Vortex or not to Vortex

On a Friday morning, after finishing the last video call of the week, I chased the sun up gentle trails through the foothills of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, arriving at “Central Park”—the meadows next to Central City, Colorado. The high park was gusty, but the gloom of an oncoming storm had yet to settle in with tomorrow’s forecast calling for arctic winds from a “Polar Vortex” reducing the temperature to single digits.

I had just emerged from under the dark cloud canopy where the winds made flying even more difficult. The skies were moody and pensive, while the weak sun illuminated a ground partially covered with snow and ice. The brief appearances of the sun seemed to calm things down, but the occasional gusts could still be too much.

It turned out that my older DJI Mavic 2 drone handled the wind better than the newer Mavic 3 (although both are about the same mass: 905g). The newer drone has a larger battery that allows for longer flight times and which is surely a good selling point, but doesn’t have the same balance that can be helpful in more extreme conditions. Last year, DJI released a new model drone that is over a hundred grams lighter than the Mavic 3, the “Air 3s,” but is otherwise identical. I guess that it, too, would have a harder time in extreme wind, although it would make a very capable replacement for the older Mavic.

With the wind gusting, the drones had a difficult time staying position to take multiple exposures as used in what are called “Panoramas.” In the panorama above taken with the older Mavic 2 drone, the towering creekside casinos of Black Hawk are hidden beneath the shady peaks one third of the length of the photo from right side along the background. The development of Central City has now reached the historical cemeteries of the high meadow in the puzzling form of awkward, shoebox-style townhomes huddled together, row upon row, relentlessly repeating without breaking the monotony of the design.

The gusty winds buffeted the drones when they flew. But at least on that day, they could be flown. Unlike today, and for several days prior and at least one more per the forecast, when temperatures below freezing can prevent the batteries that power the drone from discharging normally. Unfortunately, once damaged in this manner, the batteries are unreliable and cannot continue to be used. I’ve already lost two batteries to cold like this, but they were older and would have needed to be replaced eventually.

“Vertical photos” or images using a portrait layout are in demand on social media because of the widespread use of phones featuring a vertically oriented timeline or “feed,” so I shared the following photo of the same pond as shown in the photo above. The format of this publication favors also verticality, and compresses photos using a landscape layout, where the width is greater than the height (and portrait layouts have heights greater than widths). Contrast the scope and breadth of the panorama covering 180° of a viewpoint from several photos shown previously, with the size of the following frame that focuses on a single pond!

From hundreds of feet above the meadow, I found a pond appearing to peer back upwards at the drone. And with this layout, it can fill an entire screen. I will soon have to return to “Central Park” when the weather is calm to get more panoramas of the Colorado HIGH SKY!

Thanks for reading all the way to the very end, and please stay warm. Let me know what you think, and I look forward to hearing from you.