This is going to be one hot post.
Sorry, couldn’t resist. You know what’s coming: More lava and heat, as captured by drone. In fact, that’s rapidly becoming one of the only ways to shoot this miraculous spot, because the expanding and dangerous lava field keeps pushing tourists further and further back. So you either need a really long lens, a drone, or maybe a ride in a helicopter.
Us? We’re all about the drones.
Three more Fagradalsfjall volcano drone videos…
Yes, we’ve brought you a lot of drone volcano videos by now. But we always make our selections because the videos bring us something new or special. For example, there was the pilot whose Mavic Pro 2 was melted by the searing heat, but still flew home! Then there was the guy whose DJI FPV drone went directly into the crater, with pretty spectacular results (he still hasn’t revealed whether this was deliberate or not).
And now, we have three more, each reflecting a new aspect of this very active volcano.
The first comes from YouTube creator Traveller In The Whole World, whose work on this volcano we’ve featured before. His work is slow and smooth, and allows the viewer to truly appreciate the scale of this volcano before he goes in for the hot stuff. And wow… some of the lava in this one is pretty spectacular:
Plus, this was shot with the DJI MINI 2. That still kinda blows our mind.
Drone volcano video, Part II:
The second video of the Fagradalsfjall volcano comes to us from Armando Martinez, a Denver-based photographer who also does video and aerial work. Armando dropped us a note with a link to this video… and we love it. He pointed us toward his YouTube description, which we quote from below:
The day I was there, June 7, 2021, the volcano was acting like a geyser and erupting about every 7 minutes. The first time I saw it erupt it grew larger and larger and made me take a step back not knowing what it really was going to do or how big it would get. The fear of being hit by lava was a real thought for a moment in the back of my mind. After seeing a few cycles of the eruption I could see that it was fairly consistent and I could time my approach to capture it with my drone…. What I present to you is a film showing you one cycle of its eruption and a look into the center of the earth. Hopefully you will see the mesmerizing life of molten lava as I did and the beauty of the cycle of life on this planet we call home.
The pacing and shots on this edit are first-rate and it’s a truly mesmerizing piece of work. We think you’ll agree:
Mavic 2 Pro
That’s what Armando was shooting with – and making this drone volcano video exposed it to a significant amount of heat:
When returning from the last flight over the top of it I noticed the covers to the USB port and memory card slot were dangling from the drone. The heat had made the soft plastics warp and fall out of its place. Upon closer inspection I saw the sensor coverings on the bottom were also warped and other sections of the craft had softened from the heat. Was it worth it? Yes.
We totally agree.
Third time’s a charm…
While we were watching Armando’s footage, YouTube helpfully popped up an FPV flight by Joshua Turner posted two days ago. He’s flying a DJI FPV drone with a GoPro Hero8 strapped to the top. He describes some of the challenges:
The trickiest part was dealing with the turbulent air and gases coming out of the volcano and some of the lava flows. I nearly lost control on my second pass into the crater due to all of the air turbulence and just made it out with full throttle. As of this time (end of June 2021) it was no longer possible to get as close to the volcano requiring me to fly from just over a mile away. The DJI FPV drone performed amazingly well and I had almost no signal breakups as long as I stayed in front of the volcano.
Here you go – and nice audio edit, Joshua!
There is, by the way, a part two to this video – just in case you still want more.
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