Recent content by Ralph thompson

I’d say never underestimate technology. Few of us would be flying drones if it wasn’t for the geniuses at DJI in-particular who developed the control system and reliability of todays drones. Try flying a RC aircraft. In the 80’s twin engined commercial airliners were restricted in oceanic...

Agree with all of above, Lightroom (photoshop & probably other software) have all the standard composition overlays as guides, see Development/Tools/Crop Guide Overlays, so its easy to step through them and find the one that “rings”. Then afterwards apply your gut feel, that will be what makes...

Tks Panagiotis, the feedback from NavCanada is Canada specific, other air navigation service providers may interpret their NOTAMs differently.

CANADA has a shortage of Controllers like the US & elsewhere. As a consequence airspace capacity is often reduced around airports like CYUL where I operate. Recently, Nav Canada has been issuing NOTAMs at the weekend restricting VFR and IFR training, aerial photography and site seeing over...

A lens hood on an ultra wide lens (the case for all basic drones) doesn’t serve much purpose because an effective hood would interfere with the FOV. Try to shoot at more than 90 deg to the sun or directly into the sun.

All comments are correct but to your question, IMO a mist filter has little value and not worth all the fiddling around attaching/detaching. Lightroom has amazing tools and Dehaize is one of them. Make sure you shoot raw and LR will do wonders in post.

Small observation, I think LR defaults are now set to automate basic settings such as clarity and vibrance, maybe saturation, during HDR and Pano merge, just uncheck Auto or do a Reset all settings (bottom RHS)

I’ve always upgraded to the latest firmware and s/w and never had any significant issues, that weren’t my own finger problems. In some cases you’ll be limiting the available features/options by not upgrading.

Have the Mavic 3 Classic and RC Pro but looks like the latest version is not available in Canada yet. App version 1.17.1 and no updates available.

I expect this is perfectly normal procedure, we have NOTAM’s issued restricting the airspace for light planes and drones for everything from bicycle races to firework displays and when dignitaries visit.

Living and operating most of the time in an urban area and on a VFR site seeing route, we get fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft flying over us all the time, most of the time at their min alt. Helicopters operate at a min alt of 500’ AGL in built up areas, fixed wing at min 1000’ so as long as...

My point was that you don’t need an SFOC as long as you remain 100’ away from the public event (the perimeter fence or whatever delimits the event) its perfectly legal (provide all else is legal). And if you apply for an SFOC they’ll almost certainly require you to be 100’ away from people...

You might find it easier to just follow the AIM, obtaining an SFOC is a time consuming process (done it many times before 2019) and you won’t get permission to fly over the event anyway with a standard micro drone and unless you’re taking very special precautions, they’ll simply require you to...

You make good points. As a journalist, I’ve often seen people walking on roofs while operating a drone, somehow they stand out in an otherwise static space. A figure moving around a grey roof is quite visible. Hiring a couple of well trained drone pilots to survey the area before hand and during...

Phantom (1st gen. with velcro’d telemetry card that only worked occasionally), Inspire (the most amazing drone but sold all the batteries with the backup I1), Mavic 2 pro, Mavic 2 Enterprise advanced (now sold, only purchased for a specific job) and Mavic 3 Classic, all but the latter hanging on...