ok so i've been going through my footage from the last few months and a lot of it is just... fine? like technically ok, exposure is decent, no jello, but when i watch it back its just boring. its like i fly up, hover, look straight down or straight forward and thats it. my friends are polite about it but i can tell they dont really care lol.

i think my problem is composition but i genuinely dont know how to think about it when im up in the air. on the ground with a regular camera i kind of have an instinct for framing but in the air i lose that completely. how do people develop an eye for this? is there stuff i should be looking for before i even take off, or is it more about moving the camera around until something clicks

honestly the biggest thing that helped me was just looking at Google Maps satellite view of wherever im planning to fly before i even get there. like really studying the shapes and patterns from above. once you start seeing leading lines, curves, geometric stuff in fields or roads or rooftops, you start knowing what to look for when you get up. a straight road cutting through a landscape is boring, but an S-curve road is instantly interesting from above. same with shadows ? go earlier or later in the day and the long shadows become part of the composition themselves.

also movement helps a ton. a static hover shot almost always looks less interesting than the same shot with a slow reveal or a pull-back. even just adding a gentle lateral drift while youre shooting makes it feel more cinematic. you dont need crazy orbits or anything

im kind of in the same boat as you so take this with a grain of salt but what helped me was forcing myself to shoot the same spot from like 5 different angles and heights before moving on. i used to just find one angle and stick with it but now i try low and close, high and wide, straight down, low looking up at something in the foreground, and usually one of them is way better than what id have picked first. it feels inefficient but the hit rate on good shots went way up for me