Category Archives: Drone

Washington Pass, North Cascades

I love the North Cascades Highway (Highway 20) in Washington for breathtaking views and a peaceful retreat. The Washington Pass Vista Point offers panoramic views of majestic mountain peaks. Take your time and appreciate the splendid viewpoints, including the Washington Pass Vista Point. It’s a must-see attraction for nature and outdoor enthusiasts, tourists, and anyone looking to retreat from everyday hustle and bustle.

Getting a drone photo from the pass has been on my must-do list for several years. Finally, this past week, I got the opportunity. There was a little smoke in the air, making the air not quite as clear as I would have liked. But still, not bad. And we got some clouds to add interest to the sky. [Note: I did check to be sure there was no aerial fire fighting or TFRs in the area to be sure I wouldn’t be interfering with fire fighting operations.]

I had taken my almost new (to me) Mavic 2 Pro drone with me just for this occasion. Three batteries were charged the night before we left for the journey. All equipment was checked and re-checked to be sure I hadn’t left something out, or forgot to charge a battery.

We drove over the pass on Thursday and camped an Klipchuck Campground, a few miles west of Mazama. We stopped at the Vista Point on our way over Washington Pass. The sun was low in the sky and the valleys were in deep shadow.

If you have not driven over the North Cascades Highway, you really should add it to your to-do list. It is a spectacular drive any time of year. Earlier in the year all of the mountains around will be snow-capped.

Below is a photo of Diablo Lake from the Diablo Lake Vista Point.

Diablo Lake from the Diablo Lake Vista Point

The next day we spent the morning having breakfast and shopping in town – or towns: Winthrop and Twisp. If you haven’t been to eqpd in Twisp, you really should check it out. They make very cool bags. After this stop, we now own more than 10 of their bags in various sizes, colors and styles. In their manufacturing facility in Twisp they have a good assortment of bags you can purchase. There are also many seconds that can be purchased at a discount. Quite often the problem with the bag is difficult or impossible to spot. One of the bags we got on this trip (the one on the left in the photo below) had a very minor defect in the pattern printed on the bag.

eqpd bags, made in Twisp, WA
eqpd bags, made in Twisp, WA

After shopping we headed back to the Washington Pass Vista Point. Scattered clouds had come in, giving an interesting sky. We walked up  to the overlook, then looked around for a place away from people to launch my drone. We found a nice flat rock, probably 15-20 feet across, several hundred feet from the main viewpoint with no trees above it to snag the drone on takeoff.

I flew my drone for almost 20 minutes, taking a number of still photos and several panorama shots. The 360° panorama below was the best of the bunch. From where the drone was you can see both sides of the pass, including the hairpin turn of the highway south of the Vista Point.

Click on the image below and move your mouse to spin the image so you can look in all directions. To view full screen, click on the [] in the upper right hand corner.

The 360° panorama above was taken with my Mavic 2 Pro (26 RAW photos), edited with Lightroom to try to tame the blown-out sky, then stitched into a 360° Panorama with PTGui, and uploaded to kuula.co for viewing.

Drone Photos Without a Drone

Last year when we were in Tucson, staying at the Lazy Days KOA, I wanted to take a decent photo of our campsite. The best shot would have been from a drone, but I didn’t think the KOA would allow me to fly my drone there. Not to mention that campground is in the airspace of a commercial airport and two(!) military airbases. There really was no chance of getting permission to fly a drone there!

So, what to do? I did some searching, and found photos that looked like photos from a drone that were taken without a drone. How did they do it?

One person that had some pretty interesting photos had taken the photos with a 10′ “Selfie” stick. That’s right, 10 feet! That sounded great to me, so I purchased one. Click here to get your own from Amazon (this is an affiliate link).

OK, it’s not really 10 feet. It’s actually 3 meters, or about 9.8 feet. It’s a carbon fiber pole that extends in sections, so you don’t have to extend it to the full 3 meters. When collapsed it’s only about ~18″ long.

When holding this pole up over my head, the camera is about 16′ above ground. Perfect for many photos.

I attached my GoPro to the end of the pole and used my cell phone to control the camera. I could see what the camera was seeing through my phone, and snap the shot (or shoot a video). It takes a little practice to hold the pole steady and aim it where you want.

The pole seems to be made well. It locks into position and stays there until you want to collapse it (a slight twist at each section releases it).

Using this pole, I was able to get some pretty nice shots of our KOA campsite, as seen below.

Tucson Lazy Days KOA campsite
Tucson Lazy Days KOA campsite

360° Panoramas (again)

In my last post, already several months ago, I promised another 3D printer post. That is still coming. It’s half written. Make that a quarter written. I’ve been sidetracked, not to mention that my laptop computer bit the dust and I haven’t yet decided what to replace it with.

My first 360° panorama post was a little over a year ago, Feb. 4, 2020, where I discussed how 360° panoramas were made and showed one from Gates Pass near Tucson, AZ. My second post on panoramas was written on March 9, 2020, noting that 360° panoramas could be displayed on YouTube.

So, what’s new with panoramas?

First, 360° can be displayed on Flickr (I knew that, but had never tried it). Here’s my first panorama on Flickr. Flickr isn’t as good at displaying these as it could be – maybe it will improve in the future. The first problem I noticed is at the very bottom of the photo – directly below the camera. There’s some distortion there that shouldn’t be. Also, it is more difficult to zoom in and out with the mouse scroll wheel, as it usually scrolls the page instead. And it was difficult to go into full-screen mode, and once there I wasn’t always able to pan around the image.

It is possible to display panoramas interactively on WordPress, but only if I pay for a “professional” level. Since I don’t make any money from this site, I can’t really justify doing that. If you wish to see my photo(s) in a better viewer, take a look at it (them) in Roundme. This photo was taken a few days ago while on a cross-country ski outing to the top of Amabilis Mountain. 11+ miles and 2000’+ elevation gain, but the views were totally worth it! What a gorgeous day we had. Here are the rest of the photos I shot that day.

You can see all of the photos I’ve uploaded to Roundme by going to https://roundme.com/@garystebbins/tours.

What else is new?

All of the 360° panoramas I have posted in the past were shot by using my DSLR camera mounted to a tripod (or, in one case, handheld). The latest two were shot from a drone from tens of feet to several hundred feet above the ground.

I got my first done 3+ years ago, but it’s a bit too big to take on a backpack or cross-country ski trip. About a month ago I got a much smaller drone that is something I can take along with me. The drone itself weighs about 1/2 pound. I carried it in my backpack on my cross-country ski trip.

Phantom 4 Pro and DJI Mini 2 drones
Phantom 4 Pro and DJI Mini 2 drones

The larger drone in the photo above is a DJI Phantom 4 Pro, and the little guy is a DJI Mini 2. Both drones can automatically shoot a series of photos to be stitched into a 360° panorama photo. I then use the program PTGui to stitch the multiple images into a panorama image.

If you are curious, the panorama image is just a regular JPEG file, although it is stretched “a bit” at the top and bottom. As mentioned in my first post, it is exactly twice as wide as it is high – 360° wide and 180º high. The right and left edges join together in the panorama viewer, and the top and bottom edges are compressed to display as a single point – straight above the camera for the top edge and straight below for the bottom edge. Some additional metadata is added to the file so that the viewer program knows how to interpret the file. Here’s what the photo looks like when viewed without a panorama viewer.

Kachess Lake Overlook

There you have it – one more 360° blog post. Next (I hope) I’ll actually finish writing the 3D printer blog I promised a few months ago. Stay tuned!