Category: mavic

Viewz for dayz

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Everyone is busy at this time of year. I am also busy.
Who am I to buck a trend like that?

We’ve just got the boy back from an exciting, fulfilling, but exhausting Scout Camp, and there are a million tales of derring do which need to be told. I’m ready to listen. We’ve missed him.

Quota photo time then. And another one from the DuToitskloof Pass on Monday:

That’s the Paarl Valley there in front of us, with the Paarl Mountain in front of us and beyond that – under a wisp of white cloud in the distance – Table Mountain, some 65km away. Looking out west was equally breathtaking (although decidedly less busy), but I haven’t edited any more photos, so you’ll just have to imagine what it was like.

(Spoiler: It was equally breathtaking, but decidedly less busy, like I told you.)

Over the mountain

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I dropped the boy off at his first ever Scout camp this morning, just on the far side of the Huguenot Tunnel. The road through the Du Toitskloof valley is one of my favourites in SA, and (I think) massively underrated. Having left him and his scouting chums somewhere near Rawsonville, we headed back, but this time, took the R101 road over the mountain, rather than going straight through it.

It was rather windy, but I still managed to get the Mavic up for a few minutes and got a couple of shots, including a selfie featuring me and my daughter, sheltering from the wind behind the car.

The du Toitskloof pass isn’t the most spectacular or dramatic road I’ve ever driven, but it has its moments, and some of the views are superb. There are more photos, but despite being on holiday, I’m a little pressed for time today, so they’ll have to wait.

More driving tomorrow, as we test out other roads like the R316 and R319 to the South.

BestNine

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My #2017BestNine Instagram pictures include:

Four drone shots, three beagle shots, one drone and beagle shot, one of that storm and one of that sunset.

Go here to follow me on Instagram (although presumably, this means that I’m not going to post anything remarkable for the rest of the year (at least)) and go here to find your #2017bestnine.

Don’t crash

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I’m hoping to get some flight time in today. The weather forecast is looking good (I’m writing this ahead of time so that I have time to get some flight time in today) and I’m hoping to have much of the local coastline to myself in the traditional pre-December tourism lull in Cape Agulhas.

I got an email from DJI today (this today, not that today, as mentioned above). DJI is the company that made Florence the Mavic, so they know what they’re talking about when it comes to drones.

The email was divided up into four different sections: each with a link to a relevant webpage on their site:

DJI Go 4 Manual: The Pilot’s Handbook
Not sure what all those buttons do in DJI Go 4? Dive into our DJI 4 manual to learn ins and outs of DJI’s powerful, multi-purpose companion app.

Helpful advice for what is (necessarily) a rather complicated app.

5 Great Third-Party Mavic Pro Accessories
Looking for new add-ons to make your Mavic even more powerful? Read this article to discover five great Mavic accessories. 

An attempt to sell you more very cool, but very expensive, toys.

How to Make the Best of Your Drone Photo
Struggling to take good-looking drone photos? Check out this article and get one step closer to becoming a master of aerial photography.

You know from reading this blog that this is a never-ending learning experience and any help is good.

And then… this:

How to NOT Crash Your Drone in 15 Easy Steps
Even the bravest drone users worry about crashing. Here’s an article that can help you prevent accidents.

I like the emphasis on the NOT, as if you were considering any other options. And look, it’s a good idea for an article (albeit that it is written about the Phantom Pro, rather than the Mavic), but are there really fifteen separate steps you need to take to avoid the fiery demise of your drone?

Of course, it turns out that many of them refer simply to following the rules and using common sense (which you were doing anyway, right?).

Presumably, this means that if you follow the rules and use common sense, you’ll be fine. So that’s what I’ll do today.

Edit

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Issues. I have issues.

No. Not those ones. I’ve long given up trying to sort them out.

These are software issues. Specifically around the price of software.
A short while back, I bought a subscription to Adobe Lightroom to edit my photos. It costs $9.99 per month, which was then about R129.00. Since then, Jacob Zuma has got hold of the economy again and strangled a bit more of the life out of it, so that monthly subscription is now R145.10 (and likely to be higher by the end of this post, let alone the end of this year). Still, it’s great and I like what I’ve been able to do with it.
So, R145.10 per month. And that’s just for photos. If I want Premiere Pro to play with videos as well (and I do), then we’re looking at an additional $19.99 (or R290.20 at the moment) each month.

Eina!

Simply, it’s not an option.

The trouble is that I have tried out Premiere Pro and I really enjoyed using it. The integration with Lightroom was lovely and everything just made sense. Sure, it was only a first step and I still have everything to learn about it, but I really think I could go places. But not at R300 (or however much more) per month.

And so I am resigned to using free software. Which is great, but it’s also more difficult to use software. I gave Da Vinci Resolve a go on the old PC and it broke it, but let’s be fair – that was probably down to the PC rather than the software. Still, I found the UI rather awkward, and there were nowhere near as many online tutorials available. I will need online tutorials.
If someone wants to donate an annual subscription for Premiere Pro to an *cough* young, aspiring filmmaker, then I’m sure that there are many better cases than mine out there, but I still won’t say no.

In the meantime, does anyone have any other suggestions of where to find a decent video editing package (and by “decent”, I mean good at video editing and reasonably priced)?

I’m ready to listen.