DIY Aerial Videography Insight From Expert Flyer Eric Cheng

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Aerial videography is a quickly growing field, and awared-winning photographer Eric Cheng is one of the multicopter pilots who has helped popularize this with his fantastic videos.

Eric focuses on water- and air-based photography and video, below the sea as the publisher of Wetpixel.com, and above the ground through Skypixel.org, both really great sites to keep enthusiasts informed about the latest developments in these fields. His Steamer Lane, Santa Cruz video from late 2013 still stands as one of the best drone-shot surfing videos we’ve seen, and has inspired quite a few others to get drones and put them above the waves for similar shots. Sometimes with disastrous results, as he documents for MAKE in “Drowned Drones.”

We caught up with Eric at our issue release fly-in to chat about how he got his start, how off-the-shelf flying will differ from the DIY variety, any tips he might have for aspiring aerial videographers (don’t miss his writeup about this from MAKE V37), and where his next adventure will be taking him.

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Mike Senese is the Executive Editor of Make: magazine. He is also a TV host, starring in various engineering and science shows for Discovery Channel, including Punkin Chunkin, How Stuff Works, and Catch It Keep It.

An avid maker, Mike spends his spare time tinkering with electronics, doing amateur woodworking, and attempting to cook the perfect pizza.

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