need to experiment more with twilight shots and how long or slow I can get away with my shutter speed settings. I was reluctant to go below 1/50th of a second in case I started getting some motion or movement blur in the shot. I’m not sophisticated enough with my photography editing to do sky replacement so was always careful not to over-expose the highlights and prefer to bring up the dark areas in the shot so that was the actual sky. Cheers
Here you go Grant https://www.realestate.co.nz/3344733
Thats the one.
Nice work! And yes, I enjoy reading about these types of projects. Keep’em coming, please.
Thanks for sharing. I would have shot some very short video and edited it. Then added it for free to client.
The property will probable be listed on (Sothebys International Reality) at that price tag.
Also a really nice movie location for ending scene.
It would be a good place for a movie villain to hide out!
I have an after thought. You should always (if time/weather permits) make a video.. This is for your own marketing! Also, each location is an opportunity to grow your skill set.
I was thinking Jason Bourne type…
Tonight Lottery (433 Million)… I just might buy the place… 🙂
It’s very evident to me that you are very skillful and adept in this medium but what I like most about your posts are the clear, direct, honest, human approach to the way you communicate with us. I look forward to your emails and announcements, all very informative. Thanks
Appreciate the kind feedback thanks Peter