Drone Photography of McMillan Marsh in Marshfield, Wisconsin

After waking up this morning, I headed to work (aka my office in the lower level). It’s a great space, however no windows face the south. During the winter months it is a little challenging to see the sunrise and sunset. As a matter of fact, I rely on friends and family to let me know when there is a great photo opportunity. And that was the case this morning.

I was working on some marketing materials for a local credit union this morning when I got a text message that there was a beautiful sunrise from my wife, who was upstairs.

I rushed upstairs to see the sight, taking it in for a moment then heading to the closet to grab a coat before heading outside.

Outside, I opened the tailgate on my SUV and grabbed out my Mavic Pro drone. It was sitting in the vehicle overnight. Upon inspecting my drone prior to flight, I realized the batteries were too cold to fly. Thankfully, I have one self-heating battery.

I powered up the drone with the self-heating battery. The internal temp was -3 degrees Celsius – the goal is to have the temperature above 15 degrees Celsius. The next two minutes felt like forever as the battery warmed to optimum flying temperature.

The challenge with sunrise photography or any photography involving moving objects is every few seconds to every minute can produce an entirely different shot. The shot I wanted was the one I saw at that very moment. Thankfully, I was in air within a few minutes and the landscape had not changed much.

The photo you see here is three photos taken at 1/50 sec, f2.8 ISO100 28mm.

I took the three individual photos and stitched them together in Adobe Lightroom, made some minor color adjustments and there you have it. BEAUTY!