Casual - What do you do with your drone?

[MaviCam]

I go up 333 feet above my house and record a series of 360 degree rotations at different angles so I can use the video to make a panorama with ICE. I try to do that every week so I can have a time-lapse record of the damage and recovery progress from Hurricane Michael. The most striking part is the number of vacant lots where nice homes used to be.

 

[AMann]

I go up 333 feet above my house and record a series of 360 degree rotations at different angles so I can use the video to make a panorama with ICE. I try to do that every week so I can have a time-lapse record of the damage and recovery progress from Hurricane Michael. The most striking part is the number of vacant lots where nice homes used to be.

Wow, great idea! Sorry about what you guys went through.

 

[BD0G]

Lakes and Forrest for me . Occasionally Oceans! I flew in Santa Cruz last year and caught some great surfer footage and a shark that was near them that they had no idea was there. I didnt either till I got back and uploaded the footage to view it.

 

[wheelski80]

If I'm not traveling we go to county parks and take pictures. I have found that mundane areas and bridges look a lot different from the air.

oooooh-link please?

As a casual user, I haven't used my Mavic Air for a while. I am not interested in recording forests and fields. Mainly family trips or events but those do not happen often.

How do you use your drone if you are not a professional photographer?

Simply record: "History and Memories" just for fun.

 

[BigWillie]

I live in the desert Southwest (vegas area) and after you’ve taken photos and vids of the desert, the scenery doesn’t change much so it gets sort of boring after a while. I look for unique mountain formations, bridges, changing desert colors, etc. I have to travel to Utah (about 40 miles away) to get some greenery. Heading to Cabo and Puerta Vallarta in September and hope to take some nice beach area shots. Anyone have any suggestions on where to fly at over those areas? Using a MP2 Zoom. Thx

 

[zzxrox]

I just like to fly. Everytime I do I learn something new to better my skills. I turned off all my sensors and now flying is even more fun. Thats why I have mine anyway. I always wanted to pilot helos but this is what I can afford

 

[jacquespa]

Bought a Bebop 2 as a retirement present to myself. Now have a Mavic 2 Zoom. As others have stated it gets me out to find new areas to explore and photograph. It rekindled my old interest in photography and flying. Just bought a new DSLR camera and started taking pilot lessons. Who knew retirement could be so expensive!

 

[cbal]

I purchased my MP to document the construction of our new home. I have several Litchi routes I fly as often as possible to keep track of changes on the lot and the progress of construction. It's very cool to be able to go back and see when it was just a treed lot and watch the progression.

 

[Donnie Frank]

I fly it over my house and do a live Facebook feed of me mowing my lawn.

LMAO...

D

 

[motosx]

take it off road and record shots

 

[irpnetgb]

I got my Bebop 2 and Mavic Air to get me out of the house. Where I live (East Midlands, UK) it is fairly flat and featureless. However, I do film suburban areas and features (church steeples, canals, rivers, farms, livestock etc) and find it great. I upload it to my Youtube channel for others to see. I love editing it and getting some tunes to set it too!

Being in the UK, the weather doesn't always comply with my need to get out so I'm looking at other things I can do [such as RC cars] when the weather isn't great. Also thinking of getting into tiny whoops or something similar.

 

[Bob4131]

I take photos of stuff ?. I will do pictures of family farms and friends' houses. I do small town churches and courthouses. I do city buildings and infrastructure.
I then share with people that would be interested in that specific thing. People like pics of their homes. Classmates at the class reunion are interested in the school they went to decades ago. Railroad buffs like RR trestles. The offroading group like shots of their vehicles in the woods or on a hilltop. The small town FB group will like courthouse pics with the parade going by.... People are less interested in a spectacular shot of a place they haven't been vs very enthusiastic about a view of the family farm.
My neighbor has 150 acres of woods, he likes the video of just flying along above his property getting lots of trees, some clearings with gas wells, some trails and a few panoramas above his highest point. No one else would care about these shots! I find my best shots I take while traveling are usually less interesting that the so so shot of something personally meaningful to that specific person. Now beach people like beach shots, mountain people like landscapes, etc..
Flying and post processing is often a solitary pursuit but sharing photos can be a social activity.
It also can get people "out of their shell" at social gatherings if you offer to let them fly (with close supervision and certainly not in sport mode). (Note I am talking about social gatherings like a 30th HS class reunion at a classmate's camp in the country not at a city golf course club house with drunk twenty somethings).

 

[Scoutuas]

fly for fun, fly for money, fly to keep an eye on the neighborhood, test flights, science...ya know..stuff

 

[Drgnfli]

Man that really sucks to have to go for weeks without getting to fly. I get maybe a 2-3 day stretch occasionally of rain, I can't imagine weeks of it. I know that rainy and overcast is pretty typical for the UK, but dose it usually last for weeks at a stretch? I sincerely hope the weather clears up for you. Cheers

That is one of the main reasons I love Aridzona (sic) - few if any rainy days!?

 

[Eagle Jr]

take it off road and record shotsView attachment 76064

That makes me nervous, just seeing a vehicle that close to the edge.

 

[VancityS4]

I bought mine to take on hikes and record some (hopefully) spectacular scenery. Had a problem on my first outing, though. GO crashed EVERY time I started recording, leaving me with no control and no footage. Uninstalled and reinstalled the app when I got home and all seems good now. Off on a 11 day hiking trip in Switzerland in mid-July so want to have the bugs sorted by then.

 

[gnirtS]

My drone for me is like a really big camera tripod i can move around at will. Its for taking photos. Thats about it.

 

[r.gwynn]

Show it to interested friends, let them fly it and take a selfie and go "wow" at what that tiny camera can do. That's about 80% of it. But I do have photography as an avocation and have taken some airborne stills and video that I would not otherwise have been able to.

Oh, and you never know what you'll notice about your home that you never see at ground level. The back porch roof was quite rusty and needed painting and the chimney had quite a few broken bricks and on further investigation, required rebuild from the roof up to maintain its structural integrity, so there's that...

 

[mfc]

I use it to investigate interesting places that are difficult (high energy, very steep, covered in gorse, etc.) to get to in person, especially possible cave entrances. A couple of examples are here (dated 2017): Speleogroup - sgvideos

Also take panoramas for getting an overview of an area before exploring on foot. The 'PanGazer starter image' is one such (PanGazer - introduction).

 

[CraigIvyBryan]

As a casual user, I haven't used my Mavic Air for a while. I am not interested in recording forests and fields. Mainly family trips or events but those do not happen often.

How do you use your drone if you are not a professional photographer?

I usually use mine for trips and family events, but it did come in habdy when I had to check my roof for damage after a bad wind storm last Spring.