The remote-controlled quadcopter buzzed like a flying weed whacker as it hovered near Eric Sterman, a GoPro camera beneath it focusing on the videographer who is changing the way people view surfing.
With a tug of a joystick, Sterman sent the copter into the sky above the Pupukea beach where he stood. Another toggle and out it flew over crashing waves that filled the air with salt spray. Sterman, a thin young man with close-cropped hair and an intense gaze, stared into a small monitor on a tripod. He saw what the airborne camera saw: a panorama previously known only to birds.
Blue-green waves as they broke 30 feet below. Surfers and bodyboarders gliding toward shore. The ocean, the beach and the mountains all in a panoramic sweep when he spun his quadcopter in a circle.
Ever since he bought his first quadcopter last fall, the 23-year-old Sterman has flown over landscapes and highways, from lush Waimea Valley to Kamehameha Highway traffic at Laniakea. But Sterman is also a surfer. He grew up watching the North Shore’s famous waves, riding them, too. As soon as he had mastered the art of flying his quadcopter, he was hovering over the most famous wave break in the world: Pipeline.
He captured Kelly Slater’s winning ride at the 2013 Billabong Pipeline Masters — an 18-second clip that’s drawn more than 170,000 viewers as well as an Instagram shout-out from the 11-time world champion. Sterman’s encore was a four-minute collage of surfers at Pipeline that he posted about a month ago. In just three weeks that video was seen by more than 3.2 million viewers.
And two weeks ago Sterman was on Maui, flying over the mouth of Jaws and waves with 40-foot faces. Perhaps more hair-raising than the wipeouts, however, were the dramatic shots of surfers paddling out off the rugged Peahi coastline.
"It’s something totally different," Sterman said. "It’s something that hasn’t been really done that often, and it’s bringing a whole new perspective to surfing and making it more interesting. Everybody is looking for the new thing, and I feel like this is it."
Quadcopters, such as the $860 DJI Phantom 2 that Sterman flies, have been growing in popularity over the past four years. His Phantom 2, which is shaped like a plus sign that’s 13 inches wide, can be fitted with a GoPro — the lightweight video camera that mounts on almost anything. A gimbal keeps the camera level during flight, and a transmitter beams the images to the beach. The whole thing weighs about 3.5 pounds.
It also features a built-in compass and GPS system that allows the quadcopter to always know where it is in relation to the operator. And if it goes out of range — DJI says 1,640 feet but Sterman says 2,500 — the GPS kicks in and returns the quadcopter to the spot where it took off.
"It’s a little intelligent thing," he said. "It is pretty amazing."
Sterman can either watch the action on a monitor, which allows him the freedom of quickly looking up to check his surroundings, or through a set of goggles.
"With the goggles it’s more immersive where you feel like you are in a helicopter in a way," he said. "They look goofy, though."
Sterman was traveling on Bali last summer when he saw a quadcopter for the first time during a surf contest. It looked like too much fun to ignore, but his first flights were over properties handled by his father’s company, Sterman Realty.
Richard Sterman said he’s blown away by what his son is doing. The elder Sterman, a surfer for 45 years, has seen enough surf photos and movies to know what’s special.
"This is totally different," he said. "Night and day. It’s a whole new angle. It is as if you suspended a camera right above the surfer just high enough to move along with the surfer. Nobody has been able to do that with any other form of photography."
Flying a quadcopter is harder than it looks, Richard Sterman said. A pilot friend of his who flies for Southwest Airlines couldn’t control it and crashed it in Sterman’s backyard.
And he wasn’t trying to keep up with a surfer on a breaking wave by flying backward and just ahead of the action at the right angle.
"From what I know, Eric is the best controller in Hawaii," the elder Sterman said, fatherly pride duly noted. "He’s a rising star."
Clark Little, whose photos from inside breaking shorebreak redefined close-up views of surf, said Sterman’s aerial videos are distinctive. He loved the clip of Slater’s winning wave, a huge emerald barrel in water so clear (and shallow) you can see the reef.
It’s a perspective that even full-size helicopters can’t capture without being noisy and intrusive.
"He knows how to operate this thing well, and he knows where to look," Little said. "It seems like he has experience and is doing a damn good job."
Eric Sterman can’t even begin to describe what it takes to fly his quadcopter.
"Dude, it’s too hard to explain," he said. "Honestly, it is really hard. It isn’t something you can grab and do. Like I said, 90 percent of people crash these things. I’m focusing on salt spray, how windy it is, my orientation, height and my surroundings and my angle and my picture."
And the surfers, of course. When he started, they didn’t know what to make of his little copter, Sterman said. They tried to splash it with water.
"Everybody was pointing up and looking at it and saying, ‘What is that?’" he said.
Now they put on a show.
