This was a bucket-list outing, one I'd been contemplating for months. I wanted to capture holiday lighting on Main Street in downtown Grand Junction, Colorado. Because Main Street is less than five nautical miles from the airport, I sought and received authorization from the FAA to fly for thirty minutes with a ceiling of 100 feet in altitude above launch elevation. The entire LAANC procedure, even at that time of night, took less than two minutes. I launched from a vacant gravel lot at the end of the street, a space totally free of overhead obstructions. I think the lot may be used as an outdoor dining venue during the warmer months.
I captured this image at about 2:30 am. I chose to fly in the wee hours to minimize or avoid altogether any conflicts with pedestrian or vehicular traffic. I saw nobody afoot during my flight, though in retrospect, examination of the image suggests there may have been a couple of people on the sidewalk near the planter at extreme lower left. Among the few cars was a GJ police cruiser. The officer drove right by me without stopping to ask what a crazy old man whose face was illuminated by a controller display was doing at that time of night. For most of my flight, the drone was situated above the rooftops of buildings lining Main Street, but on occasion I flew over the empty sidewalks.
Not in the picture, of course, was the drone itself, whose flashing red and green position and status lights and flashing white strobes were rather festive in their own right.
I opted to use the 70mm camera for this shot. 1/4 second at ISO 400, with an exposure bias of -0.7 stops. Additional tweaks in Lightroom 6. Comments welcome.
I captured this image at about 2:30 am. I chose to fly in the wee hours to minimize or avoid altogether any conflicts with pedestrian or vehicular traffic. I saw nobody afoot during my flight, though in retrospect, examination of the image suggests there may have been a couple of people on the sidewalk near the planter at extreme lower left. Among the few cars was a GJ police cruiser. The officer drove right by me without stopping to ask what a crazy old man whose face was illuminated by a controller display was doing at that time of night. For most of my flight, the drone was situated above the rooftops of buildings lining Main Street, but on occasion I flew over the empty sidewalks.
Not in the picture, of course, was the drone itself, whose flashing red and green position and status lights and flashing white strobes were rather festive in their own right.
I opted to use the 70mm camera for this shot. 1/4 second at ISO 400, with an exposure bias of -0.7 stops. Additional tweaks in Lightroom 6. Comments welcome.
