2/1/26
Happy New Year!
Yesterday was a cold
day with fairly regular heavy wintery showers of hail and rain passing
over the island, but in the afternoon I ventured out for some fresh air
and photography, going to the Marine Drive to get some pictures of
ships sheltering off the east coast of the island, plus some more 360 degree
panoramas.
Panasonic TZ95 1/1/26
   
After taking the ship
pictures I switched over to the 360 degree camera for some Marine Drive
panoramas.
DJI Osmo 360
  
   
Sunset from Little Ness.
Osmo 360 & Panasonic
TZ95
 
4/1/26
Some pictures of yesterday's
full 'Wolf Moon' rising over the sea. We had been on a shopping trip
up to Ramsey and I'd been shooting some panoramas with the 360 degree camera
on the way. After leaving the car park after shopping I'd said to
Georgie 'I wonder when moonrise is?' then we reached the promenade and
there it was!
Panasonic TZ95 3/1/26
    
A series of 360 degree
panoramas shot on the way to Ramsey yesterday afternoon and in the town.
DJI Osmo 360 3/1/26
  
  
 
5/1/26
We're in the middle
of a short cold spell on the island, with some heavy snow showers affecting
the island overnight and through yesterday.
Samsung Galaxy S24,
Nikon D7100 & Insta360 Ace Pro 4/1/26
 
6/1/25
During Sunday we had
a series of snow showers passing over the island, affecting some areas
more that others. It was quite white outside on Monday morning so
I walked up to the little park at the top of Birch Hill and took some aerial
pictures of the snow around Onchan and Douglas.
DJI Mini 4 Pro
5/1/25
    
   
 
8/1/26
By yesterday morning
most of the snow had vanished, just leaving the tops of the high ground
covered. In the afternoon I visited Peel with the 360 degree camera,
where there are lots of great locations to choose from, but I decided to
start off at the cathedral, with its little replica keeil in the grounds.
There were over 200 of these keeils recorded on the island, dating back
to early Christian days here, the remains of around 35 can still be found
scattered around.
The tripod head can
be a little intrusive in some of the large thumbnails, I've cloned it out
in some, but in most of the panoramas it's not generally noticeable.
DJI Osmo 360 7/1/26
The Keeil
 
The Cathedral
  
9/1/26
After my visit to St
German's Cathedral in Peel on Wednesday afternoon I continued on to two
more locations in the town. The next one was to the headlands to
take a look at the old sea water swimming pool remains at Traie Fogog.
These pools were one popular around the island with three other ones located
at Port Erin, Douglas and Ramsey. With the increase in popularity
of heated indoor pools they fell into disuse, although open water sea swimming
is seeing a big resurgence these days.
DJI Osmo 360 7/1/26
   
10/1/26
For my third and final
location in Peel on Wednesday, I drove down and parked in the Fenella Beach
car park and took some more pictures in that area.
DJI Osmo 360 7/1/26
   
 
11/1/26
On Friday afternoon
I had a fairly brief visit to Groudle Glen with the 360 camera, mainly
to shoot a series of panoramic pictures walking up the glen. I did
a similar visit only a month or so back
in November, but just took conventional pictures then. Apart
from the first two and last panoramas, I've not enabled the 'Auto Rotate'
facility on them so you'll need to move them around yourself! I've
also disabled the 'Gyro' effect on mobile devices for this set of pictures
as a trial. I know that some people find it disturbing when the picture
moves around when you move you phone or tablet, I'd be interested in your
views on this. I also appear in some of the pictures, I'd rather
not but when you are taking a 360 degree 'sphere' picture it's not always
possible to hide! I do clone myself out of some of them but only
when it's relatively easy to do so.
DJI Osmo 360 9/1/26
    
    
12/1/26
After visiting Groudle
Glen on Friday my next stop was to meet up with Georgie for some supermarket
shopping but on the way back home I noticed a lovely sunset sky. We had
a little detour for me to take some pictures by the Steve Hislop memorial
on the headland above Derby Castle. I was a little disappointed that
I didn't dial in enough exposure compensation and some of the sky colours
burned out a bit, but the Osmo doesn't have an AEB or HDR picture mode
so it's always a bit of a compromise.
Ironically I did manage
to recover the sky to a degree using Lightroom on my tablet, which then
refused to transfer the pictures!
DJI Osmo 360 9/1/26
  
13/1/26
A few pictures from
a drone test flight yesterday afternoon. From January 1st, UK drone
legislation changed to be the same as that in the EU with Class Markings
for different categories of drone, although with different markings just
to prove they're not actually just following the EU! This has introduced
a 'Hard Cap' of a maximum of 120 metres height above the take off point
elevation, despite the fact that UK legislation stating the the maximum
height is to be 120 metres over the nearest point of the ground to the
drone, an important difference if you are flying up a slope in a hilly
area. Isle of Man drone legislation is completely different to the
EU/UK and much simpler, so I was interested in testing to see if my Mini
4 Pro drone would have this hard 120 m cap here in the IOM. I went
to Sulby Glen where there are some steep sides to the valley to carry out
the test. The weather wasn't ideal with regular heavy rain showers,
but I managed to fin a five minute dry gap to carry out the flight.
DJI Mini 4 Pro 12/1/26
   
14/1/26
After finishing the
drone flight in Sulby Glen, the rain started getting heavier, but as the
sky was starting to lighten from the west, I headed onwards to Ballaugh
shore in the hope of getting in another drone flight to capture the sunset.
Unfortunately the rain didn't really stop, but I managed a couple of ground
level panoramas.
DJI Osmo 360 12/1/26
 
15/1/26
A return to Sulby Glen
on Tuesday afternoon for some more upslope drone testing. The weather
was much more promising, no rain around and I was in sunshine for the whole
drive there. However, by the time I was ready to fly clouds were
covering the sun which suppressed the colours a bit on the first few shots.
I was flying up the steep slope to the tholtan of Ballamish, which from
the map is around 550 ft above the valley floor at this location.
DJI Air 2S 13/1/26
    
    
 
17/1/26
A fairly brief visit
yesterday afternoon to St Michael's Isle, otherwise known as Fort Island.
I was there from around half an hour before sunset, hoping for some nice
lighting around the time of sunset, but as often happens, clouds thwarted
my plans!
DJI Osmo 360 16/1/26
  
360 degree Panoramas
   
  
19/1/26
Yesterday was a dull
and overcast day, not usually the best for photography, but in the afternoon
I needed to go out to buy eggs from Gellings
Egg Shack on the Laxey Road, so after that thought I would continue
onwards to Laxey for a stroll around with the 360 camera. First stop
was at the Quarry Falls.
DJI Osmo 360 18/1/26
 
  
Continuing to the beach
and promenade in old Laxey, finishing with a picture of the new bridge
crossing the river.
   
20/1/26
It's a bit of a wild
day out there today! Rather rough seas and the weather forecast is
for winds gusting up to 55 MPH. I was dropping Georgie off down in
town for a lunch with friends and shot a few 360 panoramas on the way back
- keeping well away from the 'splash-over'.
DJI Osmo 360 20/1/26
  
 
22/1/26
I hadn't really intended
to do any photography yesterday as from not long after sunrise it turned
dull and wet. In the afternoon though I had to take the car down to town
to get a new set of tyres fitted, but when they weren't able to fit them
straight away I went for a stroll down the Nunnery footpath by the River
Douglas with the 360 camera.
DJI Osmo 360 21/1/26
  
 
23/1/26
I took these pictures
yesterday afternoon on a visit to Glen Helen. The weather didn't
look too promising with moderate rain, but after sitting in the car park
for a while it eased off and I started my walk up to the Rhenass Falls.
I was taking mainly 360 degree shots, but have taken 'slices' from them
for some conventional pictures.
For the full 360 degree
panoramas I've left both 'autorotate' and 'gyro' off so you can either
just view the scenes as presented or rotate it around as you wish.
DJI Osmo 360 22/1/26
    
The Panoramic Pictures
   
   
26/1/26
I was wanting to shoot
some test video for editing and wanted a fairly close location that might
also provide some single images and 360 panoramas for the website. I chose
Old Kirk Braddan for a visit as I could also check to see if the Snowdrops
that usually bloom towards the end of the month were visible yet.
DJI Osmo 360 & Samsung
Galaxy S24 Ultra 25/1/26
 
  
   
 
  
 
27/1/26
I've spent a bit of
time this morning trying to edit the test video that I shot at Old Kirk
Braddan on Sunday morning. My 15+ year old desktop isn't really up
to the job though, so editing has just been confined to joining the various
clips that I shot together. Soundtrack is the ambient noise recorded
by a DJI Mic2.
DJI Osmo 360 25/1/26
28/1/26
After Storm Chandra
passed over the island during Monday night and Tuesday morning, the wind
abated a little in the afternoon and I decided to head out in the hope
of a spectacular quantity of water coming down the Injebreck waterfall.
When I arrived there I was a bit disappointed by the overall quantity,
either I had arrived too late or possibly too early! The weather
was still dull and overcast with low cloud sitting on the hilltops.
DJI Osmo 360 27/1/26
   
   
29/1/26
After the slightly disappointing
Injebreck Waterfall on Tuesday afternoon, I continued on, up Injebreck
Hill and then down into Druidale, stopping at the little car park close
to Montpelier Woodland, another favourite spot for me. I shot quite
a few 360 panoramas but the first three pictures here are just wide angle
'slices' from them.
It remained a very dull
day and these pictures were taken around half an hour before sunset, not
that it was at all visible!
DJI Osmo 360 27/1/26
  
   
  
30/1/26
We seem to be stuck
in a repetitive pattern of poor weather at the moment, with a succession
of low pressure areas arriving from the Atlantic, bringing strong to gale
force winds, with lots of cloud and rain. However, on Wednesday we
had a single day's respite, with light winds and generally clear skies,
so we decided to have a trip out and head off down the The Sound Cafe for
lunch. I took the 360 camera and had a wander around with it after
our lunch. The first four pictures are crops from full 360s.
DJI Osmo 360 28/1/26
   
   
On our way home from
The Sound, we had a quick stop on the Mull Road for me to scramble up the
muddy path for a couple of pictures of the Mull Hill Circle. The
monument is the remains of a Neolithic tomb constructed in around 3500
BC and consisting of twelve burial chambers arranged in pairs around a
circle.
DJI Osmo 360 28/1/26
 
 
1/2/26
On my way home from
taking snowdrop pictures at Braddan Old Kirk (slightly confusingly they
appear in next months gallery) I stopped off at the TT Grandstand to try
shooting a 360 degree panorama from the winner's podium. Standing
up there I realised that (apart from attending a funeral) I'd never visited
the Douglas Borough Cemetery on the other side of the road. Quite
a fascinating place in its own right, I also made a discovery of something
in there that is a real curiosity!
DJI Osmo 360 31/1/26
 
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