Recent content by halley

Over a hundred flights, no crashes. Haven't had as much time lately but as the summer cools off I will be back into it.

Software to automate the taking of 12 evenly-spaced photos: Litchi. Software to stitch the images together: Hugin or PTGui. Some online tools exist also, but you have fewer knobs to control the finer points.

As far as I have seen written, "Unmanned aircraft weighing more than 200 grams can not be flown in designated built-up areas, a law that covers all drone flights over Tokyo’s 23 special wards." They specifically banned drones in all municipal parks and gardens after some guy decided to fly near...

Tinfoil hats, much? They want to log metrics on how often people fly, where they fly generally. This drives product improvements and also lobbies governments on the positive value of drone products. They want to log information about likely culprits if their products are used for harmful...

Did nobody learn anything from Schoolhouse Rock? Someone writes a bill. It goes to the Senate or the House of Reps It passes multiple stages of discussion, amendment, and votes (committee, full floor) in that forum It goes on to the other side of the Capitol, the House of Reps or the Senate It...

It's a commonly seen reflection off the optional clear camera bubble. It wavers around because the camera is moving relative to the bubble.

I would not recommend making a habit of car roof landing. Landing might be more okay than other maneuvers, but in general, taking off or flying really close to a car's metal body can interfere with the magnetic fields and confuse the compass readings. The Mavic has a tendency to fly first and...

The Inspire footage has vibrations rippling into the camera, causing jello. Mis-balanced or damaged props? The Mavic vs Mavic... any reason for the crash? Just too quick on the stick? The truck looks like some sort of Traxxas. I kinda wish there was a standalone Occusync system you could...

While I agree in principle, I will say the lines were obscured by the foliage in the higher elevations in the background, from both ground and FPV vantages. It was only once I got between the foliage and cables and turned around that I saw them against the sky.

That's the truth. Recently I flew out along a mountain highway, and I had scouted the area as being clear of lines all through the gorge between two ridges. Before landing, I flew past my home point and upward so I could get a nice view of the little park pullout I was in. I pan around in...

I'm in that industry, working with in-development commercial airliner engines. Commercial gas turbine engines have to pass rigorous ingestion tests, including single bird, flocking bird, and natural ice formations. The top criteria is whether any broken component escapes the nacelle (shell...

The "championship" race video was hilarious and well-done. Perfect announcer banter.

Remember how f-stop is calculated. Aperture of f/22 is suitable for full-frame 35mm camera geometry. Aperture 2.2 is common for 8 gram micro cameras like cellphones. Any smaller and you would be getting edge diffraction artifacts. Also there is no fixed definition for numbering neutral density...

I have posted another video in my "Collected Highlights in Japan" series, where I throw together a bunch of short flight segments just because I like variety and I don't always fly enough in one spot to really dig into it. Besides, spring in Japan is amazing. Previous vids in this series...

The DJI app can run some invisible background tasks before you launch it, or after you quit it, so you are right that it could be waiting for that delicious wifi to pounce and ruin the product I purchased. I can't say this works for everyone, but I've devoted a tablet for DJI use only. It's...