#photations

4-25-2019

 Project Aerospace

             Today I returned to Creasey Bicentennial Park. This time my goal was to fly over the medium sized prairie. This prairie is right next to the soccer fields, but I did not have enough battery time to fly at both places. Also the previous flight’s crash landing needed to be repaired at home and could not be done in the field.

             This was a remarkably peaceful flight. I started off by taking photos and video of this exercise hill. People use this steep hill for running up and down. Nothing bad happened during this flight and it was extremely calm winds. The weather report was that there would be clouds but no rain, this was a lie. Driving to the park there was a little rain but I decided that I would get to the park and see if it was still raining. Once I got to the park the light drizzle of rain had stopped. 

             After finishing from the exercise hill I moved to the back of the park where the prairie was. I used two of the smaller 1800mah batteries so the last two small batteries I used for line of sight flying. Unfortunately the camera mount had become a little lose. I tightened it in the field but I was worried it might get loose again during a flight.

             During the line of sight flights, I was very slow and cautious not making any quick movements with the drone. Both flights on the smaller batteries went extremely well and the 3 min timer was very useful. I always made the landing before the batteries power began to run out and become unstable which added to the relaxing nature of this flight.

             The two last flights were the FPV gear. Confident with the previous four flights I set up my video goggles and began the flight. The signal was clear the entire time. There I found a dead zone while flying. It wasn’t a real problem because I was flying extremely slow and smoothly so when I noticed signal problems I quickly brought the drone back towards me and the signal was stronger again. The second flight on the larger 2200 mah battery went well until the end. I was flying behind myself and hit a second dead zone in a different location then the first. Because the drone was close to me and no one was around I decided it was best just to land it there.

             The Landing was a little fast and hard and one of the drone motor arms cracked off. This may sound like a big problem but it is actually a motor arm that cracked off before. It was still a clean break and the only part that snapped was the wooden popsicle stick that was there just for re-enforcement. Meaning it will be a quick and easy fix.

             What I learned from this flight is don’t fly behind yourself with a FPV flight (First Pilot View). The dead zone isn’t so much from the environment but from the direction of the transmitter. Different Transmitter antennas have different problem areas. Dipole antennas have a good range in all directions except for directly above the antenna. The dead zone for this transmitter seems to be at angles behind the transmitter. To be fair the transmitters antenna is internal and small at that and this is the first two time I ever ran into transmitter problems within the 3 years I’ve been flying the drone. To be honest I believe that It is interference from the FPV transmitter on the drone that makes the drone’s receiver to the controller have difficulty receiving the signal. I’ve only had this problem since I increased the FPV transmitter power. I did this so that I would have a stronger more reliable video downlink, now I just have to stay with in this new shorter range of the remote.

              I packed up and made my way to the Genesee health park. I made sure to take my tripod and packed it by the front door. However, I forgot something and went out the back door and left the tripod. I found this out once I got to the parking lot. This was okay I just attached the camera to my cane chair that I use when flying with FPV. It took a little duck tape but it worked.

             This was an easier shoot because I was just reshooting what I had failed to before due to me recording with the wrong setting. It was very relaxing hiking with no backpack and just one camera. It did however still take a long time. This was because I would set up the makeshift tripod then record for 30 seconds then walk 15-20 feet down the trail see something interesting then repeat the process.

             I took about 2 hours to film this reshoot and the footage came out okay. There is still one more trail at this location that I need to film and take photos of but that will have to be another day. It’s one of the longer sections and would be about 4 miles of walking.

   The Relaxing ASMR series from Live to Tape. Story Time will take you on a journey through scenic landscapes while listening to Stories from around the world

Create Project is the behind the scenes Live Streams of all the work by LCD-Production, which includes Photations

Photations MK IV (Season 4)   is a Indie Film Series from Photations. Featuring documentaries and Nature films with Photography from around the world

 4-22-2019

Project Aerospace and Photations

 The day started off early, my goal was to get to this new park to fly before everyone else arrived to exercise. This park is Creasey Bicentennial Park and is a large park with multiple soccer fields, a prairie and a large exercise hill. I knew that it would take multiple trips to film at this location with the drone so this was to be the first of many. I also wanted this to be a simple flight.

             The first location at this park that I went to film at was the soccer fields. This would be good for long forward kinetic motions shots without having to worry about obstacles. This did prove to be the case however there were several problems while flying.

             The first several flights went relatively well but I kept have issues with the batteries. In the previous week I had timed all the batteries to figure out how long each one would last while flying. I did this for safety and it helps having one less thing to worry about never knowing until the last 2 minutes when the battery is about to die.

             I should also note that I received a new battery charger. This one is fancier then the one that came with the quad copter. I noticed that each battery had wildly different flight time which should not be the case. In addition to this, batteries that were low power and dead when plugged into the stock charger would not charge. In fact, the stock charger would think that the battery was fully charged.

             After doing some research I found out that the stock charger does not do a balance charge. RC and Drone batteries have cells. They come in 1s 2s 3s 4s and 5s. Each cell has a limit of around 4 volts and vary how much mil amps hours they can provide. Each cell is supposed to be charged to the proper identical voltage an mah (Mil amp hours). Because the stock charge does not do a balance charge, it would charge one cell way past its 4 volts and leave the other cell with no charge. This means that the battery would not have enough power to fly the drone but would still register as fully charged. This is also very bad for the battery health.

             The new charger is very nice. Not only can I charge each cell to the correct mah and voltage, I can also drain the batteries after a flight especially if I did not use one battery and it remains fully charged. Lithium batteries should not stay fully charged while you store them because this hurts the battery health as well, instead when in storage they should only be charged to around 30%. This will help them last longer and work better. A battery should be discharged to storage if you’re not going to fly 2-3 days after you fully charge it. Ideally you should only charge the batteries the night before a flight.

             With this new battery charger and new tested flight battery flight times I felt confident that this would be a good flying session. There was nobody in the soccer fields and I essentially had the park to myself. My four 1800mah batteries had a test flight time of 5 mins so I would only fly for 4 mins in case of emergency and to account for power loss from more varied flying conditions then when I tested.

             This worked out well however I did begin to lose power a little sooner than my 4 min timer which was fine because I would notice it and land the drone safely next to myself. It turned out that with a varied throttle I would have a solid 3 min of flight time before the drone would begin to lose power.

             After the four 1800mah batteries were depleted I moved on to the 2200mah batteries. These tested had a flight time of 10 mins however learning from the 1800mah hour batteries I would only fly for 7 mins. With this larger batteries and longer flight time I was free to fly using my FPV equipment. This is first pilot view and allows me to see from the drone’s perspective from the drone’s camera in real time.

             This however is where I ran into a problem. I flew very well for about 5 mins getting good footage of the forest on the side of the soccer field and the soccer field itself. However due to the scale of the soccer field with it being large and flat with no real objects of scale I didn’t realize how far away I had flown from my position. This is where I ran into trouble. I did not lose my FPV (camera connection) signal, I began to lose my transmitter signal. I started to fly back but the signal cut in and out and I lost too much altitude and I crash landed between the soccer field and the forest.

             It was difficult to find the drone in the bushes but I found it. The camera mount had fallen off and there was some mud in one of the brushless motors, but other than that the drone was fine. This concluded the first flight at this park and I moved on to continue my work on the sleeping spring project.

   Photations Sleeping Spring

             After finishing and crashing the drone I made my way to the Genesee nature trails. I like to film for two divisions of LCD-production when I film for project aerospace. Project aerospace only take about an hour and a half to film because I’m limited by battery flight time. I feel because I’m already out of the house I might as well film something longer as well.

             I filmed the first section of trail which was about a mile round trip. The actual first trail is about half a mile but I walk it twice. One time around taking 35mm and 3D photographs and 4K UHD video then on the second time I take VR 3D photographs.

             This second part would be the same however I would be walking a much larger section of the trail. There were a lot more people this time as we’re getting deeper into spring and having nicer warmer weather. This was not a problem everyone was very friendly and I greeted everyone as they passed by me. Some even gave good advice about where the wildlife like to rest which was helpful.

             The trees were still bare but the grass, flowers and bushes had begun to bloom and it took about an hour and a half to walk this second trail and it was exhausting. Not from the walking, just from having to stop every 10 or 15 feet to take the 4K UHD footage (or so I thought). Each time I set up the video camera I take longer 30-40 second video clips. While I’m doing this I take the time to take the 35mm and 3D photographs. Even multi-tasking like this I still have to wait on the video camera which is setup on a tripod.

             I found two large ponds, several geese and ducks as well as a gardener snake which was very interesting to watch. Once I made it to the end of the second section of trail. I decided to walk back. I was tired and I still had to take the VR 3D photographs which is easier because I don’t have to multi task with the Video and DSLR camera, but it meant I had to do everything in reverse going back the way I had come.

             Walking back was much faster and in total I probable walked about 3 miles. However, once I returned home and began to back up the footage I realized I had made a terrible mistake. When I film for project aerospace on the quad copter I film in HD at 120 fps. This allows me to slow the footage down to 4x slower then real time creating smoother longer shoots.  However, when I went to film for Potations Sleeping Spring I did not set the camera back to 4K UHD. This would be okay if the whole 2D (35mm and Video footage) project were not a 4K project but it was. Not only that but the 99% of the video footage was of still life with already slow gentle movement. There was no need for video at 120fps.

             A little disheartened I decided I would go back and re film that section of trail in 4K. The part that made it a little worse is that I would have to redo the part of filming I didn’t like which was walking from subject to subject which for whatever reason was about every 20 feet. Then waiting 30 – 40 seconds and moving on.

             The good news was that I was able to fix the drone when I returned home so I would be able to fly again at the Creasey Bicentennial Park then go back to the Genesee nature trails like I had before doing another multi division shoot for LCD-Productions.

  The Relaxing ASMR series from Live to Tape. Story Time will take you on a journey through scenic landscapes while listening to Stories from around the world

Create Project is the behind the scenes Live Streams of all the work by LCD-Production, which includes Photations

Photations MK IV (Season 4)   is a Indie Film Series from Photations. Featuring documentaries and Nature films with Photography from around the world

3-24-2019

             Today I continued my work shooting for the second season of Sleeping Spring. This time I made my way to Richfield County Park. This park is right next to the park I was shooting at the day before (Genesee Recreational Area), but I needed a whole day to capture Richfield County Park.

             Once you enter the drive way to this park it’s a winding dirt road for about a mile. It’s nice to drive Slowly through this section, one because it’s very scenic and two because there may be deer. In Either case the speed limit is 25 MPH so you’re really supposed to go slow anyway.

             On the way to getting to the park spend the drive recording audio of the car and road sounds along the way. I had a suction cup mount for my TESCAM and set it to record along the way.

             Once I got to the park I went to work. The plan was to work in 3 circle sections. The entrance forest, the empty playground and the stone stairs/bridge sections. The reason why I would do each section in its own circle path is because I was shooting in more formats today. In Addition to shooting 4K footage, 35mm and 3D Photos I would also be shooting 3D 180 VR photos. Also, on top of all that my goal was to use multiple lenses for my DSLR in each section.

             For the Forest entrance I walked to one point of interest. There I would start recording 4K video and while the video camera was recording I would take photos of the area from this point and perspective, then I would take 3D photos that were unique and tailored to the 3D viewing experience. After that I would stop the Video recording and move from point of interest and repeat over and over. Once I had reached my last point of interest I finished the process, then switched lenses on my DLSR. I began shooting with my 28-135mm lens but it was time to switch to my 50mm f/ 1.8 . this would give me excellent depth of field on close up objects and was perfect for take macro shots without having to use extender tubes meaning I could move faster and focus and still shoot handheld. In addition to this I began shooting the 180 3D VR photos. The VR camera is finicky, the only option for taking 3D VR photos is to shoot at an interval of either 2, 5, 10 or 20 seconds. You can’t just take one photo it has to be on a timer. The problem is if you take a photo wait 2 seconds and then stop the timer the camera might mess up the left image or the right image. The work around is just let it keep taking a photo till it’s time to go to the next section.

             With the VR camera taking a photo every 2 seconds I began to circle back round. Stopping mostly at the same points of interest but this time taking photos with a shallow depth of field and more macro shots. Then I would hold the VR at the general direction of what I wanted in view and count to 10. That way I knew that the camera took at lease 4 or five photos for me to choose from since it take a photo every 2 seconds.

             This was the processes of the circle. I did this again for the empty playground. then returned to my car for a snack break which consisted of toast, pumpkin seeds and a couple of dates then went back out for the last section. The Stone Steps and Stone Bridge. I spent a lot of time filming 4K footage at this section and there was a wide variety of subjects to take photos of during this section. I even met a nice man who told me of an additional secret stone stair way.

             I made my way to this secret stair way and he was right it was very beautiful, he told me that his daughters had their portraits taken there. It looked like something strait out of a fantasy novel or game. I would not have been surprised if I found fairies or gnomes there. It was layered stone work filled with moss and over growth which added to its beauty. I was very glad to have this location pointed out to me, the stone bridge and original stone stairway were going to be the highlight of Richfield County Park, but this smaller section was a wonderful highlight that I did not expect to find.

              Tired I made my way back to the car and packed up my camera equipment. I then took out my TESCAM and began recording audio. Unlike the day before when I recorded audio and took photos at the same time, I felt like it would be better if I record audio from 3 sections only instead of 8 and have longer recording times. I recorded audio from the same three sections, the entrance forest, the playground and the river and stone steps. At each section I recorded 15 minutes of ambient sounds. There were even some kids that showed up at the playground so now I have playing kids audio which could be useful in the future.

             After recording audio at the river, I returned to the car. I ate the last of my lunch, rolled down the windows and mounted my microphone to the windshield. Then I mounted my YI camera (action cam) to the roof of the car and began recording audio of the car with open windows and 4K video of drive through the Park. This video and audio will be used for Live to Tape in an upcoming series.

 The park road is a little over a mile and is a pleasant drive. I started in the center of the park then drive to the park entrance, and turned in a circle then came back to the center of the park. On the way I saw 3 deer cross the road and it was nice to see them. I’m pretty sure I caught them with the camera mounted to the roof. Then I did one more lap around the park and stopped at the exit, removed the roof mounted camera, rolled up my windows and continued home. Again, I was recording audio of the drive including road and car sounds on the way home. I spent five hours shooting and felt great about what I was able to capture.

   The Relaxing ASMR series from Live to Tape. Story Time will take you on a journey through scenic landscapes while listening to Stories from around the world

Create Project is the behind the scenes Live Streams of all the work by LCD-Production, which includes Photations

Photations MK IV (Season 4)   is a Indie Film Series from Photations. Featuring documentaries and Nature films with Photography from around the world