Peak Colors and Hazy Skies

I made a quick trip up the Columbia River Gorge last Friday to grab some last shots of fall colors and wasn't disappointed with the tree colors. Hazy skies and high winds were a different story however and I wasn't able to get good views of the Gorge itself. There were whitecaps on the river along with very choppy water in the ponds precluding any reflections of the nice colors. The wind gusts proved to be more than my drone could handle and I had to land while I still had control. There was an incoming storm that likely made short work of the fall colors and if it didn't there is a line of storms due to hit later this morning and continue through the week that certainly will.

Unlike the old growth forests I visited earlier in the week out along the coast the Gorge is not a pristine environment and features many stands of deciduous vegetation that thrive in the absence of the evergreen tree cover. The terrain in this image at Rooster Rock State Park has been extensively terraformed to accommodate I-84's passage through what would otherwise be wetlands. The freeway was easily visible when I started to line up this shot so I brought my drone down to a height that obscured the freeway behind the trees and was using a telephoto lens that helped make the scene feel a bit more pristine than it really was.



C&C always welcome.

Very nice. I am struggling with the question of drone vs camera. I don't have a constant favorite. Have you found an answer?

TimMc said:

Very nice. I am struggling with the question of drone vs camera. I don't have a constant favorite. Have you found an answer?

Click to expand...

Thanks Tim - I carry both and the choice of which camera to deploy is entirely based on what I am trying to shoot. For the scene above there is no view from the ground that allows me to use my mirrorless camera so I use the drone to get a good viewpoint of the subject I want to shoot. Last week when I was shooting in the coastal mountains of Oregon the views I wanted were within reach of my mirrorless camera which has much better image quality than the drone so the drone stayed in its carrying case. That said I had no ground based view of the surrounding terrain given the tree cover so I did launch the drone so I could see the mountains.

I see them as two different camera systems that give me a more broad approach to what I can shoot. I honestly don't struggle with the choice of which camera to use but embrace the wider range of photo opportunities since i have both.

TimMc said:

Very nice. I am struggling with the question of drone vs camera. I don't have a constant favorite. Have you found an answer?

Click to expand...

For me, my regular cameras are my favorite by far. My drone is a tool I can use sometimes. If in the early days of drones, people hadn't abused them so much and been so rude and irresponsible with them, perhaps there wouldn't be so many restrictions on their use.

For me at my home in Southern California for example, I basically would have to drive over 100 miles away to find a place where I could finally fly my drone. Even in Colorado there are lot's of restrictions. So I could never have my Drone be my favorite camera, because that would mean I would almost never be able to take photos.

So for me, while I take close to 20tb of photos and videos each year, I would say I take less then 1gb of photos with my drone. Typically, my drone comes out about once every 3 months. I do have it with me as I travel, so I always have my DJI Mini2 with me at all times, but I just rarely am able to, or remember to use it.

Good choice Alan to get some elevation and remove the I-84 from view. It's amazing just how hazy it is in the background there. But I do really like the fall color that you got there. Did you fly over it and do a straight down shot? That's one of my favorite ways to shoot fall colors as you probably know.

JimFox said:

Good choice Alan to get some elevation and remove the I-84 from view. It's amazing just how hazy it is in the background there. But I do really like the fall color that you got there. Did you fly over it and do a straight down shot? That's one of my favorite ways to shoot fall colors as you probably know.

Click to expand...

Thanks Jim - I had to lose altitude the mask the freeway as I had been shooting higher to be able to get a view of the (hazy) Gorge. I do take straight down shots and have some from the week before up near Wahkeena and Multnomah Falls. The Benson Recreation area I usually launch from in that area had some really nice colors at the time. The winds were too high for me to launch in that area last Friday. I'll work up an image from the week before with the Trix view of fall colors

This one really has two separate moods to it as you have aptly titled. The fall colors against the hazy skies makes this an interesting image.

Jameel Hyder said:

This one really has two separate moods to it as you have aptly titled. The fall colors against the hazy skies makes this an interesting image.

Click to expand...

Thanks Jameel - I was quite disappointed with the wind and haze given the color shows down low but decided I was going to shoot as long as I could. The wind warnings on the console were hard to ignore and would reappear the second I dismissed the warning. Its hard to line up a shot with a big chunk of the controller screen hiding behind the warning messages