6 Days of Iceland

Iceland left me spellbound when I first visited in 2009. I have been coming every year since, up until 2013. Don’t get me wrong here, my passion for the simple, moon-like design of its landscape has not faded at all. To me, it is somewhat less of a traditional landscape and more of a workspace that can be perfectly decomposed into shapes, structures, lines, patterns and tones. The reason I stopped returning was the enormous hype for photographing the country and its famous spots, apparently fuelled by spectacular images on every social media around. See the stats - in 2009, only 493,000 tourists visited the country. The number grew to almost 800,000 in 2013 and it has banged to over 2 million in 2017.

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DJI Mavic 2 Pro Drone - First Impressions

In my photography, I have always been intrigued by different perspective. As an old school guy with fixed focal length lenses, I had no other choice but my feet to get it. And I liked it as it was the part of the process and it will stay like this - horizontally.

But. There is also a vertical direction to get the unusual sights. For years, I was ignoring it as drones were simply too large, too heavy and not portable enough. It was not the option until some time last year when I spotted the first Mavic Pro in one of the shops and I got immediately striked by its compact size when folded. The size of one middle range lens (198 x 83 x 83mm). Meaning that I could now carry my main kit and only replace one lens with the drone and put the controller to the pocket. I took it for a test drive to Baikal this Spring and I wrote some bits here and here. I wanted to do a more comprehensive review that has not happened eventually.

And now with Mavic 2 in my hands it makes a little sense to do it.

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The Place To Be

I wrote before a bit about my new toy that I took with me to Baikal this year - DJI Mavic Pro. I'm still flattered by the new possibilities it adds to my landscape photography practice. My photographic sessions became longer as I used the drone at all times when I finished shooting or when the light was too flat. What's the most amazing about it all is that you don't really need too much to start producing an interesting footage and imagery from the air.

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Baikal Again. And Again.

Today was certainly the coldest day I have ever experienced. My phone showed minus 29 when I was leaving the hotel at about 5am. And it did not get any warmer later. All my outdoor and photography equipment went through the ultimate test. And I’m happy to report that except for iPhone X losing the image transition signal when flying the drone, everything else including Phase One (that I was afraid it might have been built mainly for a studio shooting) worked flawlessly and reliably - it definitely exceeded my own operational longevity at such weather.

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