First three days with the MA2

[Raptorman]

I made the mistake of posting this on the PhantomPilots so I post it here where it belongs...


I sold my Inspire 1 Pro and Phantom 4 Pro last year and have not had a drone for nearly a year but I picked up the MA2 a couple weeks ago and finally got out to fly it last week. I did 7 flights in 3 days at two locations.

The first series of clips is at the south end of the Great Salt Lake at the former site of Saltair -- a Coney Island like amusement park that opened in 1893 but had a series of fires that destroyed the place in the 30's. A much smaller Saltair was built in the 70's about a mile west of the original location. Towards the end of these clips a small flock of birds flying in formation flies under the drone while flying only about 30m above the ground -- they didn't appear to notice me at all.

The second series of clips is the abandoned Tintic Standard Reduction Mill near Goshen Utah that operated from 1921 until 1925 and has been abandoned for nearly a century. I've been to this place many times as I love abandoned industrial and mining places.

The third series of clips is back at the Saltair location ... I wasn't able to see some things of interest on the tiny FPV screen on the first day but found some interesting items on Google Earth and decided to go back for a second look. I found a couple old rusting vehicles, partly buried in the sand.

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Brian

 

[THE CYBORG]

Nice one, great commentary, if I listen to a recording of myself I think I sound awful.

 

[Alex Baxter]

And it is excellent in this forum too, your panning and zooming is sublime.

 

[Raptorman]

And it is excellent in this forum too, your panning and zooming is sublime.

I've been a serious photographer for decades but only over the last 4 years or so have I delved into video. The P4P was a great platform for video as it's very stable and large enough that it is less disturbed by wind etc. The MA2 is a bit more twitchy and it will take some time to get the knack of it. I do hope that DJI enables 'exp' settings so I can adjust the rate for all the axis including the gimbal.

The other thing I find interesting with video and drone video in particular is that there are video purists that ramble on about needing to keep clips short and the video to less than a few minutes -- I get that at one level, but there are many viewers that are very happy to watch longer clips and videos. Maybe no where is that more evident than train videos where train buffs will happily watch a single clip with no panning or zooming that might last 30 minutes. You can't please everyone and I have no interest in trying. Generally, the folks that insist on short clips also use the word 'cinematic' a lot!


Brian