Flying at the Beach

[BallisticSquid]

It's been a strange year or so for me and I haven't been playing guitar so I haven't been around here much. In the meantime I picked up a new hobby...flying drones! I had been practicing flying over the summer and brought my drone with me on our family beach vacation. I compiled hours of footage into this 4 minute video. To some, the soundtrack may sound familiar

Hope all is well with everybody. I poke my nose in here now and then and I see there are some lessons going on hosted by E and Fez. My motivation to play is slowly coming back so I hope to dive into those.

 

[tery]

That is really professional ..... its nice to see you !

 

[Stratafied]

Very nice!

 

[TepidPilot]

That's some pretty good footage. What kind of drone and radio? TPV?

TP

 

[BallisticSquid]

Thanks guys!

That's some pretty good footage. What kind of drone and radio? TPV?
TP

This is a DJI Mavic Air 2 drone. It's a GPS camera drone. Even though it's not an FPV drone which is really maneuverable, I was still able to pan around boats that were moving pretty quickly.

 

[jtoomuch]

Wow, nice work.

 

[Believer7713]

Very Cool!!! I just sold my drone to buy a new (to me) one a few weeks ago. What kind of drone are you working with? The one I've been flying lately is a DJI Mavic 2 Pro with the Hasselblad camera. Around here I've only been taking pics because I can't edit the videos yet until I get an app for my computer that will play the 4K video. I know I can shoot in 1080P but I really want to use the camera for what it is.
This is a pic that I took with a 4 second timed exposure watching the storm roll over the city from just above my office.

 

[BallisticSquid]

Very Cool!!! I just sold my drone to buy a new (to me) one a few weeks ago. What kind of drone are you working with? The one I've been flying lately is a DJI Mavic 2 Pro with the Hasselblad camera. Around here I've only been taking pics because I can't edit the videos yet until I get an app for my computer that will play the 4K video. I know I can shoot in 1080P but I really want to use the camera for what it is.
This is a pic that I took with a 4 second timed exposure watching the storm roll over the city from just above my office.
View attachment 504797

Thanks! That's a great shot!

I'm flying a DJI Mavic Air 2. I got it last April after going through a bunch of budget drones. The DJI drones are just amazing at how well they fly and the image quality.

I've been trying to take stills and I find it harder than video to get something I'm happy with.

What drone are you looking to purchase next? Or is the MA2 Pro your new drone?

Here is the only still I've shot that I was happy with. This was taken at OC as well.

I am using Davinci Resolve on my Windows PC to edit 4k video. It took me time to get comfortable using it. There is a ton of great tutorials on YouTube. I'm amazed at how great a job it does and it's free!

 

[rocknrollrich]

Wow. That's amazing squid.
Love the soundtrack as well.

 

[Mouse]

Good to see you back Squid and I hope you've been well. Very nice drone footage. I'd love to one day get one and mess around with it but at present I'd likely have little time for it.

Love the soundtrack. You know you're confident in your drone flying skills when you fly it over the bay.

 

[thomquietwolf]

It's been a strange year or so for me and I haven't been playing guitar so I haven't been around here much. In the meantime I picked up a new hobby...flying drones! I had been practicing flying over the summer and brought my drone with me on our family beach vacation. I compiled hours of footage into this 4 minute video. To some, the soundtrack may sound familiar

Hope all is well with everybody. I poke my nose in here now and then and I see there are some lessons going on hosted by E and Fez. My motivation to play is slowly coming back so I hope to dive into those.

Shazam....

 

[pookie613]

Just FYI-- Youtube's recent changes make hosting drone videos more risky-- they're considered monetized because they now show advertisements (it's not about whether you made money from it), and the FAA requires training and a commercial license for monetized drone footage for a drone over 250 grams; IIRC, a couple years ago some guy who livestreamed an aerial-view recording was fined 50K by the FAA. For them, ignorance was no excuse and speculation was that they were looking to make examples. It's not the fun, carefree hobby that it once was. Just be careful.

Things could have changed since I last researched this so you should Google it just to be safe.

(Lest I sound alarmist, the odds are very low of getting caught if you keep your video local. The video contains GPS coordinates and time/date metadata, which can verify if you filed proper flight plans and secured permission in advance (there are fines for that). IIRC, the videos are used to incriminate and prove non-compliance.)

 

[BallisticSquid]

Just FYI-- Youtube's recent changes make hosting drone videos more risky-- they're considered monetized because they now shows advertisements (it's not about whether you made money from it), and the FAA requires training and a commercial license for monetized drone footage for a drone over 250 grams; IIRC, a couple years ago some guy who livestreamed an aerial-view recording was fined 50K by the FAA. For them, ignorance was no excuse and speculation was that they were looking to make examples. It's not the fun, carefree hobby that it once was. Just be careful.

Things could have changed since I last researched this so you should Google it just to be safe.

For the reasons you state, I got my Part 107 Drone Pilot's certificate last March. That allows me to fly for commercial purposes. Thanks for the heads up though.

 

[BallisticSquid]

Wow. That's amazing squid.
Love the soundtrack as well.

Thanks! It's fun to pair these videos with my music.

Good to see you back Squid and I hope you've been well. Very nice drone footage. I'd love to one day get one and mess around with it but at present I'd likely have little time for it.

Love the soundtrack. You know you're confident in your drone flying skills when you fly it over the bay.

Things are better...thanks!

It's not only my drone flying skills but confidence in the capabilities of the drone. I have had some crappy drones that destroyed my confidence.

If you have the time or inclination, they are a lot of fun.

 

[pookie613]

For the reasons you state, I got my Part 107 Drone Pilot's certificate last March. That allows me to fly for commercial purposes. Thanks for the heads up though.

Sound like you know what you're doing-- lots of guitar hobbyists probably don't, and it's easy to buy drones nowadays!

 

[crankmeister]

Slick, man. You should be getting paid by the Board of Tourism there.

 

[BallisticSquid]

Sound like you know what you're doing-- lots of guitar hobbyists probably don't, and it's easy to buy drones nowadays!

There are a lot of clowns flying with complete disregard for the rules which will be the downfall of the drone hobby. There's a viral video involving a drone and an alligator that makes me nauseous just thinking about it. The rules are getting stricter and to even fly recreationally you need to obtain a certificate from the FAA (TRUST). Soon authorities will be able to locate and identify you and your drone in real time through something called Remote ID.

 

[Believer7713]

Thanks! That's a great shot!

I'm flying a DJI Mavic Air 2. I got it last April after going through a bunch of budget drones. The DJI drones are just amazing at how well they fly and the image quality.

I've been trying to take stills and I find it harder than video to get something I'm happy with.

What drone are you looking to purchase next? Or is the MA2 Pro your new drone?

Here is the only still I've shot that I was happy with. This was taken at OC as well.

I am using Davinci Resolve on my Windows PC to edit 4k video. It took me time to get comfortable using it. There is a ton of great tutorials on YouTube. I'm amazed at how great a job it does and it's free! View attachment 504803

Beautiful pic!!! I wish I was in an area that I could easily get to a good coast like you can. But...I live as close to the middle of the continent as you can get. I do have some greenery and a river and a railroad track that runs next to my sub-division though and got a couple cool pics from there too.

My last drone was a DJI Spark that I sold to a detective that I work with so he could break into the hobby with his son. I bought the M2P from a captain on the Department.
I took this one with the Spark that my little Yorkie absolutely hated. It just cracks me up every time I look at it.

The old and the new too.

I also use the ND8 filter a lot to get some really nice early morning and late evening cloud/sun pics. As it gets brighter I go to the darker filters or polarizers. I'm hoping to get an ND1000 to be able to get those really cool blurred pics in the near future.

 

[pookie613]

Slick, man. You should be getting paid by the Board of Tourism there.

Just before the pandemic, I turned a friend onto DJI's Mini 2 (249 grams) drone-- she works making promo materials for the Texas Parks whatever agency-- they paid for her training and license, and tried to buy her a bigger drone-- unfortunately, DJI isn't on their allowable manufacturers list (because they're commies). I don't know what she eventually got, but DJI is the industry leader for this type of drone.

If you're a young twitch game player, you might be more interested in a FPV racing drone that doesn't have stabilized flight-- totally insane jinking and janking if you've got the reflexes! Steam has a good simulator ("Liftoff") if you want to try before investing (it's a pricey hobby); many weigh less than 250 grams and can be fitted with DJI's digital FPV camera system (at the time, was the gold standard for FPV).

 

[pookie613]

There are a lot of clowns flying with complete disregard for the rules which will be the downfall of the drone hobby. There's a viral video involving a drone and an alligator that makes me nauseous just thinking about it. The rules are getting stricter and to even fly recreationally you need to obtain a certificate from the FAA (TRUST). Soon authorities will be able to locate and identify you and your drone in real time through something called Remote ID.

Sheesh, I knew that Remote ID was coming... of course there will be non-compliance from guys who build their own (without Remote ID), but they're probably not the problem-- most are tinkerers and tech-geeks (old-school RC hobbyists), not thrill-seeking users. Yeah, there will always be idiots who make life difficult for everyone.

I was learning to fly single rotor RC copters when drones started to become popular. I've now got a scale AirWolf and Vietnam-era Huey hanging from my ceiling. On the bright side, I don't have to repair them after nearly every flight. Cool.

I've still got an obsolete Phantom 2, and figured out how to modify it to use a common 5000 MaH LiPo battery (because DJI made it obsolete by discontinuing manufacture of its proprietary battery). I gutted its controller with WIFI/repeater camera and replaced it with a Taranis radio and DJI FPV digital system. (It's counterintutive, but an immersive FPV headset makes it more difficult to fly slowly because you lose "situational awareness" of peripheral boundaries (a.k.a., trees and fences) unless the camera is staring right at them.) It was fun figuring out how it worked, but it's a heavy dog without many modern features. I couldn't stand the idea of throwing it away, since it originally cost over $1000.

Rules, rules, rules... they're what drove me back to tinkering with RC land vehicles, like this:

So far, the gubment hasn't got its hooks into that hobby (because it's benign). This is a 1:10 scale 1979 Traxxas Bronco with a remotely-triggered jukebox that plays songs of that era, like "London Homesick Blues", "Wichita Lineman", etc. Its other armadillo-like configuration has an FPV camera and remote microphone.