360. A. modelled for stills, movies and 360 degree photos

A has an interesting background. Her parents are Chinese and African, she is a US citizen but was raised in Hong Kong. And now she studies for her master in the Netherlands, and pursues to start a PhD study on the effects of specific drugs on the brain. But above all she is curious and intelligent model, with experience in modelling for art classes given by her father.

We explored some new spots at the Gagelbos, because of the rain in the last week the area was swampy. We started at an open place, where A. showd many creative poses. After that we went to the forest area, where we made some great photos, short films and also made some 360 degrees photos with the Pano option in Litchi. With the Pano option, you position the drone at a specific spot in the sky (e.g. 30 meters above the model), specify the settings and press start. Then, the drone starts making a sequence of photos with variations in orientations and tilt.

These photo's overlap and can be combined into a 360 degree image. I did not go perfect, at one time Litchi started an auto-landing when the battery reaches the 20% mark, so one of the three efforts remained unfinished. Further, the wind was strong, possibly limiting the sharpness of the photo's. And the sun was bright, lighting specific areas, which may result in other areas being photographed with limited quality. For example, when the drone made a photo with the sun in the top half of the photo, the forest in the lower half was very dark due to the automatic exposure settings of the drone.

The three Pano attemps differed in height and number of photos. We will see what gives the most interesting image, and how many photos are required for a good result.

This time I did bring extra batteries and hot drinks, meaning that the drone, the phone and the model A. where all set for another attempt for a running tracking film. Unfortunately three subsequent tries all failed. Although it seemed again that the battery died, the battery level was 60%, meaning that something else may be the cause for failure. I now expect that the Litchi app itself is the problem, and that it causes a crash of the phone. Since Litchi worked flawlessly at the 360 pano shoots, it might be specifically the track option in Litchi that causes a crash of the phone. However, there is an option in the DJI Go app: active track. I might try that one at a next attempt.

When I got home, I tried stitching the photo's of the different 360 pano sequences using Kolor Autopano Giga. Combining the photos seemed to work fine, but the upper part is missing. I still need to study how the program works: how to add a sky to a 360 pano to complete the upper part of the 360 degrees photo, how to export the result and where to store it to include the result into a website and facebook page.

Lessons learned: use DJI Go for tracking,

To Do: learn to use the Pano program, to add a sky and to publish the result. Check results of the 360 degrees photos for image quality due to settings and sunshine