Drone Disaster at Three Shire Heads
A landscape photography blog by Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire based landscape photographer Rob Thorley Photography.
It was off to Three Shire Heads this morning. It’s early March, and a bit of a dull drab day. Once again my plan was to give the drone a runout to get some images of this location from a different perspective, and try a bit of videography.
As per the title it didn’t go well . . . I parked up and walked down, pleased to see on arrival that I had the spot all to myself. I dumped my gear and had a quick brew before breaking the drone out. I put the landing mat down on the stones, and set the drone down on top, then started to connect my phone to the controller. Out of nowhere a gust of wind blew through, picking the landing mat up and blowing it into the River Dane, sadly my drone went with it!
I fished it out of the river, popped out the battery, and memory card, and mopped up as much of the water as I could. I stuffed a cloth in the battery compartment, and wrapped it in another before putting it back in it’s case. Not the best start to the day.
I took a couple of images with the camera, which I quite liked, but I’d got a soaking drone on my mind. Not quite feeling in the mood I headed off home to attempt drying out the drone.
My drying out technique merely consisted of leaving it on top of the radiator for a week. After a week of drying out came the moment of truth. I set the drone up in the garden and connected my phone to the controller. Firing up the app I tried to connect to the drone . . . it worked.
Had I dodged a bullet? I tentatively pressed the take-off button and . . . up it went. Happy days.
I could have contacted DJI for a replacement drone, but didn’t bother. I had the fly more combo, so had the option, but I was also conscious that it was still early days, and I was expecting to encounter some “invisible trees” as part of my drone education.
You can view more images from Three Shire Heads, and my gallery of other Peak District locations.
UPDATE: I’m happy to report eighteen months later the drone is still behaving perfectly fine following it’s dunking in the River Dane . . . and the odd “invisible tree” collision.
