Game of Drones: How This Husband and Wife Team Took Photography to New Heights Elevated Element combines unmanned technology and photography, and sales are soaring.

Entrepreneurs: Husband-and-wife team Terry and Belinda Kilby traded careers as a software developer and art teacher, respectively, to launch their Owings Mills, Md.-based drone business, Elevated Element, in 2012.

"Aha" moment: Terry, a self-described tinkerer, first retrofitted a remote-control helicopter with a digital camera in 2010. Although the aerial photos were grainy, Belinda recognized the potential for capturing images from vantage points that were once impossible.

Optimal flight path: Creating the ideal drone took time. The original $150 prototype could not reach the desired altitudes or produce professional-grade images, so Terry retreated to his workshop, where he used a CNC (computer numerical control) machine and 3-D printer to experiment. After three years and more than a dozen airframe designs, he came up with the Cygnus quadcopter, a drone that flies up to 400 feet (below occupied airspace and the range in which remote-controlled aircraft are typically flown), capturing high-resolution images and video footage with a GoPro camera mounted to the frame.