Adirondack Autumn (2015)
It’s been a slow to start but quite spectacular autumn here in upstate New York. I love this time of year and try to get out to shoot as much scenic footage as possible. Many years I have big projects and hard deadlines that keep me from driving around the mountains during the roughly one to two week period when the leaves are at peak color. To me peak color is when there is still some green trees mixed in as well. Enjoy this short video of the footage I collected this year.
DJI Inspire 1 – New quad copter!!
I recently acquired the DJI Inspire 1 quadcopter for shooting aerial video and stills.
It’s an awesome platform to shoot from. As you can see the camera is built in and sends a full HD signal down to the remote so you can monitor the shot from an iPad. It can shoot 12MP stills and 4k video! It is also bigger and heavier than the Phantom model I was using before and that means more stability in the air. The camera is gimbal stabilized too so the footage is rock solid. The range is also very impressive! In the video below, the last shot is of a train and I was over 3000 feet away at the furthest point. This video is all made with shots from the first day I flew it and is more of a test video than anything.
Getting better with the DJI Phantom!
Here is some footage from the DJI Phantom quadcopter. If you check the earlier post, I crashed it on my second flight! Now I’m getting better flying it, and also learning how to get the smoothest video from it. Still a little way to go before I’m REALLY happy with it but it’s getting there. For those who are interested in the technical details here is what I’m doing:
1) Balance Props! Basically you put prop on a rod, and see what side is heaviest, then you sand that side down or add tape to the other one. Continue until they are perfectly balanced and can stay in a horizontal position on the rod.
2) I’m using a GoPro Hero 3 Black-1080 60p medium view with Protune mode on. (This uses a higher bit rate for less blocky footage).
3) In FCPX, import footage to a 30p timeline and slow clip to 50%.
4) Use FCPX stabilization feature (I forgot to on the one clip at 1:05-for an idea of what a non-stabilized shot looks like).
5) Fly in as straight a line as possible in ATTI mode.
I’m only looking for short smooth shots to use in my video productions. Not in capturing complete flights.
Still some warble, mostly in the sunny clips, I think it’s the GoPro3 making an adjustment to battle the brighter light. Either cranking up shutter speed internally or lowering ISO? Not sure but on a bright day some kind of ND would help.
It’s getting there!
pfproductions 