Santa Cruz Mountain Photography
Every so often a client sends me a "tiny planet" photo they found online and asks if I can do that. The answer is yes, and it's one of my favorite things to shoot, but it's a different process than a normal aerial shot, worth explaining before you book one.
What it actually is
A little-planet panorama starts as a full 360-degree spherical photo, everything above, below, and around the drone at one hover point, stitched together from a series of individual frames. That sphere then gets projected into a flat circle using a technique called stereographic projection, which curls the horizon around into a ring and pulls the ground up into the center. The result looks like the whole scene is sitting on a tiny curved planet, with the sky compressed into a thin band around the edge.
Why it works for gatherings
The format is best with something happening directly below the drone: a wedding reception, a backyard party, a market, a crowd at an event. Because the whole 360-degree view compresses into one frame, you get every direction of a gathering visible at once, the string lights, the tent, the people scattered around it, all wrapped into a single circular image. It reads less like documentation and more like an illustration, which is part of the appeal. It's not a shot that replaces normal event coverage. It's a bonus, one distinctive frame that stands out from everything else in the gallery.
How the shoot actually goes
I hover the drone at a fixed point, usually 30 to 60 feet up depending on the space, and shoot a full rotation of overlapping frames rather than one photo. That set gets stitched into the sphere, then processed into the tiny planet projection afterward. It takes longer on site than a single aerial shot would, a few minutes of hovering and rotating instead of one press of the shutter, and it needs calm air. Wind that would barely bother a normal aerial photo will blur or misalign frames in a spherical set, so this is a shot I plan for good weather rather than force on a bad day.
When to ask for one
If you've got an event with a clear focal point below (a dance floor, a bonfire, a market layout) it's worth asking about ahead of time so I can plan the flight for it specifically, rather than trying to retrofit one from footage shot for something else. It's not something I do on every shoot by default, but it's easy to add to a booking if you know you want it.
If you like the look of it and want one worked into your event coverage, reach out and we can plan the shot around your space.