26/2/26
A short video of the
visit to Lonan Old Church.
23/2/26
Yesterday morning I
had a little foray out to visit St Adamnan's, Lonan Old Church. I
tried to combine shooting some 360 degree video with still images, but
I think that I should stick to one or the other! I've not even viewed
the video yet, but think I could have done better with the stills.
The church has an interesting history, I increased my knowledge by buying
one of their new guide books (2025) which was very informative. The
church probably started life as a keeil in the early days of Christianity
on the island, in the 8th or 9th century, but quite likely constructed
close to a much older pagan site of worship at a well. A lot of these
were 'converted' to Christian 'Holy Wells' with the arrival of the new
religion. The first church was maybe constructed in the 1200s and comprises
the eastern end of the current building. Subsequently extended but
by 1735 it had been replaced by a newer church closer to where the local
population actually lived. In 1830 an Act of Tynwald ordered that
the old church be demolished, but it survived and in the late 1890s had
a lot of restoration work done on the older, eastern end, including installing
the present stained glass windows.
DJI Osmo 360 22/2/26
   
  
   
22/2/26
Yesterday afternoon
was dull and rainy, so I knuckled down and had another go at editing the
Archallagan Plantation video, you know, the one that I managed to overwrite
the other day after hours of work! This time I was more careful and
took more time over it, with no interruptions, and managed to complete
it.
I played around with
a few effects in VSDC Video Editor for the 'Enchanted Forest' section!
DJI Osmo 360 16/2/26
20/2/26
After the disappointment
of loosing my video editing work in the morning, I decided to head back
to Archallagan Plantation in the afternoon, but this time taking a drone
for some aerial shots. Although it was a dull and overcast day, the
strong winds that we are having on an almost daily basis had subsided,
making drone flying possible.
DJI Air 2S & DJI
Osmo 360 19/2/26
    
    
    
  
18/2/26
On Monday afternoon,
despite a rather biting cold wind, I decided that I needed some fresh air
and exercise, so decided to head out to Archallagan Plantation where I
reckoned that I could get some shelter in the trees. I knew that
there had been a lot of forestry works there over the past few years following
storm damage to the trees, but wasn't really prepared for the large areas
of total devastation left after the commercial forestry operations.
It seems that there is no attempt to clear away the detritus left behind
after the valuable tree trunks are cut and there are just large areas of
what can only be described as wasteland left behind. Fortunately
a large area of the woodland is still intact and lovely to walk in.
I visited a couple of special areas to me, and had planned doing a combined
presentation of conventional shots, 360 degree panoramas and video, but
the technical aspects of actually producing that proved beyond me, so the
video will have to follow later!
DJI Osmo 360 & Samsung
Galaxy S24 Ultra 16/2/26
  
   
 
The 360 degree interactive
panoramas.
   
  
Update - 19/2/26
- Due to a 'Technical Error' yesterday afternoon, I managed to overwrite
several hours of video processing and I haven't the heart this morning
to start again from
scratch! I may have another attempt in a few days, but will just
have to see.
16/2/26
After taking the aerial
shots I saw that there was a notice on the church door to say that it was
open, so I grabbed the 360 camera for some ground level shots. The church
has an interesting history and is the third church to be built in this
location, being constructed in 1836. It was a multi-purpose building
incorporating both church and a school, with separate areas (and entrances!)
for boys and girls. Two movable partitions could be used to divide
off areas at the western end of the church for such purposes and one survives
in use to today, with the location of the other one still visible.
The church organ came from Kentraugh Mansion House and was restored in
1979 but now unfortunately is suffering from woodworm and has been replaced
in use by a modern electric one. The pulpit came from Kirk Braddan
around 90 years ago.
On the 4th
of December 2024 I had a guided tour of the church by Church Warden
Sue Sayle, who is a font of knowledge about the building.
The first picture is
a big crop on one of the aerial ones, annotated to show the three entrances,
although the Boys School one has long been blocked off.
DJI Osmo 360 14/2/26
 
  
15/2/26
It seems like we've
had weeks of poor weather here, with strong to gale force winds, heavy
rain and even snow, as I'm typing this we are in the clouds at out
500 ft elevation with heavy rain battering against the windows. However,
yesterday morning was different, with light breezes and sunshine, so I
decided to do some aerial photography and chose the ridgeline between the
east and west Baldwin valleys as a location. From my logbook it had been
a month since I had last flown!
DJI Mini 4 Pro 14/2/26
    
    
   
  
After completing the
picture editing (it's taken most of the morning) the sun is now shining!
14/2/26
There was some snow
on the higher ground overnight, so I set out in the morning to hopefully
capture some shots. In the end I visited three different locations,
these pictures are from the first, by the little lane that leads up to
Cronk Breck.
Panasonic TZ95 &
DJI Osmo 360 13/2/26
  
My second location was
in fact two, but close together. Stopping initially at the 'Round
Table' crossroads by South Barrule, then moving slightly down the Ronague
Road to where the 'Whiskey Run' track branches off. The final location
was further down the main road by Cronk-ny-arrey-Laa, parking where the
Eary Cushlin track joins.
DJI Osmo 360 13/2/26
   
   
12/2/26
There is currently an
exhibition 'Mars in Peel' at St German's Cathedral. Similar and by
the same artist as the 'Museum
of the Moon' that visited last year, this is a very large slowly rotating
globe suspended from the roof. We visited yesterday afternoon, choosing
a time when it was quiet so that I could get some 360 pictures.
DJI Osmo 360 11/2/26
 
    
  
 
10/2/26
I finally finished working
on the 360 video clips that I shot on Saturday. Yesterday was spent
processing the 360 video 'as shot' into conventional 16:9 format using
the DJI Studio program, which is very unstable on my new laptop at present
and crashes regularly, fortunately preserving the work you've done before
it exits. This morning was then spent compiling the sixteen different
segments into one video using VSDC Video Editor, which fortunately runs
perfectly on the new laptop. The video is now uploaded to Youtube
and you can view it by clicking the button below.
DJI Osmo 360 7/2/26
8/2/26
After what seemed like
endless days of cloud and rain, yesterday morning was much brighter with
even some sunshine promised, and I set off to Laxey to shoot some more
360 degree video to play with. Whilst I was there I also did some
still panoramas in the various locations that I visited. Starting
with three 'panoramic slices'.
DJI Osmo 360 7/2/26
  
  
  
7/2/26
Yesterday was a very
rainy day and I managed to edit another experimental video shot with the
360 camera! These were clips that I shot at the start of January
but due to the lack of processing power on my rather old desktop computer
have sat unused since then. Subsequent to the purchase of a new laptop,
I've now been able to use them properly, although the DJI Studio program
can be a bit flaky at times! This video come from three clips shot
in Groudle Glen.
Update (14/2/26). I
re-edited the the three clips yesterday and the link below now points to
the new version.
DJI Osmo 360 9/1/26
6/2/26
Regular site visitors
will know that I've recently been doing a lot of 360 degree still image
photography. I've also shot some video using the 360 degree camera
and have just started to experiment with processing it using a combination
of DJI Studio for framing the shots, then VSDC for compiling the video.
This production came from my first attempt at shooting 360 video when I'd
only had the camera for a few days in December last year, and I used the
waterfall at Injebreck as a subject
DJI Osmo 360 4/12/25
5/2/26
The weather continues
to be uninviting for outside photography with overcast skies, strong winds
up to gale force at time and a lot of rain, but yesterday lunchtime I was
dropping Georgie off in town and had a small photographic excursion to
Douglas Lighthouse before returning home.
Starting with three
'slices' from the full 360 degree panoramas that follow.
DJI Osmo 360 4/2/26
  
 
2/2/26
After a dull and wet
morning , the weather brightened up yesterday afternoon and we had a lovely
impressionist sunset here in Birch Hill!
This picture is a 'slice'
from a full 360 degree panorama taken with the camera on a long pole to
lift it above the house rooftop.
DJI Osmo 360 1/2/26
1/2/26
Wishing all website
visitors a happy Imbolc!
This is the ancient
pre-Christian festival that lies mid way between the Winter Solstice and
Spring Equinox. It celebrates the start of spring growth for plants and
animals, with snowdrops flowering and lambs being born, and is dedicated
to the Goddess Brigid, later Saint Brigid. In Manx Gaelic the day is Laa'l
Breeshey. Yesterday I re-visited Braddan Old Kirk for some pictures
of the snowdrops, but had to borrow the lambs from 2016! Some more
information on Imbolc is here.
The actual festival date is astronomically calculated and generally falls
between the 3rd and 6th of February, this year I believe it's on the 3rd!
Nikon D7100 & DJI
Osmo 360 31/1/26
   
 
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