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In-Field Shooting: Advanced Techniques

Lesson 5 from: Creative Wow: Aerial and Copter Photography

Jack Davis

In-Field Shooting: Advanced Techniques

Lesson 5 from: Creative Wow: Aerial and Copter Photography

Jack Davis

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Lesson Info

5. In-Field Shooting: Advanced Techniques

Lesson Info

In-Field Shooting: Advanced Techniques

Okay. Preview quality Imperial versus Metric Ground station. Now, this right here is the brand new feature with a great little warning here, D J. I accepts no liability for damage injuries, stupidity, um, resulting from the misuse of ground station. Please read all related manuals carefully. I tempted over to not show it because I don't want you guys to say, Well, Jack said, but it's just too cool, so I'm gonna show it to you. But I'm not gonna That's why this is the beginning. Class a one day class on drone is, you know, just a basic, especially since we're going to spend all afternoon on working on the images and video clips. But I'm going to accept that. And that is going to turn on as it says here in her camera, then swiped left to inter ground station. That's where we're gonna be able to set up a programmed flight path for our phantoms. This came in just a few weeks ago. Yeah, this is this is brand new. This is awesome. Cool, bitchin capability. And one of the things I was hoping ...

would be in before this class would go. Okay. Make sure that the maps have been downloaded before ground station flying. Typically, this is action is a good point. If you look up in the upper left hand corner, you'll notice I'm in airplane mode. That's because I don't want a phone call coming in. William, In the midst of flying, I don't want any messages or anything that, you know, distract for my flying. That being said, you may want it. Leave airplane mode off while you start this because that is going to be since your wife eyes being used to control the camera on the copter. The only way you're gonna download the maps and the only need to do it once is load in the location that you're in and scroll around a little bit. The APP will load all that into its memory. Then you can go into airplane mode with WiFi turned on, and you now have maps. Okay, so this is a very good reminder that leave your cell service on when you start this. Get all your maps. When you've looked at your maps, then you can black back into airplane mode with WiFi turned on. Makes sense. It was a little bit nebulous and this is why, you know, starts getting a little complicated but were relieved that turned on. They have also added a compass calibration. I'm set up here inside the APP because before you would need to do one of these little reset tricks where your five. This is your GPS option here, and by resetting that it automatically goes into a compass, you'll notice that it's actually doing a faster yellow here, and it's wanting to do a compass calibration, and that really is not necessary too often. But if you are moving from one location to another, if you're moving, you know, I don't know if there's a set thing 100 miles or yeah, 100 miles or so then, um, recalibrate that compass. So it, you know, knows its orientation. I was having problems again yesterday, doing it even with the power lines and the buildings here in downtown Seattle. But this now lets you you can come up here with the start, and it basically gives you a nice little description basically, and I'll show you a little video clip of me doing it yesterday of walking around the device. You basically will try and have it stationery and you walk around its perimeter. Okay. And then the next thing is that you're gonna point it nose down and you're gonna do the same thing. And after each time it's gonna go from blinking yellow to solid green. Move the orientation to nose down, go around it and it goes to solid green. Okay? And that is it. And like I said, if it's blinking red, then the calibration has failed. So it's nice that they've added that So you didn't have to kind of gas. It's walks you through the process and low. I'm not quite sure, aside from the hope my RC is turned off. So that's why it's not giving me that. And the first person view the first person view first person mode is enabled. Gimble Rome Motion will synchronize with the aircraft for real time first person. In other words, if you bank it banks, in other words, it's it's getting. It's not gonna take advantage of that gimbal to stabilize it. If you want to look at it like it, what's really happening, then it's not going to use the gimbal, so there's really no reason unless you're using the heads up display, and you want to get a really cool video game, you know, feeling We're using those goggles. There's no reason Teoh have that turned on. Um, the rotation lock is for the app. There's no, you know, So you can have the IPhone or android. Um, low battery. You definitely want those warnings You can't turn on. Probably not a bad idea to have that on. You've got news. Um, binding. I'm remembering. Binding. Binding. That is your Mac address. Camera bound. Go into that rename. This is where you can go ahead and rename your extender. So this is the WiFi signal that you're looking for. Okay, So renaming the range extender, um, is this I d And this is where they Davis already is. So I'm not going to rename that and find my phantom. Um, vision to this is actually great. I hope you don't need it, but it's there. It's awesome. Um, it's confused because I'm obviously in there. This is where I was flying last night. So this is the last time that I was finding it. It's not where currently is, but if it goes down, if it loses battery and can't come home. It will show you on this basically Google map where it iss And again I've done this when I was learning and it sent out over the ocean and it just went off and it was after sunset. Matter of fact is probably one of those shoots, if you remember when I was out of the ocean in the cliff after sunset and lost it and, um, it came back home. But of course, it came back home and I was walking while I was flying. I'm walking along the cliff. So where it took off is not where I was standing anymore. So it's now nighttime dark. I haven't seen it come in and the batteries running low, and I'm kind of going It was actually a really funny story because I'm going, um I'm fine. My vision goes find my vision and it shows you your spot on the map and it shows you where your vision waas Well, there was a moving pin on their removing device, and I'm going Some bastard picked up my copter and they're running down the street with it. And so I start running after and it starts going ahead of me. And because it was anyway. So I'm chasing after myself. I'm basically looking at myself, going that bastard. Step the street. I'm going. Wait a minute. When I stop, he stops. Wait. Him Anyway, I found it. It was pitch black. It was beeping. Read. It was nice. It still had its little red thing going on there with the battery. And so find my my phantom vision to is awesome. Fantastic. That's where you find it Can't rate whatever. Okay. And this is the tutorial. So that tells you those things. They will. I'm here. The album is going to show you what's on the card. We should actually take a shot. I probably cleared this officer. It's probably not gonna have anything in there. As a matter of fact, since I've also, um, we'll see in terms of that. Let's go back to the cameras, see if I can control that here. Yes, I got that. Tells him about the ground station. You can see that I'm controlling the, uh, camera, even though it's not giving me the first person view. Okay. It's link, um, a ticket because I've got this turned off confusing. It But regardless of that, I can come over here and take a picture. So even with the SD card here, that would do it. Okay? Public best. It turned off the camera and which is the drone? Before doing that, we will have to check on that card to find. Actually, you know what I think At the last minute I put in in 64 gig when I normally put in my go pro. And I don't believe the Phantom is compatible with 64 gate cards. When I said by the biggest, when you can, it maxes out at 32 gigabytes. So that is that challenge there. So, going into the album, you'll notice that you have both your what's already on your IPhone and what's on the card. So it's not gonna read that, But you can download things well, you're in the air. You can actually, um, shoot and download and Facebook whatever you're working on. Okay, Anything last that is the settings back to our camera. Well, um, shift. Like I said, depending upon what you have set up over here. So if we've got this set up is an example to the interval ometer, and we've got this set up to J. Peg. Then I can set that up at that high speed, and now you'll notice that the little camera icon on the right hand side has got the little teeny watch on it. So that means that I can shoot interval ometer. At this point, I can, um, this is gonna be on error with that. I'll have to switch cards off when we're on our break, but let me just show you, and this isn't going to help because you can't see the image, but you get it and we'll actually do it. Like looking at a video clip of May. Changing and shooting in HD are. So let me go ahead and jump into that. I don't think there's anything else, especially since the card error that I'm getting here. I'm looking in the upper right hand corner. You'll notice that those icons there the WiFi signal, the battery and the farthest upper right is the, um, device is battery. I do have an SD card in there, even though it's giving it heartburn. To the right of it is the number of satellites that it's linking to like I said you're gonna want to have six orm or to have a nice flight and have it give you green light saying you yes, I'm good to go. You can fly with less, but you'll see that's gonna be shaky, and you can go up over a dozen. The, um, battery below that is this one. This is charged through a micro USB on the side. Make sure I typically have one of the little batteries that you would have for topping off your IPhone are android device. So a little battery charger because this doesn't it's not a big battery, but you can charge it up very quickly, as opposed to these batteries, which you wouldn't want to charge in the field. So a little, you know, little teeny external battery with a micro USB will charge this up without a problem. The number below that is the number of photographs you have left based upon your card and how it's filled. And then this right here in the very lowest right hand corner, is that toolbar option that it mentions before, and you'll notice that it's giving me my altitude, my distance, my speed and this right here is the compass and the compass is going. Teoh, show me the orientation of the device. So even in this situation it's going to show me which way it's pointing. So if I lose a orientation on it, I can always find out in relationship to me. And it's distance. You can see where it's at as well. I mentioned on the left hand side that is going to be controlling the camera, which again is having problems with that. In the upper left hand corner is the accelerometer using the gyroscope in the phone to tilt the camera up and down and that are that is basically the controls. The battery is at the very top. Okay, with that, let's turn back over to the computer. I'll give these rest, will put in a card and do a few video clips. Have to show this is Susan. We miss Susan here. This is a going away party. Susan is, uh this is Kenya. Susan was the another shooter on that trip down the Caribbean with Neil and Wow. So we had a great time do a shout out to Susan, Andy Neal, and, uh, great. That trip was Okay, The, um that is the lineup that IHS building the criteria questions out in either audience Here one earlier, Jack. Um well, actually, got a couple here. Does Does the GoPro have a non fisheye option? No, it does not. There are no lens options that you can switch. There are lenses that you can put over it to do custom white balance for, like shooting into water. I've never heard of a GoPro. There probably is. If you did it. EBay search for it. There's probably a Chinese company that makes you know a little thing, but I've never heard of it, and nor would I recommend it, even if there was one. Yeah, it is not a variable lens. And I thought this was interesting. What are some past mistakes you have learned in regards to flying a drone? Um, one of the biggest ones, especially if you've got a limited satellite lock, is, um the coasting you get. It is so adept at following commands that you forget about things like momentum. And so if you you know, go that it's air. It's not like ground where you can put on the brakes and you're gonna have traction to stop on the ground. Um, so that idea of momentum, you're coming up to the proverbial tree and you know, you're going. I can stop it by putting on the brakes, but by doing this and it's air, and there's the chance, if you because they can actually go really fast. And so that idea of getting cocky and not taking into account, um, momentum and inertia into the equation And, um, yeah, just being cocky from that standpoint, um, shooting in. Ah, low light. Um, scenario. Uh, let's go here. Let me just get that because it was okay, Um, shooting low light that that vision again, Getting cocky and flying it in situations where I'm gonna lose line of sight of the copter is something that obviously is not recommended in any way, shape or form. Um, making sure that you've got enough batteries, things like that. The card, like again, that's just a silly little error there where I took my go pro card out and put it in there. The GoPro can use the card. Um, making sure that you have extra cards before you little tools. You know, as I mentioned. If you're using things like your prop guards, those use a very specialized hex key. That's not gonna come with it. So making sure that you've got things like that hex wrench and maybe even multiple ones because they strip easy there. These teeny tiny little hex screws, um, and dissent. The one other thing where I've had issues is descending too fast and getting that scenario as you mentioned before where you start it gets a little wobbly because, um, it's not accelerated. Actually, turning off the props the way it descends is slowing down the blades. Well, that means less control. So you're actually it's a descended. It's a controlled fall from the sky. And since you have less power to the blades, you have less control. And if it a little bit Augusta Wind, it's going to start doing this. You'll compensate. And then soon there's no wind pointing down to slow your descent, and it comes down to fast. So those air be a few things that if you can keep those in the back of your mind, come down slow, keep an eye on your image and remember inertia momentum. Those three things would be really useful. Cool. Thank you. Hey, you want to add another favorite tip or two about? Don't ever fill in the blank. Don't ever crash into something t elaborate. A little bit on the descent to one of the really bad things about descending in a straight column. Vertical is you're actually descending into your own prop wash. So it's dirty air, and you're actually getting into your own turbulence. So one thing that can alleviate that is just a very soft side slip in one direction if you have the room for it. Of course, if you're in a tight space, you need to come down between trees, go vertical, but a little bit of a side slip. That's a great tip. I never even thought about that. I should have, like a white. When the wave breaks, it churns up a rates the water, and that makes it very hard to float in that. And I take it the exact same thing in the air. Um, it's like created water. Great tip. Awesome. Okay, so a few things in terms of setting up in flying, we do have, um, a few videos here, and, um so I'm just gonna go ahead and load is all we'll do him and bigger size. Yes. That one should have been Crump. That isn't that wonderful. You always looking at yourself? Thieves were supposed to be the cropped ones. These are not. I trimmed. All that's great. You're looking at my nose. All these ones. Wait a minute. Is it the J pig? Yeah. Okay. I guess that we're stuck with that screenshots and put him into the project. Okay, we're stuck with my nose. Uh, so the un packaging, we already did that. I don't think there's any benefits to, you know, showing you, um, that scenario, um, began with our prop guards. Batteries checking props, bladder, bladder, bladder, yada, yada, yada. Don't need that. Then I think this, um, one here is the gonna be doing turning on the compass calibration. So here I used the app to instigate it that we already showed. And then this is the wonderful dance that you get with it now. I used to do it manually, but they say, Well, you know, if it's just pretty much in its own mode than great now pointing it nose down and then doing the hokey pokey Put your left foot in right foot out. Shake it all about You should have seen the people, the people in the best Well, car going, Strange man. Set up my tripod shooting myself. There's a creepy old man in the park anyway, so that is the compass calibration scenario. Uh, this one again is the same one. Our little speed that I love that backpack. It is so light, and it serves me really well. And, um, there's our scenario there. And let us, uh see what this one, this one that the tests that I would do here, this is setting up and making sure that we have the lock and I'm turning on the camera. I've already turned on all the devices now turning it on, making sure that I've got the green lock here. You're gonna see in a second There's the the gyroscope, and you'll notice that how good it is in there. I didn't kind of show that in there There. Now it's back to green. It was getting confused and the things that I would recommend in terms of doing an initial flight, some little elements that you could do and I think I kind of basically did it here. I used a field that had a little stripe on it. You could use the, you know, proverbial basketball court or something. You obviously don't need it. The main thing here is letting it hover when you first take off first giving it a few minutes until it gets its lock, and then you get the green blinking lights take off, let it hover again. It's going to get its orientation. The internal gyroscope is getting its bearings. But basically what I would do and what you're doing, will he actually use this here? Because this is a great I didn't I wasn't flying this one it, but basically, we use This is actually this is what I was gonna draw it out on the whiteboard, but I think that this will actually work quite good. Okay, So the thing that I would recommend and we'll have this over here in terms of our flying and some initial tests is as I mentioned before on your two controllers to sometimes they're known is that you know your joysticks or D pads. If you were using a traditional game controller, this one on the left hand side is going to be your up down and then rotate or spin what's known as the Y axis. And, um So, um, this is good to know this is gonna help you point your camera things like this. But this is the one which is moving it in on the two d space that the checkerboard is going to be. This one. And this is where you really want to be comfortable with to start with, because this is gonna be your forward back and left. You know, Pan, move it left and right. Okay, so this is gonna be because this is where you're gonna move it inside the space that you're in. Neither of these are going to change its orientation. It's going to stay where it is. It's either going to spin around like this way or go up and down. This is not going to get you out of trouble. This one will get you out of trouble, right? Unless this when you're gonna fly up into a tree cause you're trying to fly below a tree. But we won't even go there because you're not artists. So this one right here. Um, what I would recommend getting used to is one you're gonna you know, As I said, I'm start the drone, hold it, hovered at that position, and then just use this right one and going forward. Look at that. It's just, like, eerie how much of a simulation is's and then back is going to do this and just getting used to this idea of forward and back. And of course, how is it doing this? It's changing the speed of the motors on this prop, and that's what's causing it to If things go faster, is gonna come up and move it forward, okay. And backwards. And the same thing with all of these. All these movements are by simply changing the speed of each one of these motors, which is really ingenious, you know, as opposed to using some sort of weight or some other system. So that would be the first situation is just flying forward and back. Next, What you may want to do is combine it with our left joystick. So forward go out. Okay, use this one left or right, and it's going to rotate in space. And of course, you have been looking at your heads up display so you can see exactly what you're gonna be looking at. And then once it's now looking back toward home, you're gonna come up here and then this is where it's a little bit different, is I'm not pulling it back towards May by pulling the joystick back. I'm pushing forward because it's facing forward. Okay, so that is going to be really important for you to get used to because I'm telling it what was a second ago go backwards. But in reality, because I've spun the drone around, it's now going forward. So that is just gonna be your comfort level. And that's why you could spend you could spend a week doing this one thing of being able to go forward, back, forward, back, forward, spin around and then back, Okay, because that is what's gonna, you know, help you. The next thing you may want to dio is a basically a box or triangle of that same scenario. So again, starting with just the right hand one once you've got it up to above, over your head and highly recommend not doing it at eye level. Okay, It's nice to have at least you know, 10 20 feet and you're in a field. So up here and then do a box scenario. Trust me, it's only gonna be you don't want You don't want to look and then moving this over here and then back and then over and then back. So this is because we're not moving the orientation of it. It's a simpler one, but it's getting you used to this idea especially like I said, that momentum we're gonna come over here and it may want to drift a little bit, especially if you don't have half a dozen satellites. It's gonna use a moment. So adding that equation OK, next What I would do is that same thing that we did in that 1st 1 is do that box, but add the rotation. So you're going to up forward, move to the left ever so slightly, it's going to rotate. Now you're going to keep going forward, rotate, keep going forward, rotate, keep going forward. Okay, so that is going to help you with this idea. And this will help you because you're looking at your first person view. You're seeing where you're going and that way. This is always going to be forward. Okay? This is always gonna be forward. Before we get into software, we're gonna be talking about different IOC intelligent orientation controls where you can actually do something other than what I just mentioned. And I won't describe that for you because it's best to talk about that visual, which is gonna be a little bit different. So anyway, so if you do those right there, then you're going to get a get a combination of your knowledge of position in space and then actually looking where you're going. And then, of course, come Combining that when you're actually doing forward with the rotation is where you're going to start getting into circles and figure eights and things like that. Okay. Were you using a combination? And that's where rather than doing your thumbs, you may want to do this situation where, if I'm gonna want to turn left, then I'm gonna make it turn slightly left and then forward, okay? And then getting used to that of being able to fly circles around things like that. But those you could spend again a lot of time, just that forward back forward rotate and also your square and then rotating it and doing that getting completely used to it. You can do those things. Those are the snores that I do. Like I said, one of my favorite moves in terms of video shooting is that I'm pullback because it gives you so much control over the scenario. And also by if this is my subject right here, by coming up here in doing a pullback, one by definition, by pulling back, it's going to kind of point the copter down as it moves back this way. So when it automatically kind of looks at the subject to moving away from the small Children that I'm tryingto video, you don't want to go. Yeah, always. Better to do reveal. It's also better conceptually because if you're like this, the person of at eye level, it seems like it could be shot on a tripod. And so I pulled back. It gives you this. Oh, my goodness. I'm actually Superman, Right? So you have control because you can actually accelerate quite quick. You have control because it naturally will tilt down two point at your subject matter. It allows you to have speed because you're moving away from anything that you could damage. It's just a nice move, so that would be something to get used to. The other thing is, once you have the gimbal, this ability to actually pan along a subject and doing side pants is a really nice move. This comes in when we get into the waypoint navigation where you can set points along a subject matter. And the altitude is really nice because it lets you actually fly along something like a line of trees and do it safely while you're still able to rotate the camera. Okay, so those are a few things related to that. Um, I could continue back on with that clip with me in the field with a GoPro in my mouth. That was actually awesome. Thank you.

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