patkelley

Sunset Rays

DJI Phantom 3 Professional
Edited in Lightroom

DJI Phantom 3 Professional
Edited in Lightroom
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Jun, 2016

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Behind The Lens

Location

I took this photo with my drone about 200 feet above my neighborhood. I was really just trying to test out the Automatic Exposure Bracketing (AEB) feature on my drone but the clouds and lighting were perfect that day so I did a panorama.

Time

This photo was taken in the early spring around sunset. Everyone knows about the "Golden Hour" in photography but when you are able to gain this kind of elevation, it takes on a whole new meaning. The way the tops of the trees lite up and the shadows are cast from larger structures adds so many layers to aerial images. What I really like about this photo is you can see some of the clouds' shadows which can only be seen from the sky.

Lighting

This is what you can expect from an aerial "Golden Hour" shot. I managed to get up there right when the sun was peaking through a couple large clouds and it cast some beams across the landscape. My favorite part of the image is the way the tall trees are lit up. The sun was getting pretty low so only the tallest things were illuminated.

Equipment

This was shot with a DJI Phantom 3 Professional quadcopter. The only modification was an ND16 filter.

Inspiration

I had purchased my drone about 2 weeks before this photo was taken. It was early spring so it was cloudy pretty much every day. This was my first opportunity to shoot a proper sunset from the sky. I was still learning the features on this camera and had recently discovered the bracketing setting so I decided this would be a good opportunity to try that out.

Editing

I did all my post-processing in Adobe Lightroom. This shot was created from 15 bracketed images - 5 on the left side, 5 in the center, and 5 on the right. I used Lightrooms "photo merge" feature to create an HDR of each section and used the same feature to create a panorama out of the HDRs. Once the panorama was created I did some work with the colors, boosted the saturation a bit and did some standard sharpening and leveling.

In my camera bag

I carry so much equipment that I require two bags. One is dedicated solely to my DJI Phantom 3 Pro and it's accessories (extra batteries, controller, tablet). In my regular camera bag I have my Nikon D5200 and a few lenses. Recently I've been using the Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 for most of my shooting but I also switch to the Nikon 35mm f1.8 and 50mm f1.8 from time to time. I also have a Tamron 70-300mm that I like to use for distant objects. I also store some 35mm film in my bag as I recently began shooting with a Asahi Pentax K1000. I sometimes try to replicate that vintage film look with digital images but I've found that you just can't do it any better than the real thing.

Feedback

Planning is the key to getting good landscape shots. Sunlight looks best around an hour before sunrise or sunset so make sure you are ready to go when that time comes. As far as aerial photography, the same composition principles remain. For this image, I simply placed the sun in the middle and let the sky do the rest of the composing. Using composition principles (rule of thirds, diagonal lines, etc.) is key to quality pictures and this remains true when you are shooting from the sky.

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patkelley

patkelley

Sunset Rays

DJI Phantom 3 Professional Edited in Lightroom

Behind The Lens

See more amazing photos, follow patkelley

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DJI Phantom 3 Professional
Edited in Lightroom

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