What a weekend. Spent most of Saturday morning doing our taxes (OMG) brutal!! That’s all I can say about that. Then we went looking for some patio furniture. We haven’t had any for years. Did a lot of looking and thinking.
After that we went looking for a new lawn tractor. My old one is about to quit on me. I’ve gotten 16 years out of it, which considering what I paid for it is amazing. I’ve had a fair amount of work done on it over the years and probably could have bought two more tractors for what I’ve spent just keeping the old thing running. But now it’s time to give it a rest and put a new one to work.
Yesterday of course was a complete washout. Cold, rainy, and windy, which made it a perfect day for naps. 🙂
Now about the images of today’s post. Since I didn’t do any photography over the weekend I decided to show a short video, that is actually a composite of two videos I made back on March 29th. I took both Phantoms up to around 450 feet and tried to video and photograph them in flight. It turned out to be a bigger challenge for my limited skills than I anticipated. I did get it done but it didn’t look anything like what I had wanted to accomplish.
I’m still in the learning stage and have in actuality had very little flying time. So at some point I should start seeing better results.
Anyway a short little 3 minute video of the two Phantoms flying if you have the time for a quick look.
Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your wintry day and be careful.
I’ve driven the same stretch of road for 14 years now. It is somewhere arround 4 – 5 miles long and is narrow and hilly. The speed limit starts out where I first get on the road at 50 mph, drops to 45 mph, then 40 mph and finally to 30 mph. Yesterday on my way to work I was deep in thought about some issues and frankly was not paying that much attention to my driving. I came around a corner and started down a steep hill when I met a Deputy Sheriff and instantly looked down at my speedometer.
Hmmmm, 53 mph, then I glanced in my rear-view mirror and saw his break lights come on. Yep I was had. There is really only one place on this stretch of the road where you can safely pull over and I wasn’t very far from it so I just pulled over, stopped and put my 4-way flashers on and waited. I knew it would take him a little while to get turned around and then sure enough with lights flashing and dust flying beneath his wheels he was in hot pursuit. I think it shocked him to see me sitting there waiting on him. 🙂
I thought when he checked and found out that I haven’t had a ticket in over 30 years he might feel benevolent but I was wrong. He left me with some papers and an envelope. Well I deserved it and as a former Deputy Sheriff in a past life I know that was his job and he did it. I shook his hand (which also surprised him) and wished him a good day.
That’s how my day started but good day after that. I spent my lunch break at the “Duck Pond.” There were no swans at the pond so after finishing my sandwich I drove over to the pond on the other side of 61 highway. The swans were there in a small pool with one goose. I don’t believe they have made a nest yet even though many of the geese have laid eggs and are nesting. Maybe their still just dating. 🙂
That’s it for today. Supposed to be a great day weather wise and it’s Friday so enjoy. Thanks for stopping by and be careful.
I have a short post for you today. I almost had a “I got nothing” post but as I was looking through my images from last weekend I saw this guy. I don’t believe I have ever seen a duck in this position. So if I haven’t seen one like that maybe it’s worth sharing. 🙂
Events over the last two days have left me in a philosophical mood. Fortunately for both of us I do not have the time to expound on them.
That’s it for today. Enjoy your day. Thanks for checking out the blog and be careful.
I’ll finish up my images from the Basin that were shot on Sunday. I could sit for hours and watch wildlife interact with each other and their environment. I shoot thousands of images of this interaction that never see the light of day. Some because they are out of focus or bad composition or any number of reasons but I enjoy each one of them because they remind me of the instance I was capturing.
Yesterday I had lunch with two great friends. We generally eat together at least once a week and for the last 12 years we flip a coin to see who buys. I’m pretty sure I’ve bought more lunches than I’ve had bought for me but such is life. Anyway once the flip is made it is time to reveal who gets the check. One of the greatest feelings is being the last one to show your quarter when one of them has a head and the other one has a tail. That means you cannot lose. 🙂
Of course the opposite happened Monday when both had a head and I had a tail. I have not kept track of winning or losing although one year (I think 2006) I had to declare Dave on my income tax as a dependent. 🙂
Isn’t life is like that sometimes? Things come up heads and you can’t lose and other times no matter how hard you try you are on the losing end. Here’s hoping your days come up heads!
That’s it for today. I hope you enjoy the mid-week hump day. Thanks for stopping by and be careful.
I feel bad today. Some of my friends told me yesterday they felt I put a lot of stress on the pelican in the video by flying the Phantom too close to him. I really appreciate their honesty and I certainly did not intend to cause any stress to any wildlife. I love to capture images and video of wildlife but it is never my intent to make them uncomfortable. I assure you that won’t happen again.
Last night was such a nice evening. No wind at all so I took the Vision 2 up for a quick flight. I got it a little too far away and it jumped into “come home mode.” That’s the same mode that kept it from dumping itself into the Mississippi River last February. I didn’t even shoot any video just wanted to fly in some very clam conditions and it was amazing how much control you have when the wind is not constantly trying to blow it off course.
I’ve shot a lot of images of gulls this year. They have been in abundance and there are a couple of places by the river that they let you get very close to them. I took this little guy’s image on Sunday afternoon.
Short post today. I have an interesting day ahead of me. Don’t know how it’s going to turn out but it will be interesting none the less.
I hope you enjoy your day. Thanks for stopping by and be careful.
Saturday was pretty much a veg day. Jeanne came home with a bad case of Bronchitis and was pretty much under the weather Friday and Saturday. She got to feeling better yesterday and so yesterday afternoon we did our normal photo trip around town.
First stop as always was the 16th Street Basin. We had heard there were a lot of Pelicans there but we could only find 3 or 4 at most. A couple came in while we were there but certainly not what we have experienced in past years. So in anticipation of finding a body of water full of Pelicans I packed my long lens (500 mm) and the Phantom and we took off.
Before I get too much in to this story I have to tell you about the two flights I did on Saturday. The first flight I flew from the back patio (basketball court) and went over to a small pond that is located on the school grounds. It is about 750 feet away and that is the farthest I have ever flown the Phantom and still maintained video link between the Phantom and my receiver. There were two ducks in the pond and I got as close as I could but the reception wasn’t all that good so I didn’t want to put it in the pond. 🙂
The second flight was later in the afternoon when I decided to take it up and see if I could above 1,000. Actually I got to 1,320 feet. It is amazing how things look from that high. I worked most of yesterday on editing that video but lost my work two times. I’m still trying to learn the video editing program and apparently I still have a bunch to learn.
This image was grabbed from the video and it shows what the neighborhood looks like at 1,320 feet.
Okay, so back to the story of the 16th Street Basin. I shot a few images of the one Pelican that was closest to the shore and then some other wildlife that was close enough to capture and then it was time to fly the Phantom and see if I could get some overhead shots of the Basin.
We went around to the other side (away from all the power lines) and I launched the Phantom. There were two Pelicans out in the middle of the Basin and I flew pretty close to them for several minutes. Came back to where we were and made a perfect landing. No really I did it was beautiful. Went over to turn the Phantom off and realized that I had accidentally switched the GoPro camera from video to still shots. The problem is I don’t have anyway to take still shots with the GoPro when it’s in the air. So all that flying was for nothing.
Well, I reset the camera and took it up again. I got pretty close to a gull and a Pelican and had some fun tracking the Pelican. I know I made him a little nervous but I didn’t stress him very long. Good thing I decided to come back when I did because I was running on fumes (battery wise) as I came in for a landing there was a gust of wind and with the battery so low the controls did not respond as they normally do so I crashed. Yep, it’s on the video. My good fortune I crashed into some soft grass so no damage to the Phantom or the camera. 🙂
I do not know what this duck is and I didn’t have time to look him up. If you know please post in the comments.
The video below is only a little over 5 minutes. Some good music and I think you’ll like the Pelican and Gull. That’s it for today. Hope you enjoy your day. Thanks for stopping by and be careful.
I’m glad it’s Friday and we have the weekend to look forward to. I thought I would end the week with some fun images I took last Saturday at Gabby’s birthday party.
I’m not sure Josh is ever going to be a great fielder on some baseball team but he may improve. Fundamental one, keep eyes open. Fundamental two, keep eyes on the ball. 🙂
What ever athletic skills he develops he will get them from Ben’s side of the family. Neither Jeanne or I have much athletic ability.
Gabby is transitioning from sad to happy in this image. Once she saw her Mommy things got happier. Isn’t that the way it is in life. Most of us always feel better when we’re near our Mom. 🙂
And finally, I’ll leave you with an image of my Son Mark. I have taken hundreds of images of Mark over the years and he normally gives me a manufactured smile (say cheese) like Josh does. So I had the camera on him Sunday and he gave me that smile and I didn’t push the shutter. I just waited until he relaxed the fake smile and gave me this look, which I captured. He is a good-looking young man. 🙂
That’s it for today. Not much pontificating or profound thoughts. Just some mindless ramblings and some fun images. 🙂
Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your day and be careful.
What a great day yesterday was. I was scheduled to do training for the bulk of the day but late Tuesday afternoon that got rescheduled. Since I had already blocked off the entire day for training I decided I might as well take the day off and tackle the Phantom wiring job. Not that I couldn’t have found something to do at work but this wiring thing has bugged me for a couple of days and I really didn’t know when I was going to be able to find the time to try it again. It’s just too difficult of a project to start at 8:00 p.m. after work.
So as the image above shows it was a complicated process. I decided that I would rip everything that I had done before out and start from scratch. It started by watching the videos again. Then I found a video that gave me a key piece of information. DJI industries color code their wires different then we do. Their ground wire is always brown and their hot wire is either yellow (most of the time) or sometimes orange. That made a big difference in how I approached the wiring project.
I also decided that I was going to disassemble the Phantom. I was going to take the top off and doing the wiring on the inside to get rid of all that extra cable. I have taken a video class on soldering and I felt I had a good knowledge of what to do and how to do it. So one hour later I have all the screws out except one that just won’t come out and one that has been completely stripped. 😦
By this point I’m pretty frustrated. I did some research on how to get a stripped screw out and then went to Lowe’s and got the tools I needed and a bunch of stuff I didn’t need. Back home I finally got the two remaining screws out and disconnected the GPS system, cut wiring harnesses and began the process of tinning the wires, soldering, connecting, and bundling again. After a couple of hours and retracing my steps I was ready to put the top back on and button it up.
It’s actually a pretty neat package. I never have to worry about a battery for the transmitter as it is now powered by the Phantom’s power supply. The video from camera runs through the Zenmuse Gimbal (which also runs off the Phantom’s power supply) and that is then fed to the transmitter and it sends a signal to the FPV device (which in my case are the FatShark Goggles.) Additionally the IOSD Mini reads flight data from the Cambus and sends it through the video feed to the transmitter and is applied over the view you get with the goggles.
I got it all put back together and then decide to put some new decals on that I had ordered from the same company that sold the immersion transmitter.
So now my Phantom looks pretty patriotic which will be nice around the 4th of July. 🙂
Now for the big moment. It’s sitting there all nice and retouched and I know the wiring is correct so it should work unless I fried the goggles or the transmitter. I powered it up and turned on the goggles and nothing but gray screen. But a few clicks on the channel selector and I started getting fuzz and a few more clicks there it was in glorious color with all the flight data you could ever hope to have and then some. Only one problem! All the data is metric. Meters and kilometers and a bunch of other things I don’t recognize. Well it shouldn’t be a problem. I’m sure there is an easy way to convert to feet and mph. Nope! The website rather arrogantly states that the rest of the world is on the metric system so there is no need to make a conversion fix available.
So it looks like I’m going to have to learn the metric system after all.
Here are the FPV FatShark goggles with the antenna set to the same frequency as the transmitter on the Phantom. It’s pretty cool and a lot easier to fly with these than with a small iPhone screen. 🙂
At one point (I think it was when I stripped the screw) I asked myself what would make this a great day? The answer was to get the wiring all done, the thing put back together and have it work and then take it for a quick flight before the rain came. And that is what happened. There is a video below of a quick flight this afternoon to test everything out and then a merge to a night video I shot on Sunday evening around 9:00 p.m. I hope you enjoy it.
Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your day and be careful.
Oh by the way, the video is about 5 minutes long instead of the 7:20 it shows. I made a mistake so it runs empty screen at the end for two minutes. I’ll fix that when I have some time.
Here are some Common Grackles and a Red-Winged black bird sharing a communal bath. You can click on the image to have a larger image to view. I love how the water drops are all over the image.
I’m taking a PTO (paid time off) today to catch up on some unfinished projects and I’m going to rewire my project on the Phantom to see if I can get things working. I wrote to several sites seeking advice but received no responses so I’ll watch the video again and take it step by step.
I’m not sure gulls can be considered beautiful but I really like this image of this gull. It is one of my favorite shots from the weekend.
Finally I’ll leave you with this lone Common Grackle. I like their coloration and this was taken with the fading light of the day. I’m not a student of wildlife species or a bird watcher for that matter. But I do enjoy taking images of birds. The only reason I know this guy is a Common Grackle is because my friend Andreas correctly named one that I took last year. I called it a Brewer’s Black Bird. 🙂
That’s it for today. Hope the rewiring project is successful. I’ll let you know tomorrow. Enjoy your wet day and be careful. Thanks for stopping by.
No April fools jokes here. Just the facts and nothing but. 🙂
I’ll show you some images from Sunday’s photo run. Jeanne and I like to drive through the country and see the sights and as always looking for photo opportunities. Sunday was mostly about Ring-Billed Gulls. I can’t remember seeing more of them around the area as we did on Sunday. There were hundreds of them at the Basin, the river, the little park just off Kerper Blvd., even at Mud Lake Park they were plentiful. So what’s a person to do but capture some images of the little guys.
As I have documented several times, I am not a wiz when it comes to electronics. I did manage to install the video transmitter on the Phantom 2 and get the goggles to work but they didn’t covey any information other than a visual representation of what the camera was seeing. In other words no flight data. So in my research and watching hours of YouTube videos from people who do know what they are doing I purchased an “immersion 600Mw 5.8ghz transmitter and a IOSD mini device that provides telemetry from the internal guidance of the Phantom. It displays data like direction, altitude, distance, speed, battery power left, and angle of attack. All very useful information.
After buying all the parts and waiting for two weeks the last part came in yesterday. After dinner I watched the video again and then set about installing the device to my Phantom. Everything seemed to go well. I even took my laptop to the work table and replayed the video in steps so that I didn’t make any mistakes. Got it all soldered and put together at 10:15 p.m. Turned everything on and I got nothing! Just gray screen on the goggles and that’s it. Not even any static. I fiddled with it for another 15 minutes, then dejected and demoralized I put everything up, cleaned up and went to bed. Whine!!
This low quality image of a Cardinal is for my friend Ronnie. Yesterday he asked me if I could get some images of a Cardinal. I’ve only seen a couple so far this year but as it happened we saw this guy Sunday. He was far away and back-lit but maybe this will do until I can get a better shot.
Well that’s it for today. I’ve got to do some research and check some of the forums on the internet and see if I can figure out what the heck I did wrong. More to come I’m sure.
Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your day and be careful.
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