Lessons

Lesson Info

Intro to Basics

I want to welcome everybody here um couple faces I recognize from facebook and and that's really cool and I appreciate everybody showing up I um just I'm a very passionate about this because I kind of fell into this industry I didn't I'm not I'm not ah professional hobbyist of sorts I don't build my own gear s so it's not that I've got a crazy workshop at home I've got gear all over the house so you can ask my wife um it's still crazy but but but to get into this I I was just asked to do a review of the very first uh phantom d j I came out with and because I was already I already do reviews for pro video coalition and you could find my channel on there the pixel painter and I have done a lot of gopro um talks and er demonstrations and reviews they said we want would you like to review this for pro video coalition so I did and I absolutely fell in love with the ability to get that camera up in the air may I had tried a lot of homemade stuff like weather balloons and kites and different ...

things to try to get my gopro up above tree levels I could see mountains and things around and and most of them failed because there's no way to really stabilize the camera it's just kind of flying around up there you know and s o this was an opportunity too get that camera up in viewpoints and different points of view that I could never get any other way and so I just fell in love with this this whole industry in this technology and as it's grown and it's only been a couple of years so so much has happened in two years for this industry the long time model air airplane flyers and helicopter flyers I mean, they're they've already been there it's a very small crowd, but this new wave of products you know makes this accessible to the average purse who wants to learn how to get their cameras in the air and do some some things with it and of course filmmakers are finding it you know, wonderful because they can, you know, fly around a really nice camera and get some shots that they can't do if they're you know, anchored to the ground or on a gyp so it zen amazing it's an amazing industry what we're hoping to cover through this uh this whole this whole workshop is to introduce you to, uh, the whole drone experience uh u a v s wherever you want to call them, um we want to introduce you to it yeah, and try to educate you from the ground floor up uh, things that don't necessarily come in the box you click buy it comes in and you take it out you charge it up me start flying and we're hoping to help you you know, bridge that gap and have a little better understanding of you know what all the terminology is what all the different products are how you can make a good choice either starting out or ah if you've been flying for a bit you wantto go up to the next level so I'm hoping we can help you bridge that gap and also uh what to do with some of your footage you know, when we're in the other studio for the second session we're going to be doing some after facts and premier and photo shop we've got russell brown coming in to do a photo shop session with us and that's just wonderful, so we're excited about that and we're also going to talk about some of the issues that are out there some of the legal issues especially if you're looking at doing this professionally. There are a lot of things it's a lot of turmoil around that with the faa we're going to get into that discussion our second session um and uh, open it up for a dialogue between you, the audience and us so that we can best try to answer your questions while we're here because again this is a workshop isn't necessarily just a tv show that we're just pounding everything to you were not preaching to you but we want to make sure that we are answering those questions and we're recovering covering as much of that as we can so with that um let me uh start here drone the that's a dirty word right you know drones kill people you know drones go on missions and do things well yeah that's drones go on missions and they do things they don't all have to be weaponized they can go take beautiful pictures they can go and take your land surveys and they could do site plans and mapping and geological studies and help agriculture and help farmers and and they can be used for for you know journalists that want to go out and capture you know a protest or capture something that's going on andi we're talking globally here not just in the u s and the u s there there are more and more controversial restrictions to it all but it is a ah it is a term that's here whether we like it or not I have I fought it for almost two years I just have in the last few months just determined they're going to call them drones and I just need to make the best of it and let's make it not a dirty word by trying to be a little more positive about it um realistically these are waves which is an unmanned aerial vehicle are unmanned aerial system um some of them calm small unmanned aerial system hacks, hex copters, quad copters, multi rotors, big mouthfuls while you're with the sticks and somebody says, hey, is that a drone? Yes, yes, it's a drone. So, uh, that's, why that's? Why? I think it's really important that we we don't concentrate so much on the politics of what recalling these things that we do focus on what they're capable of doing and how we're using them and in just moving forward in a real positive way, they're they're getting more sophisticated, we're going to show you some stuff today that is really cutting edge as far as being able to program these things, to go off and do some autonomous missions on go capture footage, go capture images and come back, so they're getting more and more sophisticated it's more than just a little radio controlled toy um there's a lot more that these things can do even at the lower lower end and again dealing with the whole drone. Ah terminology, I think if we just all as individual is going to be grassroots because this is kind of grassroots industry. Yeah, when we're online in the community forums, when we are in person and people bring up the terminology and bring up their fears or whatever, I think it's important that we we just address those yeah in a real positive light what I typically do I always fly with a with a with a monitor and f p v monitor I'm going should be showing you that, um in a little bit here but I was fly with one and I've been approached a lot I usually don't fly around people as much as I can um sometimes if you're at the beach or in a an area that you're you're taking off from a landing point but you're flying out away there's going to be people walking up to you because they're interested in what you're doing and at first when you're first learning it's like don't bug me I'm flying I'm trying not to crash you know? So you have that you have that feeling, you know? Ah, but as as you get a little more experienced with it in your comfortable talking while you're flying or you just take a break, take your hands off the sticks and let it hover while you're talking to the people then you're you're answering the questions in your quelling the fear ah the other night I was out flying, capturing a sunset and flying the why six and you know it's a little different looking than the phantom's because it's you know, kind of a menacing looking, you know monster with lots of props, right? And so I was flying this thing it's fairly low about thirty feet from me and I was just hovering and this elderly woman comes out. Is that a drone? And I go, yeah, yeah, he has come over and wave at it because I had that had it turned the camera towards us as in wave way frantically this sushi is waving and she's got her son with her and and they're waving and I say, come on, come on, look and see and I'm showing her the monarch's well, where are we? I said, we'll wave your hands I said they are down there, we're so little that well, yeah, you know, that's the thing she says, well, what's the what's all this about, you know, privacy and drones is that if I saw that in my backyard, I might be a little afraid by didn't think somebody spying on me because you can't see anything I said, well, that's, just it, you know, if she got these little cameras, the little go pros and we're not the only way you're going to see and decide somebody's bedroom is to actually get in there and fly around in their bedroom. That's that's the only way you're going toe teo invade somebody's privacy to that to that that amount, so it's it's a matter of showing people being, you know, like evangelists for the for the industry while you're out working and showing people that there's really nothing to be afraid of, they're not going to attack you. They're not going to come spy on you. They're just most of us are out there to get beautiful pictures that we can't get from the ground, and when they see that, you know, they they get it right away, they get it just instantly. So I think that's kind of our mission as a ce flyers and photographers is teo, get out there and be positive. Um, obviously a lot of us start out, you know, we just want to get beautiful nature photos. Uh, and you never stop wanting to get beautiful nature photos if you're in an area where you have access to get to in areas like I know it's gonna be an awesome sunset tonight or an amazing sunrise the next morning. I don't do sun rises, he can ask romeo, he always invites me, and I was like, I go to bed about then, you know, I'm a late night guy, so I don't do it don't do sunrises, but you've no there's a location you want to get to. And shoot something you want to capture something from the amazing point of view then this is just such a such a wild waited to do that it's just ah it once you once you do what you do to get hooked this definitely um panoramic scenes we're going to see some examples here in a minute of some of the pan owes on dh shots that have been made by some of the people on the team here and rustle brown's going to get into that a little bit more in our next session as well um but people take thes two events wanted, you know, capture a live event a performance event they can get in there again their safety issues you just have to you know you just have to adhere to all of those things but it's really easy to capture a point of view outside a stadium or outside an area where it's safe to fly and capture these points of view that nobody else can get unless you've got a small blip when you're flying it around. So um it's great to be able to take these things on location they're portable enough to do that um the that's where he's going with the events on of course all of the commercial uses real estate, industrial construction, geological agriculture search and rescue is a big thing I belong to a search and rescue group on facebook um I haven't gone out on any missions yet I'm still gearing up to get ready for that so if something happens in my area I want to be in the system so they can call on me and I'll go out and help um firefighters journalists like I mentioned filmmaking obviously a big focus and we're going to get into that toward the end of the day with the bigger copters in the bigger cameras um and so there's there's so many commercial things that are important for this industry to thrive and again we'll get into more of the legalities of all of that in our next session when we do have peterson it's coming on to talk with us he's going to do a ah google hangout with this because he's over and in on the east coast so but we're going to talk about those issues as well and uh so I'd like to share some examples of some panos um that some of us have have shot and is the one I did actually this is one I did just the other night when I was out there talking with the the lady so it is a beautiful sunset got a great shot and that was shot with a gopro and this was I didn't shoot photos I'm going talk about cameras here in a little bit too and how did use your gopro but this was shot with a gopro at two point seven k thirty francs per second video and I just pulled out frames out of that and stitch them together in photo shop and made my really nice panorama it's not too soft it's not, uh is a little because we're in a power point here it's not crystal clear but I probably wouldn't print that huge but it's beautiful for delivery online so um and here's one that romeo has has taken romeo on mark flying together a lot so um if I happen to put you're wrong wrong name on who shot one of yours it's one of those two guys so if you see romeo remark on any of these itt's one of the two or both at the same time right? So they uh they go all over the world and, uh shoot they were just down in the area like a month or so ago they bust the hollywood sign I just I love that shot that's an angle I've always wanted to get because they don't let you really climb up and climb on it anymore they they've secured it away. So um this is one way to get an amazing point of view and uh here we go steven weeke craft he's going to be joining us he shot this with hiss um uh mark three on a s one thousand and that does it looks like he's at the ground but the it's actually a mountain range in the middle so he's up quite a bit to get this this shot that he couldn't get any other way but he does a lot of beautiful landscape nature photography, photography marken romeo took a trip to europe and they went all over and got some amazing shots and I just snagged one there mono lake um somebody had mentioned they went to mono lake recently that was you on dh this another one steven went down there and and shot those so there's another one from mark and and or romeo um this is out outside the stadium out of the marina there see that's that's a point of view that you could only get from aerial there's no way you could get that unless you're in a helicopter playing a blimp or you have a drone that will get you that point of view. Um this is, uh um what? Which lake lake tahoe. Thank you. I knew it started with a t it's morning again. Yeah, that's why? I'm not a son's sunrise person. Um so this is another one that stephen took. I believe he took this with this phantom vision vision plus though another one from mark and or romeo um the point of you I've never seen before other than maybe some of the black and white postcards from the early nineteen hundreds from a bland parable while air balloon or something hot air balloon another one from stephen that's, oregon coast russell brown um feel them out there making these tiny planets now so russells russell has perfected this technique and I'm not sure if he's going to cover that he made sure a few examples of it I don't know how much he can share in his is one session segment later he'll be involved this I took and and I've had some comments about that well, hey you're downtown san francisco! I'm not really I'm extreme wide angle a composite of several frames I'm right above this uh construction site center down below, so I was authorized and permitted to fly anywhere on that block above that construction site that day, so I was in that vicinity and was able to capture some of that and makes a nice panels from the video again these are all made from video I rarely shoot stills myself because I'm a more of a video guy, but I love being able to shoot high definition video where I can pull out some frames and make these nice panoramas. This panorama here is a vertical, so I'm looking straight down at the crane and I just tilted the tilted the camera up and did a nice sweep and was able to stitch those together and make a nice vertical panorama so I've got some examples of some of the stuff I've flown since I did mention I do video um this with a variety of cameras, a variety of copters some things I'm going to be addressing through my later sessions and put in post production uh, faras image stabilization and lens correction because gopro makes these rounded looking horizons people go hey looking see, the curvature of the earth was, I don't know it's the lands, so, um, but you can you can straighten that out and there's a lot of create presets in adobe cc, especially two thousand for the fourteen, the latest version that they just updated, they've got some great lens profiles for premiere and everything I'm gonna show you all of that, uh, the later sessions so but I'm going to let this, um, video go in this video has audio so just to queue up our production team um audio on the power points coming up right now wait, wait, wait. Okay, so, um, there's a little longer that I remember to be and so it's washington here live is wild, but uh yeah, you can see is a lot of different types of shots in there, a lot of over water, a lot from a different vantage points and some are commercial bent. Some are just scenic the last one we ended on when it wasn't raining here, just outside here, around the statue, that's, that's out here. And hopefully it will clear up here before too long, so that we can get out there and fly around. It is well.