3/5/26
A couple of pictures
taken on the same day, but at quite different times, just out of the windows
of my house.
Insta360 Ace Pro &
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra 1/5/26
 
5/5/26
Yesterday afternoon
we took a trip up to Ramsey. There has been a tall ship, the 'La
Malouine' stranded on the beach at Ballure for around a week now after
she broke her moorings in a storm. I really hoped that the owner
would have managed to refloat her on the high tide around lunchtime, but
unfortunately she was still stuck on the sand. Some ground and aerial
shots of her.
Panasonic TZ95, DJI
Mini 4 Pro & DJI Osmo 360 4/5/26
    
   
Interactive Panoramas
 
6/3/26
Bright yellow fields
of Oil Seed Rape plants growing just to the north of Jurby Airfield.
DJI Mini 4 Pro 4/5/26
    
 
8/5/26
Yesterday morning I
was wanting to carry out two test flights with the mini drone, specifically
to check on auto transfer of the Flight Data files from controller to computer.
As regular site visitors might know, I don't like to waste aerial photo
opportunities, so headed to Douglas Head for the flights.
DJI Mini 4 Pro 7/5/26
    
    
   
 
9/5/26
On Thursday afternoon
I headed up to the north of the island, with the intention of shooting
some aerial pictures in the Bride Hills. The Isle of Man is blessed
with some amazingly different scenic areas, from flat plains to mountainous
areas, and lots of glens with rivers and waterfalls. Plus coastal
areas, some with large sandy beaches and others with sheer rock faces climbing
above the sea. The Bride Hills are something different, a small area
of gently rolling hills, caused by glaciation. I flew from two locations
there, discovered something interesting on the old RAF Andreas airfield,
and shot multiple 360 degree panoramas so you can look around yourselves.
DJI Mini 4 Pro 7/5/26
    
    
The 360 degree interactive
panoramas
  
 
11/5/26
Yesterday morning looked
ideal for some more aerial photography with a drone, so I set off to the
Marine Drive, starting just south of Douglas Head.
DJI Mini 4 Pro 10/5/26
    
    
    
    
 
12/5/26
A couple of phone pictures
taken from home yesterday evening.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
11/5/26
 
15/5/26
We have a friend from
Scotland visiting at the moment, and yesterday we travelled down to The
Sound for lunch.
DJI Osmo 360 & Panasonic
TZ95 14/5/26
    
   
16/5/26
We were just about to
leave The Sound when RAF C17 Globemaster ZZ172 'Blackcat 839' put in an
appearance, crew training at Ronaldsway.
Panasonic TZ95
14/5/26
  
Port Erin Reflections
Panasonic TZ95 14/5/26
 
The Isle of Man Railway
and Railway Museum at Port Erin
Samsung S24 Ultra
14/5/26
    
    
17/5/26
I've taken so many photographs
around the island since I started Island Images back in January 2000 (there
are over 30,000 on the website!) and I's nowadays quite unusual for me
to be able to find any new locations for you. Friday was a case in
point, I can't guess how many times I've walked around the castle and beaches
in Peel, but in the afternoon we were there with our visitor and
the light just seemed perfect, hence the rather larger than normal selection
of pictures here.
Panasonic FZ82
15/5/26
    
    
    
    
 
18/5/26
A few more Peel pictures
from Friday that didn't make the original selection.
Panasonic FZ82
15/5/26
     
21/5/26
When we were at The
Sound a few days ago, the wind was way too strong for flying, but on Monday
it dropped to a light breeze and I headed down there to take some aerial
pictures. When I downloaded the results to my computer I was amazed
that I had shot 666 individual frames over three flights lasting for 55
minutes in the air! However, to mitigate this huge number, they are
all taken with 3 shot AEB, and each of the five 360 degree panoramas requires
78 individual pictures to be stitched together. I had hoped to publish
this selection yesterday, but due to the amount of processing required
and actually having other commitments, it's taken me three days to finish!
DJI Air 2S 18/5/26
    
    
    
    
 
Interactive 360 degree
panoramas
  
 
Having a bit of a roundup
of various maritime pictures taken from my window at home over the last
couple of weeks.
12/5/26 - 16/5/26
    
22/5/26
When I was working on
the 360 degree aerial panoramas that I shot at The Sound on Monday afternoon,
I thought that some might make quite good single shots in my normal 16:9
format, so yesterday I revisited them and produced the shots below.
The last picture is just a bit of fun! As the original panorama had been
shot from overhead Kitterland, I wondered if it could be turned into a
sphere. It took a bit of work using DJI Studio on the laptop and
taking a screenshot of the result, but I think it's OK.
I've included the links
to the original panoramas, so if you want a comparison, just click on the
big pictures.
DJI Air 2S 18/5/26
  
On Tuesday we drove
to Glen Helen to visit the new Isle of Man
Farm Shop that has recently opened in the rebuilt Swiss Cottage there.
I shot a few pictures including some 360 degree panoramas. The initial
panorama pictures are just 'slices' from the full panorama, click the image
to see the panorama.
Panasonic TZ95 &
DJI Osmo 360 19/5/26
  
 
23/5/26
I returned to Glen Helen
yesterday afternoon. The main intention was to shoot video for a
future project (editing 360 degree video can be a long task!), but I also
shot a series of 360 degree panoramas walking up to the Rhenass Falls and
back again. The initial pictures are all 'slices' of these, edited into
16:9 format to stand on their own, but click the larger images to see the
full interactive panoramas. I've included two pictures from the iMuseum
to show how the falls area used to be in times past.
DJI Osmo 360 22/5/26
    
 
  
24/5/26
Yesterday afternoon
I needed to do a trip to the recycling centre just south of Douglas, and
as this involves a round trip of about 5 miles from home, decided to build
in some photographs! Not of the recycling centre, but after my visit
I headed down to Port Soderick with the mini drone. In its heyday
Port Soderick was a bustling mini resort, served by the Isle of Man Railway,
Douglas Southern Electric Tramway and a regular boat service from Douglas.
A funicular railway transported visitors from the Marine Drive running
on the cliffs above. I've started with a few old pictures, the first two
are from the iMuseum and the second two from my collection.
DJI Mini 4 Pro 23/5/26
   
    
    
   
27/5/26
The weather over the
past few days has been perfect for drone flying with good visibility and
light winds and yesterday morning I headed down to the coast at Onchan
with the mini drone and ended up flying from three locations. The
first one was by the little cove at Port Jack, once a very popular swimming
location in Victorian times.
DJI Mini 4 Pro
26/5/26
    
   
Whilst I was conducting
the flight at Port Jack I'd noticed some nice reflection in the sea from
the promenade buildings, so I walked down the hill a bit for a second flight
from Derby Castle. Actually capturing them proved harder than I's
expected, as viewing angles seemed quite critical. I did get a couple
of good pics of the transport interchange though, with Electric and Horse
Trams there at the same time. No buses obliged though!
DJI Mini 4 Pro 26/5/26
    
  
For my third flying
location on Tuesday morning I headed just a little to the north, to Onchan
Harbour. It was never a harbour in the normal sense, but a beach
where the local folk could keep their small boats and head out to catch
some fish. In the tourism heyday of the Isle of Man it was a popular tourist
spot with several hotels and the White City entertainment complex close
by. There used to be a proper road down to the beach, and rather
amazingly a little open air theatre half way down!
DJI Mini 4 Pro 26/5/26
    
    
Some old pictures of
the area.
   
A current day stitched
panorama.
29/5/26
One of the reasons that
I like using drones for my photography is that it enables me to put my
camera into locations that would otherwise be impossible and on Tuesday
afternoon I headed out to one that had been on my wish list for a while.
It was Pistol Bay, a rocky area on the east coast to the south of Port
Soderick, but one that is only visible either from the air or the sea,
as the coastal path heads inland in that location, only regaining the actual
coast to the south of the bay.
DJI Mini 4 Pro 26/5/26
    
   
After finishing the
Pistol Bay flight, I moved the car to Meary Veg and walked down to the
Baltic Rock for another flight.
    
    
On the walk back to
Meary Veg, I had a quick stop at Santon Head for a few more pictures of
the impressive cliffs there.
    
28/5/26
A bit of catching up!
A week last Wednesday we were at Ronaldsway picking up a friend and afterward
went over to Cafe Bar 26 for coffee. Whilst we were there a couple
of aircraft taxied out for departure so I popped out to the fence for a
couple of photos.
Panasonic TZ95 20/5/26
 
30/5/26
On Wednesday evening
after sunset, a big thunderstorm hit the island from the south. I
took this picture as a 360 degree panorama, this is just a 'slice'
DJI Osmo 360 27/5/26
31/5/26
On Friday afternoon
it was a TT races practice day with the course closed, so I decided to
head down to Port Erin for a walk and some photography. Well I didn't
even make it as far as the promenade as traffic was backed up past Port
Jack on King Edward Road and even onto Royal Avenue. So I headed
back home initially but then decided to try northwards to Laxey or the
Dhoon Glen. Whilst I was still on the way there I realised that if
I went for a walk I would then catch all of the traffic that floods the
roads after a race or practice finishes, so just decided to do a loop around
and abandon the idea. I did stop for one panoramic picture on the
Ballaragh Road though.
DJI Osmo 360 29/5/26
1/6/26
We had a trip down into
Douglas for some shopping yesterday afternoon whilst the race was on (=less
busy there!) and I took the 360 degree camera for a stroll around by the
harbour before we went to the shops. These are three 'slices' from
the full 360 degree panoramas. Click the big images to view the full panorama.
DJI Osmo 360 31/5/26
  
Later yesterday afternoon
I realised that there might be an opportunity to photograph two of the
Steam Packet ships together, as the 'Ben my Chree' was due to leave as
the 'Manxman' was arriving. These picture are getting harder to take from
home as the years pass and the trees get taller! The Steam Packet
is incredibly busy at this time of the year due to the TT races, with three
ships in almost constant service every day, sailing on routes to Heysham,
Liverpool, Dublin and Larne.
Panasonic FZ82 31/5/26
   
4/6/26
I finally completed
editing and publishing the Glen Helen video! Shot back on the 22nd
using the 360 degree camera it's a three stage process. Firstly the
360 video has to be edited into conventional format using the DJI Studio
program, taking each clip (there were a lot of them!) and choosing camera
angles and zoom levels. Don't get me wrong, it's great to be able
to do this at home on a computer, but it is rather time consuming. Then
the clips are compiled together and edited for length in a conventional
video editing program, I use VSDC Video Editor which gives me all of the
options that I want (and many more). Finally it's uploaded to YouTube,
which for various reasons took me three attempts. Anyway, it's there
now and if you wish you can view it by clicking the button below.
DJI Osmo 360 22/5/26
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