Alabama Hills with Mavic Mini

[Paleomanjim]

 

[DougMcC]

Well done! I’ve appreciated a lot of still photography in those hills but the drone shots are a whole new way of exploring the area. You have given me a new area to “dronexplore” ASAP. THANKS!

 

[Paleomanjim]

Thanks Doug. It is an awesome area to explore. We spent 3 days there and still did see it all. It is a bit hot there this time of year, but compared to Las Vegas not too bad!

 

[Tentoes]

What a place! Beautiful video. You even held MY attention for 5 minutes.

 

[Happyonmyhill]

Beat me to it! I always car camp at the BLM campsite at Tuttle Creek. Will be making a trip soon and get some shots. Good job!??

 

[Hardgainer]

Wow a real great vid. Some serious rocks there. Thought the music most suitable fitted well. Nice.

 

[macfawlty]

Great location. Good job setting up your scenes. If I could offer some advice... work on your gentle turns and eliminate those corrective yaw movements. When you speed up your clips, it makes the yaw movements that much less cinematic. It’s better to fly straight than continual course corrections. Gently follow the contours of the landforms with only the lightest touch of the left joystick. When you transition between moving clips, make sure they’re in movement, not from a stationary position. Use your gimbal for more drama. Accompany tilt down with increase in elevation and vice versa, maintaining the axis from the centerpoint of rotation.

Truly stunning scenery. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Paleomanjim]

Great location. Good job setting up your scenes. If I could offer some advice... work on your gentle turns and eliminate those corrective yaw movements. When you speed up your clips, it makes the yaw movements that much less cinematic. It’s better to fly straight than continual course corrections. Gently follow the contours of the landforms with only the lightest touch of the left joystick. When you transition between moving clips, make sure they’re in movement, not from a stationary position. Use your gimbal for more drama. Accompany tilt down with increase in elevation and vice versa, maintaining the axis from the centerpoint of rotation.

Truly stunning scenery. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for the advice. I am leaning more toward rolling to change direction and less toward yaw. At some point though yaw is needed to return home and I have noticed less jerkiness if I begin to roll first followed by extremely light yaw stick movement using both thumb and finger on left stick. As you mentioned gimbal can add more drama, especially in mountains where the horizon can change dramatically, so I'm trying to anticipate the horizon and adjust as needed. Many things to consider, almost more art than science. Thanks again.

 

[macfawlty]

Thanks for the advice. I am leaning more toward rolling to change direction and less toward yaw. At some point though yaw is needed to return home and I have noticed less jerkiness if I begin to roll first followed by extremely light yaw stick movement using both thumb and finger on left stick. As you mentioned gimbal can add more drama, especially in mountains where the horizon can change dramatically, so I'm trying to anticipate the horizon and adjust as needed. Many things to consider, almost more art than science. Thanks again.

I can tell by the variety of your shots, you’re really having a lot of fun with it. You see the prominent subjects in your scenes and think about the types of moves that would highlight the subjects. In editing, just make sure to transition with movement.
Gentle turns are not difficult to master with practice. Flying broad landscapes with prominent landforms I typically follow the contours of the land, but in a somewhat straighter Bézier curve, allowIng the drone to get closer to the ridge at times, tilting down to an object or interesting feature periodically. While I typically like to do long continuous takes, in editing, 4-5 seconds is about as long a cut as you’d use in building your edit. You can make course corrections as needed, but cut them out in the edit.
The challenge is not so much learning to fly gentle curves, but combination inputs with elevation change and gimbal tilt while doing the curve. (Soften those gimbal and drone settings).
One move I often work on that is difficult to pull off is the tilt-down turnaround. I start with increasing elevation, tilt gimbal down and do a slowish 180, tilting the gimbal up so that it meets the horizon as I finish the turn (about 7-8 sec.). Turnaround 180’s always look best in gimbal down at the apex. It can make for an interesting short transition clip even if you don’t get a perfect tilt up at the end of the turn.I often cut the last seconds and transition to the reverse direction. I’ll have to post some examples.