GoPro Hero 3+ Black edition

All posts tagged GoPro Hero 3+ Black edition

Friday ~ October 24, 2014

Posted by Dave Updegraff on October 24, 2014
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , , .

Halloween House Goblin

Finally it’s Friday!!

Today as promised I will show you the images I have from last Sunday night’s visit to the Halloween House in Asbury, Iowa.

I shot a lot of video at the house but I was paying more attention to the still photography and as I reviewed the video it’s not very representative of the experience.  I’m going to show it to you anyway but if I were to do it over (next year) I would pay more attention to the video part of the presentation so you could really get a feel for how amazing this place really is.

Scary

When we were there, I would guess there were 50 people visiting with lots of young children.  It is not so much frightening as it is awesome.  When you are listening to the audio track of the video you will not hear screaming from fright you will hear a lot of laughing and conversation about the marvel of mechanics involved in the presentation.

October-19-2014D

The whole process is run by two computers.  I’m going on what the owner told me last year.  He said there were 5 smoke machines and all the strobe lights and movement of the characters are controlled by a computer program.  He purchased much of the animation from various Hollywood special effects studios

October-19-2014A

I apologize for the lack of professionalism of the video and editing.  Like I said I didn’t pay much attention to the details of making the video.  I used a GoPro Hero 3+ Black edition mounted on a hand-held gimbal.  It was the first time I had used the gimbal and I was holding it in one hand and shooting stills with the other hand.  In much of the unpublished video the camera is in the video more than the actual scene. 🙂

October-19-2014E

We learn by doing.  That’s it for today.  Hope you enjoy the video below.  Have a great Friday and weekend.  Thanks for stopping by the blog and be careful, it’s dangerous out there.

 

Tuesday ~ February 18, 2014

Posted by Dave Updegraff on February 18, 2014
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , .

Phantom-2 B

Happy Tuesday!  If you’ve followed this blog for awhile you remember me telling you I was working on a project that required some assembly and wiring.   Well this is what I was working on.  It is my second Phantom.  I know what you’re saying.  No there was no need for a second one but I wanted a better video camera than the Vision 2 (which has a great still camera) so this is it.

It carries a GoPro Hero 3+ Black edition video camera attached to a Zenmuse gimbal, which provides for a really stable platform.  So no matter what attitude the Phantom is in the camera stays level.  I also had to install a transmitter (that’s the white thing sticking out of the back) so that I could communicate with the camera.  It took probably a full 8 hours of work to get the thing ready to fly.  It was actually cheaper than the Vision 2 but required a lot of set up.

I know, the wiring looks terrible but that is just until I get things configured the way I want them, then I’ll tidy up the wiring.

Flying Phantom 2 vision

This is the Vision 2 Phantom (so you can see the difference.)  The vision 2 has a dedicated camera and is pretty much ready to fly out of the box.  It uses a WiFi connection with an iPhone App to provide first person view (FPV) of the actual flight.  There is no gimbal on the Vision 2 so you get a lot of distortion when there is wind (and there is always wind) and when you change direction.  It has a 14 mp camera and shoots in RAW so it captures a lot of data.

FPV Monitor

This is the FPV for the new system.  I’m having a lot of problems with it right now and I’m trying to correspond with the manufacturer about the issues.  Hopefully once that is resolved I will be able to get some HD resolution video of the flights.  The flight below is a 7.5 minute clip of the first flight with this system.  It was 22 degrees and like I said I was having a lot of problems with the monitor, not to mention it was as cold as a witch’s heart.  I couldn’t feel my fingers.  I trimmed out a lot of sitting idle from the video.  There still is a bit more than I would like but I was trying to fiddle with the monitor so I just let the Phantom hover.

I still have less than a full hour of practice with the Phantom so I have a lot to learn about controlling it and making it go where I want it to.  Jeanne assures me that warmer weather is coming and I can get in more flying time.  🙂

That’s it for today.  Thanks for checking out the blog.  Enjoy your day and be careful.