AP/AV few shots from today and a couple vids from chase truck!!

[hoverpunk]

man i love this hobby! did some shooting today for a friends business gettings a few shots of their building from the air for web stuff. i attached the image that i think they may end up using. there were a few pretty good ones though... was pleased with the results!

then after we got the shots we needed, i flew the heli from my pal's truck and we went through the parking lot and up the street to where we fly planes getting video the whole time. then started over and came back getting video. it is a business district and there is noone out there on the weekends, so i figured why not?

kept it low (around treetop level or below) and in front of the truck at all times. it is weird to go around corners and to land without being able to walk around, but all in all it was pretty cool. need to do it again a few times to get more used to the flying from a sitting and almost fixed position. i would like to do this out in the desert for a full battery and see how far it would go...

we also flew by a schoolyard today after batteries recharged. got some shots of a park and the school, etc... i attached a pic looking down at a weathervane on the roof of the school. i also attached a pic of the school that shows where the weathervane is so you get an idea of where i was hovering to get the weathervane shot.

here are some stills from today... videos coming soon!

video1 going to the end of cordillera street...


video 2 coming back into the business park

[johnbs8]

sounds like this bird is going to make you some cash and start payn for itself ??
btw nice shots !! quality pics my man

[hoverpunk]

that would be nice eh? we'll see... thanks!!!

i updated the first post with second of two chase videos... first one is still uploading.

[hoverpunk]

both videos posted!

[Slyster]

Good job!

Hey.. some of us were wondering how do you click the camera for the still shots?

[hoverpunk]

hey thanks slyster! i dont click the camera for stills... i need a camera operator to do that for me. i aim the camera with the heli, and the camera operator engages auto focus and then the shutter. i put pics in another thread showing how the servo is actuating the camera shutter. lemme know if you want me to find and link for ya!

[Slyster]

Hehe! Your nuts!

[Scotty T]

DUDE!!!!

How are you getting such clarity? That's friggin' great.

[e-bomb]

a bit heavy on the PP, but nice shots nonetheless.

[hoverpunk]

Originally Posted by Slyster

Hehe! Your nuts!

been accused of this before...

Originally Posted by Scotty T

DUDE!!!!

How are you getting such clarity? That's friggin' great.

the mount i made is working! w00!!

Originally Posted by e-bomb

a bit heavy on the PP, but nice shots nonetheless.

i thought they look a bit heavy on the PP as well, but all i did for PP was a minor saturation (15%) and very minor sharpening of the edges (350 x .4). in all honesty, the p&s camera that i am using is pretty much crap for glass (at least in the pro photography world)... cant wait to hoist one of my dslrs in the future to get some better quality raw files and some different lenses to work with....

i did make an 8x10 of the kagan building shot, and it actually printed pretty well for what the camera is. i was kinda surprised actually hehehe...

thanks for the comments freaks!

[e-bomb]

yeah even on my shitty display at work those greens were slapping me in the face! i usually do 300x0.3 for sharpening. what do you plan on using to hoist a dslr? even with fixed glass, that's gonna be heavy. in all honesty though, i recently bought my girlfriend a powershot sd750, and the picture quality is stellar when i'm the one pushing the button. maybe i can convince her to let me strap it to the heli. you think the best buy warranty would cover a fall from 200 feet?

[Kindling Maker]

Hey I am not trying to be an Ass, but you might want to go to the Bergen forum, before you start charging people or flying your heli commercialy. There are some FAA regulations that may conflict with what you are doing. THey are having some problems with them. There is a forum about UAVs and the FAA you might want to look at that. The FAA can confiscate your bird, and fine you I believe. You might want to look into that. On the lighter side those are some bad vids. I wish that I could fly that well. I dont have the area that big to fly in, I am restricted by the fact that I am on ann airport and a military base, so they get real touchy about our helis, we are not even allowed to have planks. Last year we had a guy here that was flying a Trex 600 and got grounded because some Major(the rank) was worried that a Kiowa, or a blackhawk was going to run into it.

[hoverpunk]

Originally Posted by e-bomb

yeah even on my shitty display at work those greens were slapping me in the face! i usually do 300x0.3 for sharpening. what do you plan on using to hoist a dslr? even with fixed glass, that's gonna be heavy. in all honesty though, i recently bought my girlfriend a powershot sd750, and the picture quality is stellar when i'm the one pushing the button. maybe i can convince her to let me strap it to the heli. you think the best buy warranty would cover a fall from 200 feet?

yeah not sure why but the camera sometimes gets really hot on colors. i should look at the settings for the thing more closely. there may be a better mode of shooting. i tried "landscape" mode but that wasnt very successful. seemed to blur stuff a lot.

not planning on hoisting anything but what i am for a while... pretty sure people are putting dslrs in the air with 600 size helis though. hah @ best buy warranty!

Originally Posted by Kindling Maker

Hey I am not trying to be an Ass, but you might want to go to the Bergen forum, before you start charging people or flying your heli commercialy. There are some FAA regulations that may conflict with what you are doing. THey are having some problems with them. There is a forum about UAVs and the FAA you might want to look at that. The FAA can confiscate your bird, and fine you I believe. You might want to look into that. On the lighter side those are some bad vids. I wish that I could fly that well. I dont have the area that big to fly in, I am restricted by the fact that I am on ann airport and a military base, so they get real touchy about our helis, we are not even allowed to have planks. Last year we had a guy here that was flying a Trex 600 and got grounded because some Major(the rank) was worried that a Kiowa, or a blackhawk was going to run into it.

not planning on making money with pics from my p&s camera. the pics i did this weekend of the building were for a good friend. would be cool to be able to make money doing aerial photography though. i know there are some people running businesses in different parts of the country.

thanks for the comments and for the heads up on the faa. ive seen threads in the other forums alluding to the fact that there are some issues with strapping cameras to rc stuff. for the what im doing, i will go ahead and assume the faa has larger fish to fry. if not, they should.

[Roehl]

I was wondering how did you took picture of the Kagan building? How did you center it on the frame? Do you have a wireless video link on your still camera to aim it?

[hoverpunk]

roehl, i just aimed it by eye. i was standing behind the heli.

[Kindling Maker]

A bit of advise if you ever do get violated by the FAA DO NOT be a nice guy and try and help them. I was violated a few years ago for an aircraft incident with my dad. I landed on a runway that was closest to the accident. The person out of the San Antonio FSDO asked me to take some measurements, so I did. Long story short my dad had his livelyhood threatened, he flys for a living, and I can very close to loosing my license. Make them do the work DO NOT help them.

[hoverpunk]

f the faa!

btw i have looked into the commercial shooting thing around here, and there are a few people shooting commercially in my area. i plan on contacting them when i get closer to setup with the 600 to find out a bit more about how they are conducting business.

still going to be quite some time though, so until then im gunna shoot my brains out with the b400!