Flying the Santan Mountains
- Thread starter Thomas B
- Start date
Nice job, Thomas. I especially liked the backstory you told us about the reservation. I also agree that "it's a labor of love," and if it's pleasing to you, then that's what matters. If you agree with the comments, add those ideas to your "toolkit" but ignore what you don't agree with... One thing I do is look at YouTube's analytics to see how much time people spend on a particular video. If they click away after 2 minutes, then they don't see the last part of the video. I find that shorter is better, unless you're showing something spectacular. Enjoyed it and look forward to more. Happy flying.
Hey Brother, I exclusively fly FPV style and in MANY super sketchy locations, I climb huge mountains in order to get drone perspectives where 1600' is nowhere near enough. . . You are well on your way, great edit for a rookie too, mine were way worse at the beginning. Here are some tips learned from much blood sweat and tears.
Drone Flying:
1) Not only is it critical to get high enough in the mountains to reach above high points with your drone(some of the best shots) but, ideally you want to be at a point towering over your subjects so you can literally weave in out and around epic terrain and never loose your signal.
2) You want to closely study a Topo map of where you will be flying and identify areas where you will be tempted into a radio shadows and then loose signal!
3) Constantly refer to the icon at the bottom center of your screen to maintain your first person orientation and location "inside the drone" relative to your piloting position. Know exactly where you, piloting and your drone are and what is in-between! Hopefully nothing tall!
4) This one is KEY! Familiarize yourself with obvious landmarks you plan on shooting as well as distant landmarks to further improve your orientation so you can easily recognize your drone's position from your monitor. "OMG, where the hell is it!" You know the feeling! Avoid it!
5) Last, HUGE ONE HERE! For the most precision big distance flying near obstructions, in order to get the the most aggressive perspectives possible SAFELY. Arrive at your desired location way too high and beyond your subject. Have your subject directly between you and your drone, now find your EXACT piloting location on your FPV monitor, wearing a bright jacket or hanging a big bright object at your piloting location helps. I'm usually on some obvious giant summit, easy that way, but knowing your on the north edge of a big obvious parking lot works just as well. Been there don that. . . Wait for it. . .
Now you KNOW you and your drone have line of sight and a good radio link, you are seeing down that line of sight from your drone to yourself. Calculate a flight path to explore/shoot your subject while maintaining that line of sight and radio link to yourself. The drone is safe and you can stay just high enough or off to the north or whatever to maintain the line of sight, ALWAYS keep terrain features from blocking that radio signal/line of sight while shooting your subject, obviously it also need to be fairly close to that line of sight in order to frame it. My air 2 is good about early "weak radio signal" warnings, respect the warnings, fly straight up and or back along your flight path.
Never fly sideways until you ARE SURE you are in open airspace, I paid $1000 and considerable climbing risk for that lesson on a M2Zoom with side sensors in normal mode! Ya its gone . . .
I discovered that last big tip using google earth. I knew what I wanted to shoot and wanted to determine my best view of it using google earth. I realized by looking around from any shooting perspective/point in space on google earth where I could be piloting to maintain radio signal and line of sight, anywhere I could see on the ground from said point. I've got some SICK shots of very inaccessible places doing this preflight planning. For me, being an experienced mountaineer and rock climber, I enjoy GOING BIG, to some crazy pinnacles, being familiar with the terrain and ESPECIALLY terrain that will likely cause a problem where there are big radio shadows relative to my summit perch. Last, you should understand, having the see all perch on some giant mountain summit has MANY of its own disadvantages. Almost always windy and cold, massive air turbulence coming off the terrain, hands are frozen, no shelter, zero chance of drone recovery in most of my vertical adventures and a huge time/risk/physical commitment just being there at all, wholly $hit . . .Simply put, very very stressful and distracting most of the time. The stronger and more skilled you are the easier some of that gets. I'm sorry to hear about the broken ribs. I do not alway come out unscathed either. Luckily, I do have nerves of steel, and a long history of ultra light aviation, RC aircraft combat champion, extreme sports athlete and pretty BIG CRAZY STREAK! Talk is cheap and I'd like to believe I can also walk the walk. Or climb the climb in my case ;-)
ADVENTURE TIME!!!
I think I'll start a thread on this. This post has helped me realize just how much I've learned over the past year, what do you think???
I could do another huge post about drone video editing as well. Lessons I'm still learning too. Camera settings would be yet another and how that relates to color grading. I could go on forever and thank you to the University of YouTube
In short,
1) Shorter video, way more cuts, and with the beat of the music
2) Obsess over cutting out "jerky" portions
3) Use slow mo and increased speeds to suit the feelings you want to convey AND to fit the music/clip length you want . . . .
Drone Flying:
1) Not only is it critical to get high enough in the mountains to reach above high points with your drone(some of the best shots) but, ideally you want to be at a point towering over your subjects so you can literally weave in out and around epic terrain and never loose your signal.
2) You want to closely study a Topo map of where you will be flying and identify areas where you will be tempted into a radio shadows and then loose signal!
3) Constantly refer to the icon at the bottom center of your screen to maintain your first person orientation and location "inside the drone" relative to your piloting position. Know exactly where you, piloting and your drone are and what is in-between! Hopefully nothing tall!
4) This one is KEY! Familiarize yourself with obvious landmarks you plan on shooting as well as distant landmarks to further improve your orientation so you can easily recognize your drone's position from your monitor. "OMG, where the hell is it!" You know the feeling! Avoid it!
5) Last, HUGE ONE HERE! For the most precision big distance flying near obstructions, in order to get the the most aggressive perspectives possible SAFELY. Arrive at your desired location way too high and beyond your subject. Have your subject directly between you and your drone, now find your EXACT piloting location on your FPV monitor, wearing a bright jacket or hanging a big bright object at your piloting location helps. I'm usually on some obvious giant summit, easy that way, but knowing your on the north edge of a big obvious parking lot works just as well. Been there don that. . . Wait for it. . .
Now you KNOW you and your drone have line of sight and a good radio link, you are seeing down that line of sight from your drone to yourself. Calculate a flight path to explore/shoot your subject while maintaining that line of sight and radio link to yourself. The drone is safe and you can stay just high enough or off to the north or whatever to maintain the line of sight, ALWAYS keep terrain features from blocking that radio signal/line of sight while shooting your subject, obviously it also need to be fairly close to that line of sight in order to frame it. My air 2 is good about early "weak radio signal" warnings, respect the warnings, fly straight up and or back along your flight path.
Never fly sideways until you ARE SURE you are in open airspace, I paid $1000 and considerable climbing risk for that lesson on a M2Zoom with side sensors in normal mode! Ya its gone . . .
I discovered that last big tip using google earth. I knew what I wanted to shoot and wanted to determine my best view of it using google earth. I realized by looking around from any shooting perspective/point in space on google earth where I could be piloting to maintain radio signal and line of sight, anywhere I could see on the ground from said point. I've got some SICK shots of very inaccessible places doing this preflight planning. For me, being an experienced mountaineer and rock climber, I enjoy GOING BIG, to some crazy pinnacles, being familiar with the terrain and ESPECIALLY terrain that will likely cause a problem where there are big radio shadows relative to my summit perch. Last, you should understand, having the see all perch on some giant mountain summit has MANY of its own disadvantages. Almost always windy and cold, massive air turbulence coming off the terrain, hands are frozen, no shelter, zero chance of drone recovery in most of my vertical adventures and a huge time/risk/physical commitment just being there at all, wholly $hit . . .Simply put, very very stressful and distracting most of the time. The stronger and more skilled you are the easier some of that gets. I'm sorry to hear about the broken ribs. I do not alway come out unscathed either. Luckily, I do have nerves of steel, and a long history of ultra light aviation, RC aircraft combat champion, extreme sports athlete and pretty BIG CRAZY STREAK! Talk is cheap and I'd like to believe I can also walk the walk. Or climb the climb in my case ;-)
ADVENTURE TIME!!!
I could do another huge post about drone video editing as well. Lessons I'm still learning too. Camera settings would be yet another and how that relates to color grading. I could go on forever and thank you to the University of YouTube
In short,
1) Shorter video, way more cuts, and with the beat of the music
2) Obsess over cutting out "jerky" portions
3) Use slow mo and increased speeds to suit the feelings you want to convey AND to fit the music/clip length you want . . . .
Hey, Karlewski, those are good points and that video you showed us was awesome! I just about p**d my pants at 3:40! Then I checked out your YT channel - you are quite prolific and do some great videography, both ground and aerial.
This forum now has an "Articles" section and your helpful hints on FPV and ridgetop flying would make a good article, IMO. Everything you said rang true to me. Maybe you could give it a go? Happy (and safe) flying.
Thank you my friend, I think I will post this article there. I surprised myself when all that info poured out of me. If you like cool drone mountain stuff check out the Three needles,
my fav drone footage though honestly, in the middle of most all of my videos, I try to add in an EPIC drone sequence if I'm not climbing in a wilderness area. Some of those areas are the most stunning though. . . Cheers brother appreciate the encouragement . . .
Last edited:
Hey Thomas, that was great! Cinematic! Smooth flying and excellent color! Thanks for sharing that. Have you posted that to a separate thread? It deserves it. Hope to see you out flying your drone sometime...
Happy flying
Yes... search using my name and "Sedona" or "Flying Sedona" There is a series.
and here's one from the Santan Mtns... no longer legally accessible.
Flying the Santan Mountains
I look at this part of the Santan Mountains while sitting on my back porch as I only live about 3 miles away in south Gilbert, AZ. I always wanted to explore the peak with my M2P... Well, I ended up having about 8 hours of video to edit. It was taken on several different days over about 2...
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