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First Still Image Test with DJI Mini SE

Night, indoors, low light, impressive results…

Yes, the weather outside is not conducive to me doing a first flight and, no, I did not try flying indoors for my first test with the new (to me) DJI Mini SE drone. However, I did activate it while it was sitting on a coffee table and, or course, had to take a couple of pictures. This indoor “practice” with the DJI Fly app on my (older) iPhone 6 should help me be more comfortable when I do launch my first drone flight.

drone image test bookcase

But – on with the first test – where you can see the initial test photo of a bookcase in our family room lighted only with a couple of room lamps. The lighting was certainly not ideal!

You can see the coffee table in the bottom foreground and one of the lamps used for lighting the room. There was also a lamp behind my wife in the chair on the right and a lamp behind where I was sitting.

A normal, daylit scene, flying outdoors, will have about 50 to 100 times more illumination. Our eyes are surprisingly adaptable to the difference in light between night indoors and sunlight outdoor. Camera sensors – not so much. With that said, here is a center crop of that full frame to show the detail captured under these poor conditions.

drone image test bookcase detail center crop

This is a 660×300 pixel section of the original full 4000×3000 px image. The only editing I did, besides the crop, was to run it through one level of Topaz Studio2 denoise. I am eager to see what this camera can do when outdoors flying on a nice day.

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Indian River Bridge at Twilight Prints

This is one of my personal favorite prints – so I guess I am not surprised that it is also among my best selling art photographs. This was captured at twilight, as the title implies, from the southern bank of the Indian River Inlet about a half mile inland from the Indian River Bridge, itself. It had been produced as prints in varying sizes, it has been ordered with a variety of frames and mats and also in an array of stretched canvas sizes.Indian River Inlet Bridge at Twilight
Indian River Bridge at Twilight Photo Print by Bill Swartwout Photography

Don’t worry – whatever you order does not have any watermark. I only do that with my online samples for a bit of internet security.

Framed Sample of the Indian River Bridge at Twilight

Order your very own framed print or canvas today. CLICK HERE.

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Getting a New DJI Mini SE Drone

And adding a new camera perspective to my photography galleries…

My U.S. Pictures gallery will be gaining some new perspective in 2022. Several of my wall art photograph sales over the last few years have been taken from the high vantage point of my Ercoupe airplane and/or the top deck of a large cruise ship. I no longer have the airplane (it was a very expensive to maintain toy for nearly seven years) and we will not be cruising again for the foreseeable future (until the COVID protocols actually makes sense and work).

Here is a popular photograph that has sold multiple times. It was shot from the top deck of the Grandeur of the Seas at it left the Cruise Maryland terminal at Port Covington and sailed past Fort McHenry two days after the Baltimore Blizzard of 2016.

Fort McHenry Shrouded in Snow

Here is an image shot from my airplane a few years back of the Century I Condominium building in Ocean City, Maryland. A drone would be able to replicate this image – but they are (supposedly) not allowed to fly within the town limits of OCMD.

Century I Condominium Ocean City Maryland

There are several other instances of high-vantage-point images that have been purchased from one of my online galleries. A drone, once I learn to effectively fly it and become licensed to do so for commercial purposes, will allow me to photograph many interesting landscapes and seascapes from unique vantage points. This will offer a perspective that most people will never see from the ground and using their cell phones.

Related: The drone arrived and, of course snow was in the forecast. LINK