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DIY Options for Charging Drone Batteries Off-Grid

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If you have a drone, sooner or later you’re going to want to charge your drone battery off-grid.

The problem is that drones use big batteries, so to charge a big battery you need an even bigger battery – a simple solar panel USB charger might be good enough to charge your phone, but it isn’t going to provide enough current to charge a drone battery.

There are a few commercial options available that can charge your drone batteries without an AC outlet, but I decided to build my own…(spoiler – don’t bother!)

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Why Self Driving Cars Will Never Fly

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Like many photographers and film makers I have a drone in my gear closet – a DJI Mavic to be precise.

Every time I take it up for a spin I’m amazed at how ridiculously sophisticated this little machine is. It’s so easy to fly my 8 year old can do it with ease. It has all kinds of fail-safe features built in. It will even help you out and land itself if something goes wrong.

Except things do go wrong.

Which reminds me of self driving cars, because a lot of the technology and functionality that goes into a drone is like a prequel to what we can expect from self driving cars – both the good and the bad.

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How to fix the DJI Mavic Pro Tilted Horizon problem

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After a while of shooting with the DJI Mavic Pro, I notice something weird, my footage was off.  Whatever I did I could not get a clean sliding shot. Looking deep I realized many of my shots were a bit crooked. Turns out my gimbal was not calibrated. When you are taking photos or footage looking down, it’s barely noticeable but when you are trying to shoot anything with horizontal lines it becomes obvious.

The solution is easy, you need to calibrate the DJI Mavic Pro gimbal. Calibration may sound like a big word, but its simply telling the Mavic what is the gimbal “idle” position to keep the horizon level.

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How to process and grade drone photos in Lightroom

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With drone cameras improving on an almost weekly basis, shooting photos with drones has become very popular. Possibly even more so than shooting video with drones. They allow us to reach vantage points that are otherwise impossible to attain. In this video, photographer Michael Shainblum goes through his process for processing photos from his DJI Phantom 4.

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These aerial photos will make you see familiar shapes in the surfs on the shore

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Remember that little game we’d play as kids, finding familiar shapes in the clouds? I still play it from time to time, but Australia-based photographer Peter Adams-Shawn has raised it to a whole new level. His project titled “From the Deep” features aerial photos, taken with a drone above the surfs of his local beach. In the photos he takes, surfs form various shapes we can analyze and recognize something familiar in them. He shared some of his wonderful images with DIYP, so let’s see – can you still play this game?

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DJI’s new 6K drone camera packs a Super 35mm APS-C sensor with 14 stops of dynamic range

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DJI have announced the world’s first Super 35mm digital camera designed specifically for aerial cinematography. The Zenmuse X7. It shoots 6K CinemaDNG raw video at up to 30fp. The X7 also features a new DJI Cinema Color System to maximise its 14 stops of dynamic range.

For aerial photographers, it’s also capable of capturing 24 megapixel RAW stills. Super 35mm means it’s an APS-C sized sensor. Currently, it’s only compatible with the DJI Inspire 2 drone, although future compatibility with other products is expected in the future. I wouldn’t get your hopes up about bolting this thing to a Mavic, though.

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These are the best drone photos of 2017

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Dronestagram is the first social network dedicated to aerial photography. Four years in a row, they’ve been choosing the best of the best aerial images. In partnership with National Geographic, they have recently published the winners of their 2017 drone photography contest.

There were about 8,000 photos submitted. Photographers all over the world sent their works, both professionals and enthusiasts. The winners have been chosen in three main categories: Nature, Urban, People; and the additional category: Creativity. So, here are the Dronestagram’s best 12 aerial photos of 2017.

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How to shoot and edit those crazy Inception style drone photos

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If you have been following anything drone related lately chances are you have seen one of the mind bending images like above that are very reminiscent of the scene from Inception when the ground is bent up at 90 degree angles. These images are crazy to look at and really make you look hard to find out how it may have been done.

I am here to let you in on the secret and show you that it isn’t as hard as it may seem. If you have a drone and Photoshop you are already most of the way there! You don’t need any special 3D software or fancy plugins, all you need in the basic warp tool in Photoshop.

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This photographer turns aerial photos into dream-like composites

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Being able to turn your vivid imagination into art is not an easy task. It takes skill, time, and of course – the imagination, of course, above all else.

Photographer Darren Wilden is an imaginative artist, passionate about flying a drone and working in Photoshop. He brought his two passions together in a magnificent series of images. Darren takes aerial shots, and then turns them into creations that look like they came straight out of a dream. In his artistic world, anything is possible, and his imagination seems like it has no limits.

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Dramatic drone photos show a difference between the rich and the poor

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No matter where you live, it can be difficult to clearly see differences between the communities. But when you rise above it (literally), you can see just how many discrepancies there are in the same city, even in a very small space. And more than that, you see how clearly people are divided. South African photographer Johnny Miller creates aerial images that show inequality, differences and separation within the same town. Sometimes, it’s only one thin line that separates two entirely opposite communities.

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