Stills carry different requirements than motion — resolution, latitude, and the patience to wait out the light.
Aerial stills in New York are mostly an architecture, development and editorial market, and the permitting overhead means each authorized flight has to earn its cost. We plan these as list-driven shoots: every frame identified before we launch, because there is no casual second attempt.
Aerial stills for key art, campaigns, editorial, architecture and listings. We shoot raw, deliver graded or flat depending on what your retoucher wants, and we plan around the sun rather than around the schedule where the schedule allows it. The same certification and insurance apply as on any motion job, because the airspace does not care what you are capturing.
Winter shortens the day sharply and wind between buildings gets serious. Late spring and autumn give the cleanest air and the best skyline visibility, which is when most of the aerial work here gets scheduled.
New York City is Class B three times over, boxed in by JFK, LaGuardia and Newark, with helicopter routes running the rivers below that. On top of federal airspace, the City has its own long-standing restrictions on where a drone may take off and land, enforced by NYPD rather than the FAA. Flying here legally is a two-agency problem.
We shoot the Manhattan skyline, the bridges, the boroughs, and the waterfront — and we travel. CineDrones works nationwide, so if your production is basing in New York and shooting somewhere else entirely, that is a normal week for us.
DRONE PHOTOGRAPHY — OTHER MARKETS: Albuquerque Atlanta Austin Chicago Las Vegas Los Angeles Miami New Orleans Salt Lake City