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How Dronestagram is changing aerial photography
Cheap, remote-controlled aircraft are helping inspired photographers reach new, low-level altitudes
Like Instagram? Love Bernhard Edmaier's photography? Then try Dronestagram, a great photo-sharing site that celebrates its first anniversary this month. Drone photography, which places remote-controlled cameras onto small unmanned aircraft, has been used by paparazzi photographers for some time now. However landscape, fine-art, nature and documentary photographers are starting to buy radio controlled quadcopters with dedicated cameras to extend their reach.
![Jericsaniel's shot from Manila, in The Philippines took second place in Dronestagram's recent contest](/resource/g0050776-960x540.jpg)
Though the results still depend on the skill of the photographer, we were taken with the winning images in a recent Dronestagram/ National Geographic contest.
While the winning images don’t really impinge on the sweeping work of Edmaier and co., the photographers operate incredibly well at lower altitudes, capturing scenes just a few hundred feet above ground level.
![Drone-cs's shot of Annecy, France took third place in Dronestagram's recent contest](/resource/annecy.jpg)
It’s a distance most planes can’t dip down to, and brings a new, more human scale range of low-level aerial photography into focus. While most countries have passed laws governing the height and weight of remote controlled aircraft, there’s still a huge amount of photographic potential to be explored in these lower reaches.
![Bernhard Edmaier, Estuary, Landeyjarsandur, Iceland](/resource/earthonfire-57.jpg)
Take a look at Dronestragram’s winning images here. For more on Edmaier, go here, and for insight into another aerial pioneer take a look at Georg Gerster’s Paradise Lost, a unique archive of his beautiful aerial photographs of Persia.