Drone choice for walking and riding...

[briantrumpet]

Second training flight of the day. Still not gentle enough on the pan action (it's the most visually obvious in any case), but at least I got a bit more confident at flying by watching just what was on the screen and letting the drone get 200-300m away, and trusting it wouldn't drop into the river. I guess it's a bit like riding a bike down fast descents - you just have to trust the machinery, or you'll just be jittery with your hands on the brakes the whole time.

 

[Way-Out-West]

Nice work! And cracking scenery Gromit.

 

[briantrumpet]

Nice work! And cracking scenery Gromit.

Thanks. Work in progress. Could have gone lower to get more of a whooshing sensation, but then would have lost the shapes of the river. Another time I could start lower and then ascend... Of be nervous about doing it the other way, as I don't think it works submerse more than once.

It's quite fun planning a single take video, though doing a few bits and sticking them together would be a useful thing to learn to do back at base.

Haven't worked out where to do the next flight. Need to stare at a map and rack my brain.

 

[Way-Out-West]

Thanks. Work in progress. Could have gone lower to get more of a whooshing sensation, but then would have lost the shapes of the river. Another time I could start lower and then ascend... Of be nervous about doing it the other way, as I don't think it works submerse more than once.

It's quite fun planning a single take video, though doing a few bits and sticking them together would be a useful thing to learn to do back at base.

Haven't worked out where to do the next flight. Need to stare at a map and rack my brain.

Yeah, water resistance looks to be low. I noticed the holes around the blades that leave the motor coil windings open to the elements.
You must have almost too much choice of where to fly. A nice problem to have!

 

[briantrumpet]

Yeah, water resistance looks to be low. I noticed the holes around the blades that leave the motor coil windings open to the elements.
You must have almost too much choice of where to fly. A nice problem to have!

I'm sure there are loads of places, but I'm being very careful to check the official no-fly areas, and thinking about sight lines and trees. Also where there are not-private areas suitable to fly from, and where I won't annoy people. Today's later flight was completely drowned out by the noise of the river.

 

[briantrumpet]

Here's today's effort - terribly unadventurous, not least as if I did anything more than taking it vertically up and spinning it around, I risked being over houses, which is a no-no. But quite pleased, as it's a view of the chateau which is impossible otherwise, and the view from there is quite nice. Didn't mean to stick this particular piece of music to it, but it'll do as a toe-tapper.

 

[briantrumpet]

This was just a try-out of the pull-back function - there are a few, including boomerang, vertical 'rocket', circle, and ascending spiral, but you've got to be very careful of potential collision features (you can stop it at any time, but obviously you need to be able to see the thing, and in tree-ey/hilly terrain, there are a lot of potential hazards.

 

[briantrumpet]

Today's panorama, taken on my way to do some shopping at Lidl:



I think I need to find some relatively flat and obstacle-free locations, either here or in Devon, to do practice on moving shots fairly close to features without risking crashing the drone, to build up confidence. At the moment, I still feel very tense even with a simple shot like this, sending £250 up in the air and potentially up to 500m away and 100m up. Even though I know the technology is very good for the thing making its own way back to me, it still feels weird remote flying such a tiny thing so far away with just a mobile phone screen to see what it's up to.

 

[briantrumpet]

I wanted to try out the 'circle' function on the Potensic Atom - should be good for when I'm somewhere up high... reckon a cliff edge would work well, but Blackingstone Rock was quite good today for a trial...



Also did a fly-past:

 

[briantrumpet]

Tried out the still photographs function this evening... I'd like to catch a nice sunset looking up the Exe when it's high tide, but wanted to do some test shots... this was from about 60m up, and only took a few minutes from start to finish. The camera didn't cope that well looking directly towards the sun (it made the town look very dark indeed) having stopped down to compensate for the bright sun), but a bit of easy adjustment on the laptop got passable balance.

I reckon towards the longest day the sun will set pretty much directly up the Exe, so all I need then is the high tide and some pretty clouds! Not asking much...

 

[briantrumpet]

Next project: splicing bits of video together to tell a bit of a story - I didn't do the bit where I actually got to the top (I'd need to think just how to make that work), and it's a bit clunky, but it kinda works, I think.

A good spot for droning... outside of the no-drone area of Dartmoor proper, and no-one else about at all. And interesting views in all directions.

 

[briantrumpet]

I suspect I'm going to use the stills function more often, as it does give unique angles not otherwise possible...

Anyway, it's back off to France with me at the weekend, where it might stay thereafter. We'll see.

 

[briantrumpet]

Right, I'm getting better to grips with Clipchamp, and thinking of places where drone footage does something stills don't. I think this favourite cycling road qualifies... it would be easier with someone else to video for the 'action shots', but this seems to work OK.

 

[Way-Out-West]

Right, I'm getting better to grips with Clipchamp, and thinking of places where drone footage does something stills don't. I think this favourite cycling road qualifies... it would be easier with someone else to video for the 'action shots', but this seems to work OK.

Nice job!
I read something recently about controlling drones using a smartphone and how the younguns who were brought up playing games (on the smartphone) with virtual joysticks find it second nature.

 

[briantrumpet]

Nice job!
I read something recently about controlling drones using a smartphone and how the younguns who were brought up playing games (on the smartphone) with virtual joysticks find it second nature.

Yeah, it's a clever bit of kit that uses the phone for the screen and computing bit, which sits in a cradle that connects to the drone and has two tiny joysticks. It's still not second nature at all using the joysticks (U/D & rotate L/R wit h the left one, F/B & L/R with the right one), so I find it difficult to do more than one action at a time. I'm not a gamer either, so learning to use the joysticks fluently and subtly just needs a lot more practice.

But I am also finding it interesting what makes these short videos work... today's effort of scene setting then action sort of tells a bit of a story... the video needs to be just long enough to have an impact, but trying to cut out any dead moments... work in progress.