Filming surfing from a drone is something I have wanted to do for awhile. This is the first time I got a chance to get some practice flying around Ho'okipa. I happened to run into a guy named Ekolu Kalama and I filmed him doing some awesome nose riding on his SUP board. This was really just to get some practice filming, and I learned a bunch about how to set up shots and chase surfers around. You can expect to see many more surf videos from my Phantom in the next few months. Anyone in and around Maui that wants to collaborate on cool projects, please contact me here.
Comments
This happened on February 14th 2014 off the coast of Maui near Kihei. I love filming from my drone and I am always looking for things to film so whales seemed like a great subject. I also wanted to show my two young boys what a whale was like because they would normally only see them blowing air from a long way away - Now they know how big and majestic these creatures are! This shoot would not have been possible without Marty and Ian for providing the boat and drone support. I would also like to give credit to my wife and my two boys Dylan and Hudson for helping us spot the whales and guide the drone. I filmed this using a DJI Phantom 2 quadcopter with a gimbal called the Zenmuse. This little camera drone is very tiny and quiet and the whales obviously did not even notice or care it was there. Using an aerial photography platform like the Phantom is a great way to raise awareness about whales and encourage people to operate motor vehicles safely in the warm waters around Maui because there are baby whales out there frolicking with their mothers! Taking off from the boat was a bit challenging, but I never had any problems. I just rapidly blasted up into the air. There was a very tiny launch spot on the boat, so you had to get up into the air quickly. I made sure I did not have the Phantom in GPS mode because the boat was rocking in the waves and it might try and stabilize itself right into the side of the boat while taking off. Ian and I are getting some awesome footage! Ian is very into RC and FPV and I expect to see some great things from him soon. Marty executes a perfect drone catch! This was the best way to retrieve the drone because the boat was moving around in the waves. This might look easy, but it was tricky because the phantom is so stable and the boat was moving around underneath it. I tried to go get some underwater footage, but they were faster than me. I also get a little spooked about big fish when I cant see the bottom (it was about 250 feet here). We also did some swimming around - it was incredible to hear the whale songs underwater. Kihei is such a cool place because the ocean is so calm and clear off the coast there. The Crew. Team Drone & Whale Nerds. Someone recently contacted me about the laws and regulations around whales and figured I would post this response: I have become aware of the MMPA recently because of this video and I want to stress my intentions were to observe with zero impact. I think the big question is if the little Phantom 2 is considered an aircraft or not. We certainly kept the boat far away from the whales! The whole point was to not disturb them. In my opinion, this is an excellent way to observe whales up close because there is practically no impact or chance of doing damage. The whales did not notice, or care, about this tiny thing hovering above them. Even if the drone crashed or malfunctioned, it is hard to imagine this hurting the whales or even disturbing them because it is so small relative to the whale. If someone contacts me about this, I will certainly stress that this is way safer for the whales than a boat. This is a very useful tool to whale research as well. I would absolutly love to volunteer my time and drones to help with whale research or whale non-profits! Please contact me here to set something up. I am based in Maui. If you want to get a video downlink or use video goggles like the FatSharks for some immersive FPV flying, you will need to make some simple modifications to your Phantom 2. It is much simpler to do than on the original Phantom and has obviously been built with us FPV guys in mind. There are a number of awesome changes and updates in this version of the Phantom that you can read about in this blog post about my first impressions and flight testing. I have seen other people selling ready made cords that plug directly into the board of the phantom, but I didn't want to go that way because it is so easy to just solder a few wires and be ready to go! The first thing I did was to confirm the wire layout of the FPV cable that sticks out of the bottom. The yellow video wire and the VCC/GND are the ones you need. Splice the wires and pre solder them. I am pretty sure you only need to do the yellow wire because I noticed that I actually soldered the video ground to the audio input on my immersion video tx. Next step is to solder on a male JST connector or the immersion RC power plug. The red wire is positive while the brown is ground. Dont forget to put your heat shrink tubing on before you solder everything together - electrical tape makes your install look pretty crappy and is not as reliable Now plug everything in before you heat shrink your tubing and do a test to make sure everything is working. This is my 100mw Immersion TX I am going to use until my new one gets here. My installs are never super clean or neat, you could easily clean this up. I like to get flying as fast as possible. I plugged it in, tested it, and was flying in no time. The total time to install the gimbal and convert to an FPV rig is easily under 2 hours if you take your time. There are also other even simpler ways to install an FPV video transmitter, but this is the way I did it. If you have any questions, please post in the comments below. If you are considering purchasing a Phantom 2 with the Zenmuse gimbal, you can buy one here from Amazon for $869 with free shipping. I also like UAVProducts.com. |
Archives
June 2017
|