To be clear, this is not about the rules regarding drones and the volcano (I’ll leave a link at the end of the article for that).
As most of you probably know by now, something is brewing in Iceland, AGAIN. Something around 1.200°C. Last year (2021) Reykjanes erupted after weeks of earth quakes and threats of an eruption, we all know how that story went. There was fear, chaos and excitement as is was uncertain how big it was and how the scenario would unfold. I made around 20+ trips to the volcano to document the process and evolution of the volcano, always bringing my drones (DJI Mavic 2 Pro and Zoom). Now it has erupted again in a similar location. I went as soon as it began (yes, I was careful) and the day after. Since I learnt a lot from the previous eruption, there were way less uncertainties this time, both about the nature of the eruption and how to go about shooting it.
Capturing it from above has been an incredible experience and a steep learning curve as there have been some strange issues with many drones flying in the area. Understandably, you rarely get a second chance from the volcano and it has already claimed many of our brave flying companions. So far I’ve probably emptied over 100 batteries flying over the spewing volcano and hot lava and so far every flight has been successful, but there have definitely been a few close calls. That’s why I wanted to share a few tips and information that might come in handy for other fellow drone pilots. These are not technical tips on settings and such - and I won’t go into things like wind etc. - only things I feel are especially relevant when it comes to a volcano. Also, even though every type of drone is different these should be relevant for most of them.
DISCLAIMER: Your drone is your drone and you do what you want so don’t send me an angry message if something goes wrong. It’s probably a stupid idea anyway to fly a drone over an active volcano! It’s also a lot of fun so I highly recommend you do it.
Bring loads of SD cards
This is generally a good rule when you’re capturing content you really don’t want to lose but I’d say it’s especially important when flying over an active volcano since there’s almost no way of retrieving it if something goes wrong. What I do is a put in a fresh SD card, finish my flight and then switch in a new one. I keep mine sorted in a Ruggard Memory Card Case. A good rule of thumb is having twice the number of SD cards as your batteries (just in case you’re doing more than one flights on a single battery).
How close can you go?
DISCLAIMER 1: I did melt my drone a little bit during some of my flights (the bottom sensor is damaged but functional and the cover by the SD card has shrinked). So, yeah… maybe I’m not the the right person to be making this list. Still the drone has functioned 100% since the eruption (until it crashed in the ocean a few weeks ago). Anyway…
DISCLAIMER 2: Weather is a huge factor when it comes to the heat. Air temperature and wind will affect how close you can go so take that into account while flying.
Regardless of the size of the volcano you should always make sure you know how high you are compared to the danger zone. Since the displayed altitude of your drone is always measured from its takeover altitude (and not its current altitude above the ground beneath it) you have to keep that in mind. The closest I’ve been over lava is somewhere around 5-10 meters but I wasn’t there for long. There’s also a big difference between running (orange lava) and solidified (black/grey). The running lava is obviously way hotter but the solidified parts are still insanely hot. Then it’s an entirely different story when you’re flying over the volcano itself. Since every splatter is different you’re really counting on luck if you want to go really close. I think I was somewhere around 20-30 meters above a fresh crater at some points and feel I could have gone a little bit closer but then I would have ran the risk of my drone having an intimate date with fresh new lava.
In general, if you don’t want any deformities on your drone, I think if you stay around 40-50 meters above the lava you should be fine and probably around 70-100 above the volcano/fissure.
Keep moving
The longer you stay still over the hot lava, the hotter your drone will get (I’m a genius, I know). The propellers and cold air help cool your drone while in the air (that (and time spent in heat) is partly why FPV drones can go way closer to the craters without getting melted). So don’t stay in the same spot for no reason if you’re close to the lava. If you’re getting the next viral reel for some insta-fame, that might be a different story and up to you to decide. Go as low as you need for a quick shot but don’t stay there.
Underexpose, and then a little bit more (or bracket)
Most of use have probably heard talk about exposing for the highlights, basically underexposing to preserve details in the highlights and then pulling the shadows back up when editing. That’s definitely what I tend to do, but apparently the brightness of this super hot earth juice is on another level. It’s insane how bright the actual lava is (especially the one coming straight from the volcano/fissure). In my experience, when I “correctly” expose the image (given that the light is not extremely low or bright), I tend to lose a lot of details in the spewing lava, which are exactly the details I don’t want to lose. Play around with this yourself but my general rule of thumb has been to go a little bit darker than I usually would. If your shooting stills, you can obviously do some exposure bracketing and then merge in post.
Known (and not-so-known) issues
There has been talk of drones acting weird at the eruption site. I had two strange incidents myself where my drone started landing with no reason. I got no warning other than I saw my altitude decreasing all of a sudden. I could delay it by pushing up but it still kept going down. There was an X symbol on the left side of my screen but when I tried pressing it it only focused on that point of the frame. I was already pretty low and directly above the volcano with hot lava everywhere except for a small ridge right be the volcano. I managed to crash land there (about 30m from the volcano) and panic-ran to get it (my frontal lobe had already checked out because of stress so I first ran way too far).
There have also been reports about people losing signal even though the drone is not that far away (within 500 meters) and with nothing obstructing the view. I haven’t had that happen myself and honestly don’t know what could cause this. People have speculated that it might be because of many drones flying in the same area or that it has something to do with the magma and volcanic activity (no idea if that’s plausible or not). But maybe it’s simply a coincidence. Whatever the reason is, there have been drones strewn across the eruption site and daily WANTED “posters” online where people are asking if someone found a drone there.
The solution? No idea, but since this seems to only happen to some people and not other, it might be a good idea to use part of your first battery to see if everything is working fine - start carefully and not go too far away over the hot stuff. Of course it might happen later but given that you followed Tip 1 then you at least have some volcano content already and you can go home and edit while you cry about your loss. Crying while editing volcano footage is always better than just crying.
USELESS BONUS TIP
If you have around 40-50.000 ISK lying around and either don’t have a drone or really don’t want to feed it to the volcano, you can always go on one of those human-sized drones called helicopters. There are at least five companies doing helicopter tours over the volcano and if you’re lucky you’ll get a mad pilot that will fly you in a circle super close to the volcano with the door open. Second best would be an airplane of which there’s also an abundance of options. I warned you it would be useless.
I hope these helped and for more images, videos & other stuff from the eruption check out these:
https://www.behance.net/gallery/116015757/NEW-EARTH-eruption-in-Iceland
https://www.instagram.com/thrainnko/
— For INFORMATION ABOUT RULES REGARDING DRONES AND THE ERUPTION click HERE —
