James Kingston has got a Mavic

You may remember James Kingston from this post. Some of the stuff he does is a bit nutty, so when I saw the title of his latest video: It Finally Happened, I guessed that he had thrown a seven. Climbing tall things may be thrilling and yield some amazing shots, but it’s also incredibly dangerous, and one day, the videos will just stop.

I wondered if It Finally Happened was the video that he had made, with instructions for friends and family to release it should gravity get one over on him.

But no… I think he is saying that he has finally got a DJI Mavic Pro (like many other Youtube “celebs”) and that this is his first video flying it.

If you want to see the droney bit, it’s about halfway through – you’ll need to start from somewhere around 8:35. Featuring an impressive hand launch, some frankly terrifying footage of him standing an awful long way up from what appears to be a very solid ground, and copious use of the Mavic’s Intelligent POI (Point Of Interest) Mode. (As I have tested previously here.)

Once again, I am reminded how good editing can make a difference to Mavic footage, and once again, I remind myself that my PC  simply won’t allow me to even start to learn this sort of thing and that one massive technological purchase a year is – sadly – probably enough.

Sunrise

Being on the west coast, Cape Town is definitely better known for its sunsets rather than its sunrises. Want one of those early morning pictures taken from an urban environment? Go to Durban.
Durban’s geographical location on the east coast of South Africa means that the sun tends to pop up there way before the sleepy Cape has even contemplated leaving its slumbers. Sunrise City, Durban is.

I’m not in Durban, but when I saw the sky beginning to light up this morning, and with Mrs 6000 volunteering to take on the school run, I took the opportunity to chuck Florence the Mavic Pro up to about 120m and snapped this:

Not bad, Cape Town. Considering you’re more about the evening thing, not bad at all.

And no, I’m not a bad workman blaming his tools the local atmosphere, but the mist and the pollution over the Cape Flats makes this image look misty and polluted. The camera isn’t to blame. The subject actually is misty and polluted. Photograph is accurate. We need some wind and rain to clean things up a bit, although then that makes flying less possible.
Catch 22, ne?

As ever, this looks better bigger and on a black background, here.

More things I want to do in places I want to go (again)

Because of “regulations”, I’m not allowed to fly my Mavic in Namibia. I applied and I tried, but the rules there are very strict and while I submitted documentation upon documentation to a very friendly and helpful Namibian DCA, there were additional complications in that South African ATC is in charge of much of the airspace over the southern half of Namibia. Add the red tape of two different government bodies in two different countries together, and see how far you get. It’s not far.

Still, all being well, I will have had some chance to fly this side of the border while we’ve been away.
Pictures and video to follow? Maybe. But in the meantime, let’s live vicariously through FPV Customs DE, who went to Norway and had some fun with their Mavic.

HD would be your minimum setting to enjoy that one in, and if you do have 4K capabilities, well why not use them?

Every time I see Norway on these kind of videos, I realise how much I want to go back there. There are plenty of other places I want to go too, but the urge to spend some more time in Norway is currently outshining them all.

No woman, no fly

The Mavic learning curve continues.

My wife was away this weekend, and I had big plans to take the kids out for a quick flight. However, the weather was weird on Sunday. Cloudy one minute, sunny the next; calm one minute, dangerously gusty immediately thereafter.

Not flying weather.

Still, that did give me the opportunity to use that title.
Silver linings, ne?

The purpose of the planned flight was to practice some videoing. The photography thing is coming along nicely, albeit slowly. But I look at other people’s Mavic videos and I want to be able to do that too. I did try a 4K video a couple of weeks ago, but my settings were all wrong and I ended up with a pretty much completely unuseable, 2 minute long, 1.8GB file.

Some reading up and a couple of helpful Youtube videos later, I adjusted the video settings and took the risk of popping Florence (for it is she) up to 50m or so to test them out.
Good news. The quality was excellent: clear and sharp. And “only” 150MB for a 30 second flight. So basically 5MB per second. I’m not sharing it here because it (the content, at least) is rubbish, but that’s not the point. Suddenly, there are a whole lot of opportunities open to me – the world is my whelk.

There will come a time (possibly) when videoing in 4K resolution is necessary/possible (the Mavic can do it, but my PC simply can’t handle it). In the meantime, 2.7K is far more manageable, and – to an amateur like me, at least – appears basically just as good [professional videographers fall to the floor in laughter].

Watch this space, because great* things are coming.

* terms and conditions apply. 

A morning flight?

…I hope, anyway.

This post was written ahead of the weekend, precisely to leave ample time to (possibly) do some flying this morning.

I’m not sure exactly where yet – most of the peninsula having been comprehensively locked down by Table Mountain National Park – but 48 hours ahead of… well… now, the weather forecast is looking excellent for a quick trip up into the Cape Town skies (other regional atmospheric locations are available). And that makes a change, given that the infernal SouthEaster has been blowing annoyingly strongly and seemingly constantly for several years weeks now.

I’m sure you’ll be among the first to see some photos or footage assuming that I do manage to get up somewhere (ooer/careful now, etc etc).

Watch, as they say, this space.