Last week I posted some photographs taken from the ground of Hartford Mill, so let’s take a look at some of the aerial ones.

Despite shooting into the light, the little camera on the drone performed remarkably well. It’s a one inch sensor so considerably smaller than my full frame Nikon but it didn’t flare at all, and the ability to recover highlight detail in the raw files was much better than I expected from a sensor this size. I’m not sure the sensor is ISO invariant like modern crop and full frame ones but it’s not bad at all, and I’m definitely glad I waited for the Mavic 2 to come out having been waiting for a small drone with a bigger sensor for a few years.

I was fortunate with the relatively clear sky on the day to be able to capture the Manchester skyline on the horizon, although I’d be lying if I said it was deliberate as I didn’t notice it on the day on my IPhone screen! But having the mill in the foreground, the remaining Chadderton mills in the near background and the new, shiny Manchester in the far background is maybe an appropriate metaphor for the way that the city has left it’s surrounding towns behind.