Things went right at the VIC...

 

This outing was inspired by Donnelly's ice cream. The season is almost over and I have been down to the Adirondacks very few times this summer due to the pandemic. Wednesday's flavor is chocolate twisted with vanilla, my favorite and I wanted to try my idea from the last post at Lampson Falls of making a drone panorama that looks straight down at the bottom and pans up to the horizon at the top of the pan. 

I got the ice cream first (priorities you know) and then went to the Paul Smiths VIC. The panorama above was made on the boardwalk through the marsh on the Boreal Life Trail. It is a selfie of sorts because that's me at the bottom.

Farther on where the boardwalk and Barnum Brook come close to each other I launched the drone again for this straight down photo of some water lily pads and a couple of Bullhead Lilies.

Part of what appeals to me about drones is shooting straight down because  it reduces the landscape to patterns and I am attracted to pattern. A woman passing by was sufficiently offended by my drone to comment that that was the last thing she expected to see there. Perhaps I was a bit defensive but I told her I had checked and they are allowed. Personally I don't get the animosity toward drones. I understand that the buzzing sound can be annoying but they fly for a very short time. Mine has a 30 minute battery but to get any significant number of photos in the field you have to plan what you want to shoot and keep your individual flights as brief as possible. I also try to use it when no one else is around but I didn't see her coming. 

Later I went to the boardwalk across the end of Heron Marsh and made another panorama of that but I stepped back out of the straight down frame at the bottom of last shot. I don't like this one as much. The boardwalk is too straight to be interesting and there is too little else that stands out but I consider it a 'study' for another try in early October with autumn color. All those tamaracks in the middle will be orange and the forest on the horizon will be colorful. I will redo this view this then.

In between I shot a number of my usual intimate views of plants and mushrooms (below). A couple out walking with their children and a stroller (yes, most VIC trails are stroller friendly, at least if you have the type with bike type wheels) asked while I was photographing a white mushroom "Is that a Death Angel mushroom?" and I had to confess that I can't identify mushrooms. I just photograph them because I find them interesting.

Edit: I have since confirmed that the two white mushrooms below are "destroying Angel" mushrooms, Amanita verosa.

Destroying Angel

Destroying Angel

In the process of creating the panoramas in Lightroom I discovered that even though the individual frames were JPGs, the combined image was DNG, a RAW format. As I have noted before, one of the things I about the Mavic Mini that I was disappointed about was that it didn't save the files as RAW files. I don't understand that because all digital images start as a RAW format. They are converted in camera to show them on the screen just like editing software converts RAW so that you can view it to do edits. Why the manufacturer of a drone or camera chooses not to allow saving the RAW data and only the converted JPG file escapes me. When digital photography began I suspect it was to save space on memory cards but in recent years the cards have so much space (my drone card is 128 GBs) that it is no longer a concern. In any case, the conversion back to RAW in panoramas is enough to tempt me to shoot all drone stills as at least two frame pans.

Enjoy the photos and thanks for reading.