Winter Flight - +2° F

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There has been considerable discussion in these forums about cold weather flight. Given that I got my drone in December and that I live in South Dakota, the only option I've had is to fly in cold weather. Yesterday was a rare fairly windless day and so I went out into the country for the first time. (Generally, I've been flying practice runs from my driveway and deck in town.)

Frankly, other than what I assume is shorter battery life, I don't see any problems. I am a photographer who has photographed this area from the ground. So seeing it from higher up was exciting. But most exciting was the opportunity to take photos that would not have been possible without a ladder and a trudge through snow. (The frosted tree is an example.) My interest in drone photography isn't mainly to have people say, "Oh you took that with a drone." My interest in trying to get good and interesting photos.

A few technical notes: 1) I'm still working a good white balance, though white balancing snow is generally a challenge even with my Canon 5DIII. 2)What appear to be tilted horizons aren't the fault of the drone. Though eastern South Dakota is fairly flat, this area is the result of pretty heavy glaciation and there is a fairly significant change in elevations in parts of the landscape. 3) I love my Phantom 4P4!

I'll start with some raw video so you can get a sense of the landscape. (Sorry, I only went up 300 feet and there's no music or sound.) This was filmed in 4K 60fps but converted to 1080p and 30fps. And, yes, I did fly from my truck from time to time. It was cold!

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2017 01-15 North By Northwest.jpg
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Nice photos my favorite is the one with just the tree covered in snow. At those temps what would you estimate your flight time to be?

Sent from my SM-S975L using PhantomPilots mobile app

Thanks Indiana Scott. (My name is Scott, too) Frankly, I wasn't being real scientific though I put a fully charged battery in for the frosted tree shot. It was the lower capacity DJI Phantom 4 battery. And, as you can see, I flew for 10 minutes and used 40% of it's capacity. I was being very conservative with the battery power and the distance in flight: I didn't want to go walking through 2 feet of snow to retrieve a drone.

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