Oregon Trunk Railroad Bridge
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Oregon Trunk Railroad Bridge: Wordless Wednesday
Aerial photography
A stunning sunset: Skywatch Friday & Weekend Sky
A stunning sunset near Bend, Oregon. I took this photo with my drone from the backyard. You can see several volcanic peaks along the horizon.
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Alvord Desert from above: WW & LAPC
Alvord Desert from above in southeastern Oregon
Wordless Wednesday (WW)
Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Looking back at LAPC #31 – Landscapes (LAPC)
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East of Steens: Weekend Sky
A view from above east of Steens Mountain, Oregon. I took this photo with my drone on a cool October morning.
I liked the variety of components in this picture. Puffy white clouds, rough mountains, gray-green sagebrush flats, bright green hayfields, and red soil.
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Around the Round Barn: RDP
The Pete French Round Barn in eastern Oregon is a beautiful structure. On a recent trip, I took pictures and video of the barn with my phone and my drone.
This picture shows the building from above.
In this video, the drone flies around the perimeter of the barn. You get a much better perspective from this angle.
These pictures show some of the internal structure. The supporting beams and posts are like a work of art.
In the spring and summer, barn owls nest in the center of the barn. You can see the whitewash near the nest.
This is a panoramic view of the inside of the barn. In this view, you can see the details in the rock walls.
Here’s a closer view of the walls.
The story of pioneer Pete French is an interesting one. Though he accomplished a lot in his lifetime, he was not well liked. He ended up dying at the hands of a neighbor with whom he had a dispute. See my previous post for more about him.
The Pete French Round Barn is a state heritage site near Diamond, Oregon. Built in the late 1870s to early 1880s, it served as a place to train and stable horses.
In the summer, the barn is open daily from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. In winter, it’s open Friday to Sunday from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm.
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Above Big Sky Park with drone effects: JMK
In my quest to get more familiar with my drone, I flew it above Big Sky Park in Bend. This park, a few miles from my home, is 97 acres in size. It includes playing fields, an off-leash dog park, miles of trails, picnic areas, and a new bike park. It’s a great place to go for walks.
On this trip, I wanted to try out a couple specific video features on my DJI Mini 4 Pro drone.
MasterShot
With this option, you get several effects with the push of a single button. You select a point of interest (POI) on the screen by dragging a shape around it. The drone then goes through a series of maneuvers. It goes up high and points in one direction, then it points right below. It zooms in on the POI, a goal net in this case. Then it circles high, moves closer to the POI, then farther away. It goes high and looks in the opposite direction of the first shots. Finally it focuses on the POI.
Asteroid above Big Sky Park
Another option I tried that day was Asteroid. The drone flies backward and upward, takes several pictures, then returns to the starting point. It then combines the footage it takes into a globe shape. The video I took above Big Sky Park turned out really cool!
Active Track
I’ve tried the tracking option a couple of times. Last week, we went to a hilltop park with rocky trails. I selected myself as the POI, and had my drone track me as I walked. When you fly drones, you should always be aware of your surroundings. The drone pilot watches the drone’s progress on the controller screen, while the spotter helps keeps track of where the drone is. Unfortunately, I was paying too much attention to the screen and not enough to the trail. Since I had both hands on the controller, I tripped and fell face first. Yikes, how embarrassing!
I had a few cuts and some swelling on my nose, but otherwise was okay. I spent the rest of the day icing my face off and on. A couple doses of Acetaminophen eased the pain.
The funny thing is, my drone recorded the fall. The picture above was part of the video it recorded. Sorry to tell you, but I will NOT be sharing the entire video.
Here’s a photo of my drone following me at Ochoco Wayside State Park before I fell. The lesson I learned that day was, keep your hands on the controller, but your eyes on what’s going on around you.
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Above Haystack Reservoir: LAPC & WS
On a recent sunny day, I decided to take pictures above Haystack Reservoir in Central Oregon. Here in the High Desert, reservoirs provide much of the water used in local agriculture.
The first photo shows the dam on the reservoir. There’s a fishing dock in the lower right corner. Visitors can catch largemouth bass, crappie, rainbow trout, kokanee, brown trout, and brown bullhead here.
My next picture shows a view towards the west. There’s a corner of the reservoir in the lower right. The snow-covered peak of Mount Jefferson is in the distance.
When I pointed my drone towards the east, it almost looked like a different location. The rising sun is reflected in the reservoir’s waters in a nearly monochrome image.
The next picture shows Mount Jefferson on the left and Mount Hood on the right. Volcanic peaks are ever-present characters in our landscape.
Looking again to the east, the morning light begins to brighten the scene.
Towards the south, you can spot one of the reservoir’s campgrounds. There are three campgrounds at the reservoir, including one specifically for groups.
When I zoomed in a bit above Haystack Reservoir, I saw the Sister’s peaks peeking out from between the hills.
The last picture, is looking to the southeast. Gray Butte is in the middle of the picture. It’s a great place to hike and find gorgeous wildflowers in the spring.
In past years, this and other Central Oregon reservoir levels were low due to an ongoing drought. However, we had higher than average precipitation this winter and there is currently no drought in Oregon.
Lens-Artists Photo Challenge – Seen on My last Outing
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Cascade sunsets from above: WS & RDP
I thought it would be fun to take pictures of Cascade sunsets from above to get more comfortable with using my drone. For eight consecutive days, I flew my DJI drone up to an altitude of 100 feet from my backyard. The mountains featured in these photos are approximately 26 miles away, as the crow flies.
These pictures show several volcanoes that are a part of Oregon’s Cascade Mountain Range. I recently featured aerial pictures of them from a closer perspective in another post.
Hope you enjoy these images of our spectacular skies near Bend, Oregon!
Colorful Cascade sunsets
The first photo shows a fiery sky. These are more commonly seen in the winter months around here.
The second photo shows a pale yellow background with the clouds floating over the mountains edged in pink.
Blue sky sunsets
The third photo shows a mostly clear sky. There appears to be a haze of smoke that could be from one of our prescribed burns in local forests. These controlled fires help prevent bigger fires.
The fourth photo shows another clear sky.
The fifth photo shows yet another clear sky. This time I took the photo right as the sun was setting over the mountains.
The next photo shows… uh, maybe we should pause for musical interlude. This song, Blue Sky & The Painter by Bastille, is one of my current favorites and it’s about blue skies.
Why did I include an interlude? Because there were more days without a single cloud in the sky when the sun set!
The sixth photo shows a clear day as the sun sets.
The seventh day shows, you guessed it, another sunny clear day.
Based on these photos, is it really true that Bend, Oregon gets 300 days of sunshine a year? Nope. However, we do have 250-260+ days a year that are clear or mostly clear.
Stormy Cascade sunsets
The eighth day shows, HURRAY!, clouds as a storm was moving in. A thick, dark cloud floated ominously over the snow-covered peaks.
The Oregon Cascade Range gets quite a bit of snow each winter. Mount Bachelor (shown on the left in these photos), as I stated in another post, gets over 400 inches of snow a year.
I may try taking sunrise pictures for a future post. I just hope that if I do, the clouds will cooperate. 😉
Weekend Sky (WS)
Ragtag Daily Prompt (RDP) – Float
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Oregon Cascades from above: LAPC
This week I’m sharing photos of the Oregon Cascades from above. Most of these pictures were taken with my DJI drone.
The Lens-Artists Photo Challenge prompt this week is “Shot from above.” That sounded like a perfect excuse to take a Sunday drive. We drove north from Bend and turned west near Terrebonne. After driving through Cove Palisades State Park, we headed south towards Sisters, Oregon.
Near Black Butte, Oregon
When you’re in dense forests, it’s hard to know what features are in the landscape nearby. I flew up a few hundred feet and got this picture of several of our mountains. The Cascade Range stretches from northern California to central British Columbia. Oregon’s Cascades are 260 miles long and as wide as 90 miles.
I like how trees look from above so I took this picture near Black Butte. I don’t usually include pictures of myself on this blog, but I do appear in this photo. Can you see me? 🙂
After navigating several roads like this, we decided to head to a lower elevation location.
Between Bend and Sisters, Oregon
We stopped at the Cascade Flyers field, located halfway between Bend and Sisters. This is where a local remote control aircraft club meets. Even an ordinary scene like this one can look interesting from the sky. I’m in this photo, too. Great self-portrait, right?
This picture shows several iconic peaks of the Oregon Cascades from above. South Sister, Middle Sister, and North Sister fill the frame. South Sister is the most active local volcano. This mountain range is almost entirely volcanic in origin.
This picture shows Black Crater and Mount Washington. From certain angles, Mount Washington has a distinctive teepee-shaped formation on its peak. This volcanic plug formed when hot magma hardened within a vent.
Here’s a closer view of Mount Washington.
The last picture shows Three Fingered Jack, Black Butte, and Mount Jefferson. Bend’s Deschutes Brewery makes a delicious Black Butte porter beer named after this peak.
I’m still learning how to adjust the camera settings on my drone. If you don’t make adjustments, the pictures tend to be overexposed in the Auto setting. That means I will have to actually read instructions or watch videos instead of just “winging” it.
Lens-Artists Photo Challenge – Shoot from above
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High Desert alkali flats: Wordless Wednesday
A flying lens: Three Things Challenge
I enjoy using cameras small enough to fit in a pocket. I recently got a new flying lens as a gift.
A pocket-sized flying lens
Here it is. What, can’t you see that it’s a camera?
How about if I unfold it? Yeah, it’s a drone. I still have the lens protector on the front in this photo.
Here’s the controller. I like my new flying lens because it stops itself from crashing into things in 360 degrees of direction. It will also land from where it took off with the touch of a button.
