Local photographer soars above San Diego with his drone

KC Stanfield | SDCNN Intern

If you wanted to take a picture from the sky 10 years ago, your options were limited. You were either required to fly in a plane or helicopter, but photographer Aldryn Estacio is using a new way: drones.

Drones have gotten some bad press in recent years, not only because of their role in warzones, but because some hobbyists are not as conscientious as others when it comes to privacy violations; Estacio hopes to enhance the reputation of drones and he’s well on his way to doing so.

The San Diego native will be showcasing both his work and his book, “San Diego Aerial Drone Photography, Vol. 1” — the first of its kind — at the upcoming Mission Federal ArtWalk on April 25 – 26. His first volume is a very high-end product, but he is working with some publishers to make the book more affordable for future printings.

“Most people shoot just to share online, but I photograph knowing I’ll be going to print,” he said. “I’m an old-school designer and feel like actual prints are an art form that people just don’t do anymore because of social media. “When I first got my Phantom [drone], my goal was to create a tangible household coffee table book with my photos.”

The lay-flat style book contains his stunning aerial works of major San Diego landmarks; there are the major beaches, La Jolla and Del Mar; and universities, USD and SDSU; plus Mount Soledad; the Carlsbad Flower Fields; all four piers; and areas of Balboa Park.

In addition to the book, he will have large format acrylics of his work on display at ArtWalk, all of which were taken by his drones. A drone will be there for visual purposes, too, but Estacio said he wants the focus to be on the art rather than the technology.

His passion for aerial drone photography was cemented in late 2013 with the DJI Phantom 1, but he originally caught the photography bug in the late 1990s working as an event photographer. Soon he began photographing people and places professionally and did so for 10 years while keeping his technology-centric day job. He jumped on the GoPro bandwagon when his first child was born and then saw an ad for a drone/GoPro setup. He tested it once and was hooked for life.

“You get to be a little kid again, but with big boy toys in a way,” he said.

Estacio currently owns two drones; the Phantom and his latest, a significantly more advanced quadcopter called the DJI Inspire 1, which his young son named Spider Bytez after the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” villain. This model shoots 4K video, 12-megapixel photos and can be managed from a control box connected to a handheld mobile device. Estacio uses an iPad, which he attaches to a lanyard around his neck for ease of use and as a precautionary measure. The Inspire also has a gimbal, which stabilizes the camera even if the craft itself is swaying back and forth due to wind or piloting error.

“I get really steady footage with it,” he said. “I use it as a tripod in the air; it’s that stable.”

Besides, photographing with a bird’s eye view is incredibly appealing.

“That’s what’s pretty amazing about it,” he said. “I’ve lived here my whole life, and now I get to see everything in a 360-degree view, which is awesome.”

Estacio estimates that Spider Bytez can withstand 30 mph winds. The drawbacks are its fairly large size and 12- to 15-minute battery life, but he believes the benefits greatly outweigh them.

So far the biggest challenges have been airspace issues. Changes, based on government regulations, are made to the software all the time. He recently photographed the new Downtown waterpark [see the February Downtown News cover photo, Vol. 16, Issue 2] and returned two weeks later for more footage but FAA had deemed that area too close to the airport’s flight path by then and it impacted his ability to take off.

“I went to Torrey Pines recently,” he said. “There’s no restrictions in height, yet there’s ’copters and personal pilots going 100 feet in the air, so who has the right of way? That’s what we don’t know. That’s the problem with it; we’re all trying to share this air space.”

Shortly after his first drone took flight, Estacio created his brand Flyt Path, designed a logo and launched the flytpath.com website. There, his hobby has transcended to a potential source of income and a main focus in his life.

For future photos, Estacio plans on taking his drone to the wide open areas of East County and beyond, where it’s less populated and he hasn’t spent as much time exploring. In April he’ll be traveling to Hawaii to take some shots around the island of Oahu. Because of the Inspire’s large size, he’ll be taking his more portable Phantom model.

Despite the different angles and various government regulations, Estacio said aerial drone photography still shares many aspects with regular photography. You still need to do the usual photographer checklist, he said, like taking sunlight into account. The DJI Inspire 1 has a fixed aperture, but it allows you to set the ISO and even has bracketing.

Unlike a normal photographer, however, Estacio carries a second GoPro around on his chest as back up, but not for photo-related reasons. He films everything he does when he is out with his drone; not only as documentation for the manufacturer in case of malfunction, but the camera’s presence also keeps people on their best behavior. Whether he’s approached by officials or bystanders, he needs proof of the interaction; especially since people have been known to assault drone photographers while thinking their privacy is being violated.

“I’m not trying to piss people off,” he said. “I just want my shot, then I’m out of there.”

At flytpath.com, he shares how he got into drone photography, offers tips to other enthusiasts, displays a portfolio of his work and sells some of his fascinating photographs, taken of places we all know but from angles we’d never imagined. He has also recently taken to interviewing big name experts in the business, asking the questions anyone new to or wanting to learn more about drone photography could use the answers to. A recent interview was with Eric Cheng, DJI’s director of digital imaging.

“We are rediscovering our world with each flight,” Estancio states on his blog. “Technology has advanced so much these past couple of years that what was once impossible is now accessible to everyone.

“You will normally find me at a couple hundred feet with my flying tripod,” he said.

Though he has only been doing aerial drone photography for less than two years, the technology has already changed so much that even if the FAA puts limits on where his drones can take him — the sky is literally the limit for where his art can.

Check out Estacio and his work at ArtWalk and visit his website, flytpath.com. Make sure you poke around in all the nooks and crannies of the site, just like a drone would.

—KC Stanfield is an editorial intern at SDCNN. Editor Morgan M. Hurley contributed to this report. She can be reached at [email protected].