Mini 4 Sunrise over Columbus

[Jman13]

Some shots from this morning in Columbus, OH with the Mini 4 Pro:

 

[Prop Wash]

Nicely done!

 

[waynorth]

Well, that tiny mini 4 Pro continues to impress me.

 

[EvanWasHere]

Some shots from this morning in Columbus, OH with the Mini 4 Pro:

Can you tell us your process on taking and editing these shots?

 

[Jman13]

Can you tell us your process on taking and editing these shots?

Taking - I just fly looking for interesting compositions - I'm a photographer first and foremost, so my drones are just an extension of my camera into the sky, so I use the same general process when flying as I do when hiking and such.

These were taken with 5 shot auto exposure bracketing, in RAW (12MP), due to the large dynamic range of the scene. the panorama was done manually, setting the initial centered composition, then I flipped the camera to vertical, and panned left, starting the sequence. I shot in manual mode for the initial exposure so that all stacks of the panorama had identical exposures. I processed them in Lightroom, merging each 5 shot sequence to HDR in Lightroom. For the panorama, I then took the center HDR shot, processed it to taste, and then synced those edits with the other 4 HDR merges in the panorama. I then selected each HDR shot and merged them to a panorama in Lightroom.

Final processing was done in Photoshop with my standard landscape / outdoor process, which consists of a a recipe I created in Nik Color Efex, though I tweak each to taste. I use Tonal Contrast, Glamour Glow and Darken/Lighten Center filters in Color Efex. Each one is actually pretty lightly used: the tonal contrast gives a bit more tonal separation (I am between 5-18%, so very mild effect) - then Glamour Glow softens those transitions a bit - usually around 17-20%, slight warming no saturation adjustment - and finally Darken/Lighten center, I place the center where I can shape the light a bit, and outer brightness darkened by 10-15%, and inner brightness increased by about 8%. On this panorama I used control points to remove the effect in the corners of the sky, so they didn't get artifically dark.

 

[EvanWasHere]

I'm also a photographer first, commercial photographer second.

Thank you for your process. Looks like it's time for me to reinstall the Nik plugin!

Have you tried doing the 48 megapixel 3 shot AEB yet on the Mini Pro 4 instead of the 5 shot 12MP AEB?

I haven't had a chance to fly the mini 4 yet. Will take my first flight this weekend.