The Taller View

[AlanLichty]

One of the more fun aspects to shooting with DJI's Mavic 4 Pro drone is the ability to rotate the lens to shoot in portrait mode rather than always shooting with a landscape orientation. This is especially useful for large scale panoramas like a seriously nice sunset like I saw a few nights ago. I posted a four panel sunset panorama using landscape mode a couple of days ago and a few minutes after I shot that sequence I rotated the camera to portrait mode and shot this six panel panorama to include a lot more sky and foreground in the image.

Best viewed on a large screen at full size.

C&C always welcome.

 

[JimFox]

Oh man Alan! I love this one a lot! I's so cool how the orange is hitting those smaller clouds scattered across the sky.

I am going to name this a Shotgun Sunset!

You can thank me later.

 

[AlanLichty]

Oh man Alan! I love this one a lot! I's so cool how the orange is hitting those smaller clouds scattered across the sky.

I am going to name this a Shotgun Sunset!

You can thank me later.

Thanks Jim - good descriptor for this one. The only downside to portrait mode shooting with the Mavic 4 Pro is a limitation of +10º upward for the gimbal so this is as far up as I could point the camera. There were lots more of the little puffy clouds directly above me that couldn't be included.

 

[Jameel Hyder]

Quite an intense sunset. Nice textures and of course the color show.

I haven’t done much with the portrait orientation yet. There isn’t a lot of interest in the ground layer when I fly above the home.

 

[AlanLichty]

Quite an intense sunset. Nice textures and of course the color show.

I haven’t done much with the portrait orientation yet. There isn’t a lot of interest in the ground layer when I fly above the home.

Thanks Jameel - The limitation on upward motion of the gimbal definitely puts some constraints on when this feature is useful. In this case the gimbal is pushed right up to the +10º limit and still includes more of the ground than what I wanted. It's not as bad with the 70mm lens but at 28mm the local neighborhoods get a lot more real estate in my frame than I would like in portrait mode. Portrait mode is wonderful up in the Gorge shooting waterfalls since the subject is vertical in the first place. I am almost always using portrait mode in panorama sequences to get a little more horizontal space in my frame than I would get with a single shot..

 

[MonikaC]

You're getting really good at this, Alan! Like it a lot.

 

[AlanLichty]

You're getting really good at this, Alan! Like it a lot.

Thanks Monika - easy to get a lot of practice when I only have to walk about 25' from my kitchen to a deck chair and launch straight up to shoot The hardest part is waiting for Mother Nature to provide sunset conditions like this to make it worthwhile.

 

[Jeffrey]

Very nice image Alan. I enjoy the same feature. As long as you are viewing straight ahead and not tilting down.

 

[AlanLichty]

Very nice image Alan. I enjoy the same feature. As long as you are viewing straight ahead and not tilting down.

Thanks Jeffrey - I have usually been trying to shoot more up than down. When I am shooting up in the Gorge my 400' ceiling is only half way up the walls of the canyon so the tops of the waterfalls is still above my position. Are we limited to 10º down as well?

 

[Jeffrey]

Thanks Jeffrey - I have usually been trying to shoot more up than down. When I am shooting up in the Gorge my 400' ceiling is only half way up the walls of the canyon so the tops of the waterfalls is still above my position. Are we limited to 10º down as well?

I think you can look down a bit more than up with the portrait mode. Never really did a test... BTW, you need to fly higher in the gorge. It's OK to do so. Consider ground level to be the top! Nobody will care. I flew over 1000' high recently, quite remote with NO people around. This message will self destruct in 10 seconds...

 

[AlanLichty]

I think you can look down a bit more than up with the portrait mode. Never really did a test... BTW, you need to fly higher in the gorge. It's OK to do so. Consider ground level to be the top!

Actually I can do that already if I am away from the no fly zones. With my Pt. 107 I can fly up to within 400' of an obstacle like a cliff wall or electrical tower and then ascend to 400' above the obstacle. This is what makes it possible to do drone surveys of electrical transmission lines and the likes. There are a couple of places in the Gorge with no fly zones that extend up to the cliff faces but those are crowded spots where you wouldn't want to fly close anyway.

You do have to keep an eye out for air traffic however as there are several airstrips along the river. Manned aircraft can and do fly at 500' above the river and the Gorge walls are around 800' high. They would be nuts to fly close to the rock walls where I usually go but I have seen aircraft at almost my eye level up there.