Dan Robirds Wrote:
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Dan, Nice to see a sensible analysis of the situation.
> I personally don't see
> any issue with photographing a chartered photo
> train with or without a drone from public property
> when it is done safely from either a decent
> distance and not in the potential background, or
> during re-positioning moves when non of the paying
> photographers are shooting.
As one of the tour organizers, I actually fully agree with this statement. I'm amazed at the number of huffy responses stating that we don't have the right to ban or restrict people from public property when nothing of the sort has ever been suggested.
> Some of the comments suggested that since the CATS
> (and many other similar operations) are publicly
> owned, that there should be open access. I will
> say that if you are safely photographing something
> from public lands you may have the right to do so,
> though it may be discourteous to freeload on a
> photo charter and certainly to purposely interfere
> with the paying participants efforts to get the
> opportunity to shoot the photos/video that they
> paid for.
What this all boils down to is a matter of common courtesy. You have the right to take photos from public property and no one is contesting that, but standing in front of other photographers or flying a drone in front of other photographers (the equivalent of standing in front of the photo line) is simply discourteous. Factor in the noise from a drone and shooting around a photo line is probably not a good idea and may even be a safety issue. See Kevin's excellent post regarding drones and the FAA.
Kevin on Drones
Michael Allen