This weekend, I was reading Twitter, minding my own business, when I ran across this tweet by Nick Bilton. It had this picture taken from a drone attached to it.

I saw this picture, and I was intrigued. A longtime lover of photography, I am really interested in the perspectives you could capture with a drone that you wouldn’t normally be able to capture without a helicopter, or even without a helicopter.  As I do, I started searching for more information about using drones for photography, and discovered a few sites/posts with some great information.  First, this post on the National Geographic web site.  Later, I found skypixel.org which seems to be a very actively maintained blog with some really striking drone photography on it.  It also features this awesome getting started guide.  If you are at all interested in this stuff, this seems like the page to bookmark to get started.

I have gone ahead and ordered a practice drone.  Before I spend too much money on this, I want to be sure that it’s something I enjoy doing, and that I can actually fly one of these things.  Even the bare bone drones plus a GoPro camera will end up setting you back a thousand dollars.  Although it looks like rentals are going to be available soon, keep reading.

A couple of days later, Jason Kottke posted this Drone selfies post and the web exploded with drone photography interest.  The drone selfie video, which I have embedded below, was take at the same time as the shot above that Nick Bilton posted to Twitter.  It seems like this meme has exploded in the last few days, this led to more drone selfies, or dronies.  Personally, I am more interested in taking high quality stills from unique perspectives than the videos, but I probably will reconsider once I have gear.

Amit Gupta, who took the Drone selfie below, has added Drone Photography gear rental to his awesome photography gear site, Photojojo.  Go here to check that out and sign up for more information.  Looks like they are launching on May 15th.  There’s also a great guide to “How to take a perfect Dronie” on that page.

Bernal Hill selfie from Amit Gupta on Vimeo.