Rodney Campbell's Blog

I’ve discovered a new capability with my new DJI Phantom 4 Drone – that of using it to make fully immersive 360˚ panoramas.

Actually the drone itself doesn’t have the ability to make the panorama but a very handy piece of third party software that you can run on your smartphone does most of the heavy lifting.

Mona Vale Beach at Sunset

The DronePan software basically controls the Phantom once you’ve put it into place and are hovering. It fully automates the taking of all of the required frames for the full 360˚ panorama. It rotates the drone around it’s axis and pans the camera up and down taking all of the required overlapping frames.

Once that is done you still need to stitch the panorama from the source frames as you normally would. You’ll also be editing the image in post (especially to fix the upper sky where the drone can’t point the camera).

The end result is a 2:1 aspect ratio equirectangular projection of the entire 360˚ (by 180˚) space as if you’re at the centre of a sphere located where the drone is.

A little magic at the blog end and you can view the end result as an interactive 360˚ photo. Using your mouse or keyboard (arrow keys) you can control your view and pan around the scene (and even zoom in and out).

Clicking the square box icon towards the top left corner also allows you to run it full screen.

There is this great little spot along the South Perth foreshore at the end of the South Perth Esplanade where you get uninterrupted views across the waters of the Swan River to the city skyline of the Perth CBD.

South Perth Views

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 56 mm, 1/60 sec at f/8, ISO 200

I convinced my family to head over there one late afternoon/evening to take some cityscape images of Perth.

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger – so click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer.

My aim was to capture the city skyline during twilight so there’d be both some colour in the sky along with the lights in the buildings all reflecting off the water of the Swan River.

We’d actually arrived quite a bit earlier than I’d needed (before a quarter to 5 and sunset wasn’t till almost 6PM and the better part of twilight perhaps 20 to 30 minutes after that). So my family was in for the long haul 🙂 – still they could wait in the car when it got cold :).

South Perth Sunset

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 35 mm, 1 sec at f/13, ISO 50

The clouds and sunset was actually quite nice with some very nice colour in the sky right on sunset – 5:53PM above.

I didn’t actually have any of my normal gear with me this afternoon (filters (especially my grads), lenses or my normal tripod). All I had was the D750 with my now very travelled 28-300mm travel lens, however I did have the travel tripod which I’d left under the seat in the car for the whole trip. This thankfully allowed me to do some nice long exposures.

Twilight Blues

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 65 mm, 25 sec at f/11, ISO 100

The view across the river to the city extending along the opposite shoreline really lent itself to some nice wide panoramic shots. So I actually took quite a few frames for stitched panoramas throughout the afternoon and evening.

This is the last one I took at 6:25PM (30 minutes after sunset). It’s a stitched panorama of five (5) horizontal frames when the deep bluey purple twilight was just about at it’s best.

Reflections of Perth

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 65 mm, 25 sec at f/11, ISO 200 x 5 Frames

It was getting very cold so time to pack up and head somewhere local for dinner.

Our long roadtrip was unfortunately coming to a close. After a few days spent with my uncle it was time to leave and make our way towards Perth where our travels (for my daughter and I) would come to an end.

Country Miles

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 98 mm, 1/400 sec at f/8, ISO 800

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger – so click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer.

Candy Lines

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 112 mm, 1/10 sec at f/22, ISO 50

It was raining as we made our way south to Perth though thankfully by the time we’d arrived it had reduced to a very light drizzle. After setting up at the caravan park we’d be staying in for the next week we headed into to town and to Kings Park for the obligatory view of Perth.

Kings Park

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 150 mm, 1/160 sec at f/9, ISO 100

This one is a quick handheld stitched panorama of ten (10) vertical frames giving the quintessential view of Perth and the Swan River from high up on Kings Park.

Kings View

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 50 mm, 1/80 sec at f/9, ISO 100 x 10 Frames

and so our last day of road tripping comes to a close. It’s sad to see our huge journey which started in Darwin so many weeks before come to an end. My daughter and I would still be staying in Perth for a few more days before flying back to Sydney.

We’d stayed overnight in the little town of Dalwallinu in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia. Located 250km northeast of Perth via the Great Northern Highway, agriculture and supporting industries are the town’s primary economic activities.

Where we were staying was right next to a canola field so I took the opportunity to rise a little early an take some images in the early morning light.

Whispers

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 300 mm, 1/320 sec at f/8, ISO 320

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger – so click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer.

Five Contrasts

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 145 mm, 1/160 sec at f/8, ISO 450

Then it was time to pack up, leave the little town of Dalwallinu and continue out journey eastward into the heart of WA.

The rains came and swept across the land. It was my turn to be a passenger for a while, which afforded me the opportunity to shoot some handheld images through the car windows as we were driving along through the rain.

Tree Lines

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 135 mm, 1/640 sec at f/9, ISO 1000

Rainswept

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 300 mm, 1/1250 sec at f/9, ISO 2800

Another very common crop found out here in the agricultural belt of Western Australia is Barley. Tens, probably hundreds of kilometres of lovely windswept fields of lush green.

Barley is a member of the grass family and is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains, particularly in Eurasia as early as 13,000 years ago.

Windswept

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 300 mm, 1/320 sec at f/8, ISO 500

Some of the fields are so pristine and perfect, all the plants perfectly the same height, the same colour and with no foreign plants or changes. A picture perfect shape of uniform colour and texture.

For me though – whilst the perfect paddocks of barley were an amazing feat of farming prowess it was these undulating fields of swishing grasses in the wind which caught my eye photographically. Just had to stop here and take a few shots from outside the car.

Note: These images (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger – so click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer.

Below is a ten (10) frame handheld stitched panorama, a lone tree in a field with interesting undulations in the green barley carpet and a lovely play of interesting light across the tops of the heads.

Windbreak

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 180 mm, 1/200 sec at f/8, ISO 360 x 10 Frames

I probably could have stayed out here for hours searching for that elusive composition – alas a few minutes was all I had, places to go, people to see :)…