Become An Expert Drone Pilot: The Top 5 Online Drone Courses on Udemy

So you just purchased a drone and want to learn how to learn how to fly the thing. Or maybe you have had a quadcopter for a while and are ready to move up to the next level. What do you do? Take an online drone course! During sales, these online courses can be around $10-$15, and are some of the best investments you can make. This is especially true when you’re spending $500 and up on a drone. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve referred back to some of these classes (once you purchase a course on Udemy you receive full access to all of the coursework forever). I’ve learned all kind of drone maneuvers and photo/video editing tricks to end up with some really professional looking footage. Also provided are some useful courses on how to start a drone business. The website that provides these courses, Udemy, has proved time and time again that it provides the best instructors, along with a great review system so you know what you’re getting yourself into. You’re able to go at your own pace, and watch sections in whatever order you’d like. Currently there is a massive sale going on at Udemy. So in honor of the sale, here are my top 5 favorite online drone courses available through Udemy…

Check out some of my other drone articles…

1. Stunning Aerial Videography and Photography Using Drones

“Create aerial video & photos that DELIGHT your audience: Learn from basic drone handling up to advanced flying and editing”

What Will I Learn?

These lectures have breathtaking flight footage to illustrate the points
6 tools for you to take away to help you with your planning, flying, filming, and editing
Raw footage for you to practice the edit techniques for yourself
Understand some of the typical legal and safety considerations when planning your production
Choose the right aerial hardware and editing software for successful videos and photos
Identify the key flying skills, shot options, flight patterns, and gimbal skills needed to produce amazing aerial productions
Successfully plan your flying trips to maximize your chance of getting beautiful shots
Make creative ground based footage to enrich your aerial productions
Complete pre-flight checks before you start flying and filming both at the flying site and before
Learn 25 design principles to follow when creating your production
Complete the 8 editing steps, common to most editing software, in order to make stunning aerial productions

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2. Become a master drone pilot in 2 weeks and start a business

“Learn to fly a drone cinematically and get proven tips on how to start and manage an aerial filming business”

What Will You Learn?

This course is broken down into five major sections or modules:
First section: Camera setup. This section will provide detailed walkthrough of different video options from best resolution to shoot at with editing infrastructure in mind to best field of view to film with from the perspective of drones to best frame rate to film at with having lighting in mind. It will also cover best time-lapse mode option to select from when taking aerial images as well as best Mega Pixel options to choose when flying for longer period of time. All of this will ensure that your drone is capturing the best quality of video or photo so you can have a professional product after post-production.
Second Section: Aerial cinematography. It’ll cover drone safety, basic drone flights and advance aerial cinematography, which will include correct camera positioning techniques and unique cinematic drone shots including and not limiting to: Ground Up, Tilt, Pan, Orbit Rotate, Narrow Discover, Fly to space, Fly from space, and other unique shots to empower you to bring unique cinematic shots in your overall aerial footage.
Third Section: Professionally edit aerial videos. It’ll cover basic editing tools overview, How to import media into the project and into the libraries, Adding Text and Transitions, Basic and advance color grading, syncing videos to the beat of the audio, 4k zoom from fix camera lens, adding watermarks to your videos to finally adding 3D Motion Graphics Fly through Text effects to your aerial videos. This section will ultimately teach you how to take your perfectly shot aerial videos to making them breathtakingly amazing!
Fourth section: Art of photo editing. For that, you’ll use Adobe Lightroom to polish up your aerial photos. This section will teach basic editing tools overview, Importing and tagging images, Selective advance editing using Brush and gradient tools, How to remove shadow of drone from the images, Camera profiling – How to flatten out images with fish eye effect automatically and how to add watermarks to multiple photos automatically using batch export with client’s name embedded within the file name. This section will bring your aerial photos to life!
Fifth Section: How to start your own aerial filming business. It’ll discuss how to create your own logos, website, business cards and how to find, attract, and acquire the right type of customers interested in aerial footage. We’ll also uncover how to create professional invoices with the right stipulations added for an aerial filming business. In addition, we’ll discuss how to set the right price for various different aerial filming jobs (Aerial Photos, Aerial Videos and Custom work) and we’ll discuss how to create a proper business plan for your business by having a goal and target in mind when operating an aerial filming business so that you can start, manage, sustain and ultimately grow your aerial filming business.

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3. Phantom Filmschool and Phantom Filmschool II

“Use autopilot to get amazing cinematic shots with your drone. You will master the Litchi app & take pro footage!”

What Will You Learn?

Shoot 8 killer shots that will blow your audience away
Use the Litchi hub like a pro
Frame a subject with ease
Use Litchi app & camera settings to get the best results
Use autopilot to shoot stunning footage with your Phantom 3/4 & Inspire
Grasp the concept of shutter speed and ND filters
Use the Litchi app with ease & confidence
Get maximum footage per battery without wasteage
Calculate the correct altitude settings for a mission

Phantom Filmschool II

Shoot 6 new killer shots to blow your audience away
Color correct videos to produce stunning results
Fix exposure issues in video footage to get best results
Create mind blowing aerial 360 pano’s
Create engaging & unique aerial virtual tours
Advance your knowledge with the principles of the gimbal pitch modes, heading & interpolation
Shoot amazing silky smooth footage
Fly with confidence & ease
Get more great footage per battery then ever before

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4. UAS Operations: 14CFR§107 Drone Ground School Study Guide

“Preparing to meet the FAA knowledge test reqirements for UAS Remote Pilot Certification under 14CFR§107”

What Will You Learn?

The goal of this course is to help the student gain an understanding of the 12 areas of knowledge listed in 14 CFR 107.73
Return to this course to review for the required renewal testing every 24 months.
Upon completion of this course and review of the supplemental resources the student should have no problem passing the FAA Remote Pilot exam.
The FAA indicates it could take up to 20 hours of study to adequately prepare for the RPC exam. Review the resource materials carefully. The download or purchase the Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge is strongly recommended.
The information is here. Your success depends on how well you make use of what is provided.

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