A few months ago, I decided to buy a drone during a serious moment of "impulse shopping". To be fair, I had wanted one for a long time, so when a local shop posted an unbeatable special, I jumped at the opportunity. Two days later, I arrived at my office and found a lovely box on my desk, containing a new DJI Mavic Pro. Unfortunately, the Flymore Combo was out of my price range (which contained extra batteries), but my deal still came with a remote. Essentially ready to fly then.
After a very dodgy flight around my work car park without reading any instructions, I decided it was probably best to find a place very far away from the city where I could learn to fly. Somewhere that didn't contain power lines, buildings, or any sort of commercial air traffic. It was time to head out to the mountains.
Therefore, I planned a trip to one of my favourite places to visit in South Africa (the town and surroundings of Underberg), and set up a "base" for a few days at a great place I found on AirBNB. As you can see in the photos, the area is rather desolate, and not one person had an issue with me buzzing my new toy around.
During my time there, I probably clocked up at least 15 hours of flight time, capturing tons of video footage in addition to the photos that I've posted here. I'm busy cutting them all together in a small video montage, and will be posting the results here when complete.
In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the photos below, and let me know which one is your favourite!
DISCLAIMER: All photos are my own original work
Equipment used:
DJI Mavic Pro
Lightroom CC
That last one has to be my favorite, but it was a tough call! All of the images of the snowy landscapes really tugged at me, but that last one- ah! Fantastic!
Thanks @adamdumyahn! It was taken at about 6am - freezing cold in that valley. But worth it in the end I think :)
Awesome shots! The DJI Mavic Pro is a really cool drone.
Thanks, and agreed about the drone! It's really impressed me so far, so small and portable yet amazingly capable. A friend has the Phantom 4, and even though it's technically "better", I still prefer the Mavic - since it folds away neatly into my existing camera bag.
Awesome pics @garethb Nice to get an elevated perspective of the landscape. The Drakensburg is an amazing area.
Thanks @craigills. I may have gone "slightly" over the maximum height allowance (130m) for some of them, but relative to the surrounding scenery, it was probably still a legal altitude.
I wont tell anyone haha. Like you say, height is relative. Depends on your reference point.
True. For example, look at the mountains in the first photo, they're "in the area", and I'm still not flying higher than them :)
Precisely. That's what I would have used as reference haha
Look fabulous, we were thinking of getting one at work, would be really handy to have :D
You could get some amazing scenery shots out there in Sweden :) Have to get one!
@originalworks