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Launching camera drone from boat
Alaska 2015
  • Territory: Washington State, British Columbia, Alaska
  • Time: May - August, 4380 miles traveled
  • Vessel: "Teacup", Nordic Tug 37
  • Primary Activity: Create photospheres using flying camera platform.

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Aerial Photospheres

Because photospheres are a new topic, and because I created my photospheres with a quadcopter, another new topic, I think some explanation is in order.

Kinds of pictures

At the moment, photographs have four varieties:

The Method

Here's my procedure for creating a quadcopter-based photosphere (using a process more fully described here):

The Results

If all the above steps are performed carefully, the results can be very impressive — for the first time I have images of Alaska landscapes that do them justice, images that are more like "being there" than a normal photograph allows.

Readers should realize the dramatic images shown in this article set result from both the photosphere method, plus the big advantage of using a quadcopter to position the camera at a suitable altitude.

Other Advantages

Apart from the dramatic images, aerial photospheres provide a lot of useful information I've never had before. In a number of cases I arrived at a location I had visited in years past, then created a photosphere as a first step. Then by examining the photosphere I became aware of trail routes I hadn't been able to see from the ground, or saw boat navigation routes and obstacles not visible from the boat itself. In this article set I include examples of both kinds — examples where the photospheres educated me about the environment in ways not previously possible.

Important: This article set includes a selection of my favorite Alaska aerial photospheres. For a much larger collection of photospheres from Alaska, Canada and Washington State, be sure to visit my Photosphere Gallery page.

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