I did training for 7 hours yesterday. Each time I do training I have a greater appreciation for the work that Jeanne does. The preparation for the training, the actual training (hoping all the time that what you’re teaching is being received) and then all the tear down and pack up afterward. Jeanne does it every day during the school year. Amazing!
When I did get back to the office the day’s work that I didn’t get done was waiting for me. Also waiting for me was the RotorPixel gimbal for the Phantom Vision 2. I ordered it last March 16th and it has taken this long to get it.
There is a start-up company in Great Britain who saw a need to build a gimbal for the Vision 2, which has a stationary camera on it. The camera is great for still shots but not good for video because every movement the craft makes is visible on the video. The gimbal eliminates that problem by making the camera independent of the craft. I’ll post an image of it when I get it installed.
Anyway they have had their share of problems as any start-up company would have but they’ve slowly worked through them and now have a pretty good production system. Problem is DJI (makers of the Phantom 2 Vision) released a new version of the Vision 2 a few weeks ago and called it the Vision 2+. It has a new camera with a built-in 3 axis gimbal. So it will be interesting to see what this company does because there are only a finite number of Vision 2 copters built and sold.
As for the image above. I’m not sure what the attraction to this old tree was but they sure enjoyed standing on it. I watched them for 30 minutes on the way home a couple of weeks ago and they never moved. 🙂
Several meetings today, which means some of the stuff I’m behind on is going to stay behind. 😦
Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your day and be careful.
No photography yesterday. Straight to work and straight home. There were lots of geese at the Duck Pond but having taken over 2,000 images of birds over the weekend (over half of which I have not yet looked at), I didn’t see any point to adding another bunch. 🙂
I will tell you that today’s post is all about the Blue Heron. If you have a squeamish stomach or do not like to see wildlife at its true reality then you probably shouldn’t go any further. Just enjoy the nice image above and then hit the back button. Okay perhaps I’m being a little melodramatic but some people don’t like to see one species eat another species.
At one point Sunday afternoon there were about a dozen Blue Heron standing around the edge of the ice sticking their head in the water and coming out with a fish. Not much work and no walking around or being stealthy. Just poked their head in the water and bamn another fish. I watched this Heron devour three fish in less than ten minutes. The last fish he caught and ate was three times the size of this one.
It was so much fun. I’d be concentrating on one event and Jeanne would be telling me about another group of birds doing something. At one point a couple of these Herons tried walking on the ice and it was hysterical. They were like drunken sailors. Their long legs were go out from under them in different directions and they would try to balance themselves with their big wings. I have some images of that I’ll share at another time.
Finally the last bite and the next frame the fish was gone. After awhile I decided to put the Phantom in the air and see if I could get some up close and personal images or video of some the birds. There are a lot (I mean a lot) of power lines around the Basin. I first had to find a place where I could take off and gain some altitude to clear the wires.
The video below is very short. It’s a terrible video. There was too much wind to fly and I could see where I was flying. At one point I got very close to the ice and thought I was filming an eagle but when I went to edit the video I discovered I had my camera pointed straight down at the ice. About the only thing this video is good for is to show those folks who have not see the Basin some of the make up of it.
No music with this video. It basically sucks but again if you don’t know what the Basin is it will at least show you what it looks like. That and it’s only a little over two minutes.
That’s it for today. Hope you enjoy the wildlife images. Lots more to share.
Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your day and be careful.
Happy Monday! I’m enjoying a day off from work in honor of Dr. Martin L King’s Day. The weather yesterday cooperated (sort of) and I got to do some more flying. It is clear to me that I still have lots to learn. I’ve watched a lot of videos on flying, read the instructions, and spent a fair amount of time on the Phantom Forums, however there is no substitute for actually getting out and learning first hand.
So yesterday I decided to fly from my back yard for two reasons. One I only had half a battery and I wanted to make sure I could land safely when the battery was low. The app on my iPhone makes a loud warning sound that repeats when you get to 20% battery left. Anyway I had a misstep on my first attempt at getting airborne and bounced the Phantom into the snow, which meant that the camera was buried in snow. 😦 So I cleaned it up and dried it out before trying again. (Lesson #1)
I got brave enough to fly to 358 feet in altitude. I actually couldn’t see it from the ground and of course that made me very nervous. I had the point of view live image on my iPhone but in the bright sunlight it was hard to see where I was. I still do not have the camera configured properly. I’ve got some more work to do on that and learning what the best setting for the camera is. Anyway I flew it over the house and wanted to take an aerial shot of my neighbor’s home to make a nice framed image to give him for helping with my snow removal. I need a lot more work on composition and positioning of the Phantom. (Lesson #2)
By the way that little green spot in the middle of the patio is me. 🙂
I got a little braver and drove out to the industrial park. There is a nice fishing pond and walking path there and I wanted to practice flying around a given area. As you can see from the video below there is an old bridge that they have set across part of the pond, however it is not yet open to the public.
So I flew around the pond and just where the video stops I took a couple of images of the ice fishermen. I wanted to get closer but again my motto is that I don’t want to spoil anyone’s day so until I learn how to control the Phantom I’m keeping it very far away from people. When you take a still image you have to shut the video off and take the images. Then you have to remember to turn the video back on. (Lesson #3) So I missed the coming back to the parking lot and a great landing because I forgot to turn the video recording back on. I still see live point of view images while flying but just not recording what I see.
After landing and checking everything out I decided to get a little bolder. So I did a low flyover of the bridge (it was pretty cool if I do say so myself) and then went up and around the pond again only at a lower altitude. This time when I came back to the parking lot I let the Phantom hover and I walked over to it and looked into the camera and waved (I thought that would be cool.) I took the first image on this post and then landed the Phantom.
When I got home none of that video nor some of the other video that I wanted to show was retrievable. I kept getting the files are corrupt. 😦 Damn camera! Then I thought it has to be something I’ve done so I went to the Phantom Forums. Sure enough after about 20 minutes of searching and reading I found the problem. When you land and are ready to shut down you have to shut the video capture off and power the flying app off. Then turn the Phantom off and then your video will not get corrupted. (Lesson #4)
So much to learn and such a little brain to learn it with. Doesn’t look like very good flying weather today. I’ll have to see this afternoon. I was standing in the shade (so I could see the video) at the industrial park and without the sun shining on me I froze like a Popsicle. Found it hard to land the Phantom because my fingers were so numb.
That’s it for today. Hope you enjoy your Monday. Thanks for stopping by the blog and be careful.
I was telling you last week that I had added a new tool to my photography tool box and the image above shows it. It is the DJI Phantom 2 Vision®. A “Flying Camera.” It has an integrated 14.5 mp camera that shoots RAW images and it also shoots 1080p video.
I was not interested in a Remote Controlled (RC) airplane, for a variety of reasons. One I’m not that good with eye / hand coordination. I don’t like looking up at the sky for long periods of time. They are expensive and crash often. What I was interested in and the sole reason for purchasing the Phantom was it is primarily a system to get aerial images without having to get into an airplane. Since I hate flying I really like that.
It is a GPS controlled flying platform with 4 propellers that spin in opposite directions to help stabilize the camera. I have watched about two weeks worth of video instruction about how to fly the Phantom and it is a learning curve like any system but it is very easy to get and keep in the air. Now admittedly I have a total of 3 minutes in the air but I reached an altitude of 106 feet, took some pictures, flew about 100 feet away, returned to my take off point, made a perfect and very soft landing. 🙂
There are a lot of steps to go through to finally get in the air and yesterday was not a good flying day. I didn’t really realize how bad it was until Jeanne and I got to the launch point. The temperature was about 29 degrees with a 20 mph wind. It was colder than a Witch’s heart. But I couldn’t stand it any longer and had to see if I could get it in the air without hurting it, me, or anything else. Jeanne got pretty far away from the launch site but came closer when I landed.
As you look at the controller you can see that I have my iPhone attached to it. The flight controller has a WiFi transmitter (more like a repeater) that picks up the WiFi signal sent by the Phantom and it becomes a network for your iPhone (or Android.) Once connected to the Phantom network, what the Phantom’s camera sees is transmitted (via an App.) back to the iPhone. In other words you fly from a first person point of view (FPV.) Also there are controls on the iPhone App, that let you control the up and down angle of the camera and you control the zoom and angle with the Phantom itself.
What I didn’t take time to do (I just forgot about it) because I was anxious to get the Phantom in the air was to configure the camera. I did that after the flight but that is why the image below looks so bad. It had the lowest resolution setting (which is how it was shipped from the factory.) I didn’t set the video properties up either so the video isn’t very high quality in this clip.
Having said all that it was the most fun I’ve had in 3 minutes that I can remember. Well like I said that I can remember. 🙂 So I took off from the school playground (which is behind our house) and flew it up and over the trees (then switched to the still camera function) took some images (low resolution) of our home and then flew it back to the play ground. Did I mention I made a perfect landing? The video is a little jerky because of the wind and my quick direction changes.
As you watch the video you will also notice that the video shows a 15 degree list to the port side. That is because the Phantom actually is flying West (sideways) into the wind to maintain it’s prescribed position (North) as determined by the 11 satellites that it had locked onto.
There is no question that I have a lot to learn but like anything practice does help as I have found with my normal photography. I’ve still got a long way to go with it but I’ve seen improvement over the years. I just imagine where I can go with this flying camera and the things I can capture images of and I get very excited. I have a list of over a hundred things I was to capture from the air and areas I want to explore. The Phantom has a maximum altitude of 400 feet (although several videos on YouTube® have show flights much higher than that. That is also the FAA’s regulation for UMV flights. It has a range of about 500 feet in length although again there are a lot of videos with people flying them 1,000 feet away from their controller.
One of the cool things about the Phantom is its “Return Home” feature. If the signal is lost or if the battery is too low it will go into the RH mode, fly to an altitude of 60 feet and return to the place (within 3 feet) of where it took off.
Yep, I forgot to add a opening image to this video but if you click on the little > above it will show you about 1:05 minutes of my first flight.The video runs for about 4:00 minutes (a video editing error on my part) so you can just stop it if you don’t want to watch 3 minutes of black screen. 🙂 Okay since I posted this I have figured out how to add an image to the video, shorten it to the actual 1:05 minutes and at about 10:00 a.m. the original lighting should be back. It was easier to get the Phantom into the air then it is to show it here. 🙂
That’s it for today. Hopefully the weather is a little better for flying today. I have a little more confidence now so I’m going to try one of the areas on my list. Hope I have some good video to show you Monday and no sad news about any crashes.
Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your day and be careful.
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