[PiDicus Rex]

Not many people on the planet shoot with both an FS7 and a Pentax, so I might be in the smallest of small minority. Heck, I might be one of the ONLY people that uses Pentax glass on a Sony FS7.

That'll make a mate of mine happy to hear - his collection of SMC lenses is a bit smaller and slower then mine, but after seeing what I got out of the Pentax primes on an A7s, he's settled on an FS-7 and K-to-E adapter for his next camera.
I'd be in an even smaller minority - Pentax lenses on an Aja Cion, and only because we made the E-mount and M4/3-mount plates for the front of the Cion at home.

Looks good. And yeah, I love that Pentax look. Not sure what exactly it is, but it has some filmic qualities to it, somehow. To demonstrate how stable the K-5 actually is...

Damn,..
More proof of how far ahead of the pack Pentax was with Sensor Shift,... and why it should be turned back on in video.

Hi Lauren and folks,......

<waves from the other side of the city>
Yep, I did weddings for a few years - it's a lot harder then people realise to get right.

[LaurenOE]

While not K3 footage, this was part of a K3 shoot today.
When the K3 editing is done, I will post the K3 footage, but for now, here is some of my "gift/free" footage to the guy who was sailing.

Enjoy.

Vimeo

[kadajawi]

While not K3 footage, this was part of a K3 shoot today.
When the K3 editing is done, I will post the K3 footage, but for now, here is some of my "gift/free" footage to the guy who was sailing.

Enjoy.

Nice! I hope one day I'll be as good with the Phantom as you are. So far I've only had time in the simulator, since the weather is... unpleasant. Yesterday we had snow...

Not sure I'd ever dare to fly over water though

[LaurenOE]

Nice! I hope one day I'll be as good with the Phantom as you are. So far I've only had time in the simulator, since the weather is... unpleasant. Yesterday we had snow...

Not sure I'd ever dare to fly over water though

FPV is your friend!

Using FPV with goggles and the gimbal in follow mode, it "abstracts" everything, so all you focus on is the shot. It's like a flying game with goggles. When I wear the FPV goggles, all I care about is what is displayed.

If I actually "see" what my drone does, and how far it goes out, I get queezy in my stomach. When I use the tablet to fly and watching - in close quarters - I go much much slower and deliberate since after about 30 yards, there is no depth perception.

[kadajawi]

FPV is your friend!

Using FPV with goggles and the gimbal in follow mode, it "abstracts" everything, so all you focus on is the shot. It's like a flying game with goggles. When I wear the FPV goggles, all I care about is what is displayed.

If I actually "see" what my drone does, and how far it goes out, I get queezy in my stomach. When I use the tablet to fly and watching - in close quarters - I go much much slower and deliberate since after about 30 yards, there is no depth perception.

My predecessor crashed the Phantom 3 Pro on the first flight. Flew it into a tree. The repair could have bought a standard Phantom... I'll probably be always flying together with a colleague, so one of us can operate the drone while the other one will look out for it, but it's still scary. We'll see... what kind of goggles do you use? You mean a VR headset? I'd like to be able to touch the screen if necessary...

[LaurenOE]

My predecessor crashed the Phantom 3 Pro on the first flight. Flew it into a tree. The repair could have bought a standard Phantom... I'll probably be always flying together with a colleague, so one of us can operate the drone while the other one will look out for it, but it's still scary. We'll see... what kind of goggles do you use? You mean a VR headset? I'd like to be able to touch the screen if necessary...

I use the Fat Shark Dominator V3.
HDMI out from the Phantom 3 Remote controller.
Not really "VR" as more like looking through a big screen hanging on a wall.
The HUD display tells me everything I need to know.

And YES...I love to have someone with me when I put on the FPV goggles.
Preferably with binoculars.

I've now put a strobe into my kit so that when I return, if I have trouble identifying/remembering the field from where I took off, that I can have the person turn on the strobe so I have "landing lights".

This was the scariest flight (and longest) I have ever done.

The last Castle in this video...

Vimeo

I wanted to get the dramatic sun set, and when I wanted to return to base, the sun had just set behind the hill.
I turned around in the Phantom, and looked for the field to return home to.
In shadow, a little over half a mile away it was almost impossible to know which was the exact field I took off from.

NOTE: THE IMAGE BELOW IS NOT FROM MY DRONE - BUT GOOGLE.



Thankfully I had great signal, plenty of battery, and had the time to essentially move toward the indicators in the FPV goggles, and my spotter with binoculars say as to where I actually was. It's a terrible feeling to be 400 feet up in the air, in a little drone, and lose your bearings.

[TaoMaas]

What jib are you using, Lauren, and how long does it take to set up? Do you have a grip to help you? Thanks. LOVE your set-up, btw.

[kadajawi]

I use the Fat Shark Dominator V3.
HDMI out from the Phantom 3 Remote controller.
Not really "VR" as more like looking through a big screen hanging on a wall.
The HUD display tells me everything I need to know.

And YES...I love to have someone with me when I put on the FPV goggles.
Preferably with binoculars.

I've now put a strobe into my kit so that when I return, if I have trouble identifying/remembering the field from where I took off, that I can have the person turn on the strobe so I have "landing lights".

This was the scariest flight (and longest) I have ever done.

The last Castle in this video...




I wanted to get the dramatic sun set, and when I wanted to return to base, the sun had just set behind the hill.
I turned around in the Phantom, and looked for the field to return home to.
In shadow, a little over half a mile away it was almost impossible to know which was the exact field I took off from.

NOTE: THE IMAGE BELOW IS NOT FROM MY DRONE - BUT GOOGLE.



Thankfully I had great signal, plenty of battery, and had the time to essentially move toward the indicators in the FPV goggles, and my spotter with binoculars say as to where I actually was. It's a terrible feeling to be 400 feet up in the air, in a little drone, and lose your bearings.

Hm, I was thinking of using one of those VR headsets (as in Google Cardboard, where you slide in your phone), and just running the good old DJI app on the phone while having it in front of my eyes. Not sure if that is a good idea though, as I just realized that the screen is split into two... one half for the left eye, one for the right. Might be a bit confusing. :-/

Won't it be enough to have the video feed on the phone sitting above the remote, and concentrating on that? What's the difference, apart from being a bit more immersive?

Couldn't you have pushed the come back home button?

How long did you fly until you have that level of control? I'm a bit stunned. Hopefully I'll find the time to practice enough.

[LaurenOE]

What jib are you using, Lauren, and how long does it take to set up? Do you have a grip to help you? Thanks. LOVE your set-up, btw.

I use the Kessler Pocket Jib Traveler.
Using it and a K3 camera, I come under the weight limits of the Kessler slider, and I get cool motion control.



---------- Post added 03-18-16 at 02:26 PM ----------

Hm, I was thinking of using one of those VR headsets (as in Google Cardboard, where you slide in your phone), and just running the good old DJI app on the phone while having it in front of my eyes. Not sure if that is a good idea though, as I just realized that the screen is split into two... one half for the left eye, one for the right. Might be a bit confusing. :-/

Won't it be enough to have the video feed on the phone sitting above the remote, and concentrating on that? What's the difference, apart from being a bit more immersive?

Couldn't you have pushed the come back home button?

How long did you fly until you have that level of control? I'm a bit stunned. Hopefully I'll find the time to practice enough.

What is really neat is that the HDMI/720p for the FPV goggles comes from a different port on the back of the remote controller - so you get a direct feed from the Lightbridge interface/signal. What that does, is give you close to zero latency for flying. With looking at the tablet, the tablet has to interpret the signal, before it's displayed and while the lag is not that bad, it can make the difference when you are moving pretty fast.

As for the home button, when you hit that on a Phantom 3, the flight profile tends to be "rectangular" in that the drone will pop up to the return to home altitude, then make a bee line to home, and then make a direct descent to the landing. In my case, I have the Return to Home (RTH) set to 98 feet. In my example above, I was close to 397 feet, so my drone would have dropped down to 98 feet before making a beeline to me. Now, 98' when there is a castle...is 98' from where the home was...not relative to where the drone would be at a given point. So if I had done a RTH, I probably would have lost the drone into the trees or the castle.

Also, it's better to make a diagonal flight path than a rectangular one - especially for battery life.
For me RTH is a last resort. I would much rather fly my drone to it's demise than to test out RTH in a stressful situation.

A case in point was Dolwyddelan Castle.

Vimeo

Dolwyddelan Castle is the last castle in this video, and they must have built it on an iron core or something magnetic. I took off, and when I got close to the Castle, my GPS/IMU and flight controls went CRAZY. I had to fly my bird in manual mode and it was another scary point. It took everything I could do to regain control and land the bird safely. Of course you can't really tell based on the footage!

So when possible I make sure that I am in control and the flight failsafes that exist are nice, but in the real world, you need to be able to fly the bird.

So where did I get the skills? Dunno. I have never flown anything before August of last year. I think because I play video games, and I have done a few space/flight sims, I understand how to "fly". I also think that when I fly - I am flying for cinematic reasons - so I concentrate on what I am capturing instead of what the drone is doing at that moment.

I go into the "zone" when I fly, that, and I am a freak I suppose.