“Drones” – love them or hate them, they are here to stay and are allowing people to get stills and video that formerly was possible only with chartering a helicopter at $$$$s of dollars. ย Even then you cannot fly a helicopter in places you can fly a small quadcopter. ย They come in all shapes and size, from huge rigs that can carry large professional quality video and stills cameras through to ones that can fit in your pocket. ย The technology is changing so so fast. ย A friend of our has lent us a quadcopter – a DJI Phantom Vision 2+.
This is not our loaner drone! ย This is a $3500 dollar one… ย better not crash in the river then. ย
Now in the drone world this is 3 year old technology, so therefore getting long in the tooth! ย DJI are a chinese company that are dominating the market with mid and high end units. ย The small ‘copter has a built in camera roughly similar to a gopro type action camera, but it is able to take still photographs in .RAW format to allow more latitude for processing. ย The camera sensor is pretty similar to what you find in your smart phone. ย So small. ย That means low light stuff is going to yield poor results. But in decent light it is capable of capturing some amazing views. ย The .RAW images I found need fairly heavy handed processing to make them pop, so a lot of saturated and dramatic (almost HDR) tones are on the agenda here. ย Anyway we have a whole bunch of shots and video planned and fingers crossed I don’t crash it as I did last year!
So here are some views of the area where our lodge is located. ย We hope you like this different view of this stunning part of Africa!
This is just south of the lodge, our ‘Chief’s campsite’ enjoys this location. ย The ablution building is just visible in the bottom left hand corner of the image. ย
The rapids just below the lodge – the site of many dinners under the stars as well as canoeing set pieces! ย
Looking from the rapids North. ย The lodge is on the right hand river bank in the center of the frame, but it is so well hidden in the trees that it is basically invisible. ย
Here the quadcopter is basically hovering over the lodge and looking west. ย The myriad of channels and islands around the lodge can really be seen from up here (up here is 150m above ground level). ย
Again looking North from the lodge area. ย The massive island of Mantobo can be seen and the length of river visisble is basically the route that guests arrive in by boat – the car park in the National Park is beyond the two smaller islands clearly visible in the main channel. ย
looking East from ‘Chief’s campsite`. ย As far as the eye can see stretches Namwala GMA and nothing but bush! ย
Straight-down shot above the rapids. ย The dinner location is just visible in the open area between the trees at the very bottom of the frame. ย ย
A beautiful misty morning with the mists just starting to break up as the sun rises. ย The camera point of view is right above the main area of the lodge looking south towards the rapids. ย
Looking south west over the top of Mpamba rock – site of literally thousands of scenic and spectacular sunset sundowners.ย
The dambo next to Mpamba rock. ย Straight down point of view. ย
Straight down point of view of the lodge lurking in the morning mists. ย