Which of the landmark Kolkata monuments looked most different from the way they have been viewed earlier? Which was the most picturesque from above?

You have used DJI Phantom 3 professional quadcopter for taking the aerial shots. How does this work? How expensive is this?

Did you buy it in India?

Is this your first shoot with a quadcopter?

Is there any other Indian city you wish to photograph this way?

Kolkata has been filmed by various lensmen. Whose work on Kolkata has inspired you?

Kolkata has become a character in various movies too by virtue of its cinematography. Would the technique used by you change the style of Kolkata's cinematography?

You have gone on record to state that there are still areas where you aren't completely satisfied with the end result. Can you state some such points and how you intend to improve?

Do you intend to come up with another video of the same monuments?

What are the other Kolkata monuments that you plan to photograph?

Can you share details of drone photography that you do and the book that is coming out?

Being a scientist, how do your colleagues react to this hobby? How do you balance the two worlds?

Have you shown your video to any ace Indian photographer? What's been their reaction?

Ever thought of using your expertise to promote the concept of Incredible India or offer your services to the West Bengal government to promote the State's tourism?

KOLKATA: This is no Hollywood movie. It is a short aerial video titled ‘Waking Up With Kolkata’ that has gone viral within days of it being uploaded on Youtube. Those who have watched it on his facebook page and his website insist that Kolkata’s monuments – Victoria Memorial, Shaheed Minar, Howrah Bridge and the Vidyasagar Setu – have never looked so beautiful before. The person who has made this possible is Kolkata-born Switzerland-based scientist Dr Sandip De. A self-taught photographer who has mastered the art by following ‘free online material’ and doing his own experiments, De completed his Physics honours from St Xavier's College before moving abroad. Currently, he is a scientist working on the next generation machine learning algorithms for materials discovery at Switzerland’s research university - The École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne.In January this year, he came back to his hometown. On January 28, he shot this video at various locations in the city. All it took was just two and half hours of shooting. The rest of the work was done in post-production. But once the video was uploaded, it took the Internet by storm. Excerpts from an interview with De:I was excited to see Shaheed Minar in particular. I think it was not possible before for someone to appreciate the symmetry and octagonal geometric design at the base of the Minar. For all other places, I could imagine what to expect. I liked all of them actually. The presence of fog added an interesting flavour to it.This is a small quadcopter with advanced control and stabilization system. It has an inbuilt small camera which can be control remotely same as the device itself. The live view from the camera can be seen on a smartphone connected with the controller. This equipment cost ~1500 $. Batteries last for only 15 minutes and each rechargeable battery costs ~200 $.No, it was not bought in India. So, I don't know exactly how much one would have to pay if someone wants to buy it in India. But 1500 $ comes around 1 lakh INR.No. I have used this in Switzerland in various places and recently made a video in Canary Islands (Spain) during my recent travel. ( Watch video here Well, given a chance, I would love to capture my whole beautiful country in this way not just cities.To be honest, there are so many great photographs of Kolkata from various photographers that it is hard to mention any specific name for the purpose. Almost every single photographer I know from Kolkata or has travelled to Kolkata has some unique image of the city. In terms of videography (which are not part of any movies), I am not aware of many such videos portraying our city. In recent times "Let Calcutta Surprise You" by Priyanka Rungta and "Kolkata Timelapse" by Jayanta K Ghosh are two videos which I liked a lot. For my aerial videos, I mostly draw inspiration from aerial works done by National Geographic and Discovery channel cinematographers.(Aerial view of Victoria Memorial)I think Kolkata's cinematographers are well-aware of advantages and challenges of this approach very well, probably much more than I do. So I don't consider myself in a position to comment on this.Yes. There are multiple cases actually. For example, the composition of approaching near Shaheed Minar top could have been better, the composition near top of Victoria Memorial Hall could have been much better. Many more such instances are there. There were too much fog and poor light, which resulted in too much noise in the video which was not possible to get rid of completely in post-production. In fact, I asked my friend, Kalyan Dey, who was with me during the shoot, to go with me again the next day to re-shoot some of the scenes. Unfortunately, the weather condition did not improve and I could not stay longer in Kolkata.(Aerial view of Howrah Bridge)I would love to but I don't live in Kolkata now. So I have to wait for sometime before I get that chance again.I would love to make a video showing the modern Kolkata including New Town and Rajarhat at some point.Thanks to the advancement of technology, now anyone can buy a small quadcopter and see how our world looks from above. We photographers are taking this option to share our everyday world from a new angle. Until few years back, these could be done only by high budget Hollywood productions. I have recently ventured into aerial photography and already got some recognitions. Last month one of my aerial photo of wine valley of La Geria ( click here for the slideshow ) got published in National geographic.Regarding the book, I have been approached by a company publishing a book with work of drone photographers around the world, which would be published this year. I am not allowed to disclose more on this at the moment.My friends and colleagues already were aware of my hobby since long time and they were always very supportive and encouraging.Being a scientist, I stay busy most of the time in my research work but photography has become a lifestyle choice for me. I always carry a camera, at least a small one, everyday and I take pictures whenever I see something interesting. Most of the major photography works are done during my travel and vacation time though. While science keeps me motivated to work on challenging problems, photography gives an way of expressing my creative outlook and gives me immense joy in free time. I never experienced any problem balancing both worlds.I did not go to anyone to show the video myself, simply because I did not know anyone personally. But many people including photographers, videographers and musicians have got in touch with me expressing their admiration after I published my work. I am really grateful to all of them for their support and I look forward to work with some of them in future.Honestly, I was not in a position to think of any such possibilities until now. But now that people are familiar with my work, I would be really happy to be part of such projects. It would be ideal to be part of such government projects to carry out such works as that would give much more freedom and options.