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This Star-trails Light Painting was made by A Drone

Dec 17, 2015 by Udi Tirosh 3 Comments

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German drone makers, Ascending Technologies just redefined light painting. The company makes high end drones and drone software and to take their technology to the extremes, they made a series of Santa Light Painting which actually resulted in a short movie.

The company used an LED mounted Falcon 8 – their own octa-copter. Way points were set with AscTec Navigator – software capable on creating high-res way points that enabled the complex drawing.

Here is a sample of the complex set of way points that the drone had to go through. The simplest painting took 240 way points and the most complex one needed 364 points:

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The drone then travels through the points to make a drawing. A Sony A7SII exposed for the painting with each exposure took up to 10 minutes to create (this is why there is both a ‘painting’ and a short star trail.

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Lastly, a VFX software was used to animate the individual stills.

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Here is how the team at Ascending Technologies describes the process:

The moves of the LED drone were shot while taking a long exposure photograph of every scene. Up to 10 minutes exposure time were needed. Additionally the flights have been filmed with an A7S Mark ii. In post processing the stills from the original drone flights were visualized via VFX and combined with further video footage.

The Drone Light Painting flights have been performed at airspeeds of 2 m/s with the patented V-Form Octocopter AscTec Falcon 8. Santa Claus throwing the presents into the chimneys and the snowflakes in the starting sequence of course are animated GIFs, yet based on flown paintings. Probably it was possible to do any drone light painting you like

You can read a full description of how the movie was made over at Ascending Technologies’s blog.

[Drone Light Painting – The Christmas Edit via lightpaintingphotography]

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Filed Under: Inspiration Tagged With: Ascending Technologies, christmas, drone, lightpainting

Udi Tirosh: from diyphotography.net

About Udi Tirosh

Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.

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Udi Tirosh: from diyphotography.netUdi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.

Alex Baker: from diyphotography.netAlex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe

David Williams: from diyphotography.netDave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.

John Aldred: from diyphotography.netJohn Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.

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