Thinking about purchasing a video drone

[PZ]

Our general area is in level 4 alert. When it reaches level 5 our area is on it's own if a fire occurs because level 5 means that all fire resources in the country have already been allocated.

As I write, some idiot across the mountain is shooting off rocket fireworks. 

I cannot believe how incredibly stupid people are. Luckily I have my truck attached to my trailer so I can get off at a moment's notice.

[Art Blade]

shoot him on your way out!

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah that's just plain stupid. And the sheriff isn't much better if he's afraid to "spoil someone's fun" over possibly stopping a fire that could cause millions in damage and people losing their homes and/or lives.

We, on the other hand, have been having more than average rain, 11 out of the last 13 days have been rainy and we have totaled almost 2.5 inches over average rainfall for this month alone. Flood watches are out for a large area around here on and off all the time.

[PZ]

 

We wish that we had  a fraction of rain like that! We are in what is considered severe drought.

[Dweller_Benthos]

I bet. We will get half of today and most of tomorrow as clear weather and it'll be back to rainy for the next 5 or 6 days.

[PZ]

We don't have any kind of rains in the foreseeable future 

[Art Blade]

"funny" enough, we had it pouring down rather heavily for over 12 hours non-stop

[PZ]

With that much rain you guys must be receiving the rain we usually get, which is now essentially gone.

[Dweller_Benthos]

You can have some of ours, we don't need any more!

https://www.openworldgames.org/newowg/index.php/topic,70764.0.html

[fragger]

When it comes to fires, droughts and floods, we Aussies call that "situation normal"

I shouldn't joke. I hope you chaps will be okay with whatever end of the natural strife spectrum you're finding yourselves on.

PZ, a couple of my friends have been heavily into drones for a few years now. I couldn't tell you what makes/models they have because I'm not up on the scene, but I do know they're fairly high-end ones. One of them learned the hard way by pushing his luck with the battery in his first drone and consequently dropping it into Sydney Harbour So he got another relative cheapie and practiced well away from the drink until he got good enough at flying it to fork out for a more serious unit.

The technology has progressed in leaps and bounds since my mates first got into it and they've shot some terrific video. Top-end drones have some pretty impressive stabilizing software allowing for silky-smooth footage despite surrounding air movement.

Hope you have fun with it

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah my friend has been looking at drones for photography for a while now and the new ones that self-stabilize and some can take images up to four seconds long while flying an keeping stabile in mid air. That's pretty cool. The only problems are image resolution and being able to use filters and still fly the thing.

[PZ]

The technology has progressed in leaps and bounds since my mates first got into it and they've shot some terrific video. Top-end drones have some pretty impressive stabilizing software allowing for silky-smooth footage despite surrounding air movement.

Hope you have fun with it

Thanks fragger (hope you guys fare well). I've flown it only a couple of times so far because I've been really busy with volunteer w0#k I recently signed up for. Essentially a web site that was in dire need of repair needed someone to fix it.  That, and I can hardly see across the bay it is so smoky with fires all around our location - thankfully not too close to us. I hope to have more time later in the year for flying.

Yeah my friend has been looking at drones for photography for a while now and the new ones that self-stabilize and some can take images up to four seconds long while flying an keeping stabile in mid air. That's pretty cool. The only problems are image resolution and being able to use filters and still fly the thing.

I doubt my drone (DJI Air 2S) is considered a high end one, but it has image stabilization and can automatically follow a moving vehicle or do a slow spin around a stationary object - all without pilot intervention. In my first flight I was able to fly above my place and take video (not any good, but I did not do much except click the on-screen record button). Stability of the video is all done automatically.

I watched a video of a guy testing how far away he could fly and still return and it was over 4 miles out - he was using my model drone. I've also watched other video which is silky smooth and looks like the stuff I see on the Discovery channel. The technology is amazing.

I'm just afraid to crash the darned thing. 

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah getting one 4 miles (!) away just seems asking for trouble. I'd be scared to let it get out of my sight. Then there's the fact if you do lose it and it lands on someone else's land, you have to go find them and get permission to go on their land to get it, answering the awkward questions of why you were flying over their land to begin with. Whether or not if it's legal to do so, I know a lot of places where that would get you in trouble.

[PZ]

Yeah, I feel the same. I wouldn't mind flying from my house across the bay because everything is lower than I am, and because it has built-in GPS, if it senses some kind of signal loss, it is supposed to return "home" (your last GPS position it took off from).

[nex]

I've been following a young girl on youtube, she's from the Netherlands touring around the world
on a motorcycle all on her own.
She's now on her season 5 started in Johannesburg. After touring SA she went on to Namibia, Botswana,
now she's in Zimbabwe. She's using various cameras to record her traveling and also using a drone with
the "follow me" function, man, you must see those clips, sometimes the drone is so far from her
that she almost appears as a dot. How far the drone can go I don't know, all I know is that it's quite a distance.