Kauai from the Air

[Porky]

Just put a marker in the calendar for 2028 ????

 

[Ynksfan27]

Saint Croix is a good spot too. Let’s make this happen! 2028 is too far away though! 2020?

 

[Nakita Mosquita]

Awesome shots!! My girlfriend and I will be visiting Big Island and Kauai in September. Any advice for flying over there?

We were in Kaui for 3 months this past winter and covered the island (several times) The Parks are NO FLY and should be respected. The trails along the south shore by Poipu allow for incredible shoreline footage. Getting off the main roads and driving inland a bit can allow for some fantastic elevated views. We also spent a week in Oahu and the east of Waikiki can be flown. The eastern side of Oahu going north is open to fly.

 

[macfawlty]

Some of those shots appear to be Waimea Canyon and Kalalau Lookout, which are in State Parks and not legal areas to launch from. Just an FYI for anyone reading this. I’m not a shamer drone police dude, just letting others know. I would so much love to fly in some of those locations as I’m here in Kauai this week, but there are other great legal places to fly, albeit not as beautiful as those landmarks.

With DaVinci Resolve, you could easily grade some of the overexposed shots (although there are a lot of unrecoverable hilights). Using the color wheels section, the 2nd tab has shadow and highlight controls, or the wheels themselves. You could start with a node using auto-color, then reduce the deep shadows it typically generates with auto. 3 minute fix. Use a gradient window and track motion for the clips that are overexposed one side, including the tilt and pans (tricky, but doable). You need ND64 filters for many of these shots and ND32 for the rest. I use an ND64 a lot... absolutely essential in full sun for optimum shutter. I understand that sharpness degrades at smaller apertures (M2P), but certainly preferable to blown hilights.

 

[macfawlty]

Thanks! Yeah, the exposure in some of those shots was interesting. They looked alright until I applied a LUT. I should play with them a little more and see if I can dial it back.

I find LUTs can be useful for stylized color grades, but don’t often generate a good final grade for simple color corrections. Then you’re trying to manipulate control points others created and end up making more of a mess.

I’d bet that it probably looked better straight off the camera with only minor corrections to hilights and shadows. I find many LUTs for the drones to be too contrasty, crushed shadows, blown hilights, and oversaturated. Still worth collecting them however as they may yield good results, albeit hit or miss.

Magic Bullet has a good suite of color grades for stylized looks.

 

[IShouldBeWorking]

Some of those shots appear to be Waimea Canyon and Kalalau Lookout, which are in State Parks and not legal areas to launch from. Just an FYI for anyone reading this. I’m not a shamer drone police dude, just letting others know. I would so much love to fly in some of those locations as I’m here in Kauai this week, but there are other great legal places to fly, albeit not as beautiful as those landmarks.

Good to know @macfawlty. I try to research my locations well before I shoot but I must have missed that. If I'm ever blessed enough to go back, I'll make sure to steer clear of the state parks.

 

[zlek131]

Nice!

 

[wco81]

Thanks! I'm jealous. I would love to go back soon. Each island has its own personality and I haven't hit the big island yet.

Two things I'd recommend now that I've flown on Kauai: Watch out for wind. It can be really strong and push your drone out to sea if you're flying over the beach. There were several spots I chose not to fly because I didn't think the drone would make it home because of the wind. The other one, I mentioned above, but watch out for helicopter tours. These were everywhere on Kauai and they fly pretty low. So I roped one or more friends into being a spotter to keep an eye out for for helicopters while my drone was in the air. Other than that, have a great time and be sure to share what you shoot after you go. I'm sure you'll have an amazing time.

Thanks! Glad you liked it! On Kauai, there is controlled airspace over by Lihue and over by the military base on the West side of the island. As a hobbyist, I just steered clear of those and stayed in class G space. Nobody said a word to me. The thing I'd suggest, is to have a friend act as a spotter for you. There were many, many low flying helicopter tours in those canyons. So having someone to watch out so you can get out of the way is a big help. But the scenery is breathtaking and the people are really relaxed. You'll have a wonderful time. Please share your photos and videos when you get back! I can't get enough of the place. So amazing!

Looks like a tour helicopter went down in Kauai, with 7 on board.

No apparent survivors.

I’d actually saved the links for some aerial tours for when I would visit.

May be more inclined to research the places I could fly my M2P, if and when I do visit.

Do these helicopters fly below 500 feet?

 

[Almaz Aswad]

My wife and I just returned from a trip to visit the islands of Oahu and Kauai. Under the guise of celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary, I was able to get in 9 or so flights to shoot video of some amazing landscapes and stunning blue ocean. Oahu was far too busy to fly, but I loved the peaceful mountains, canyons, waterfalls and beaches of Kauai. Here's what I was able to put together. Hope you enjoy:

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Shot with a Mavic 2 Pro
1/60 shutter and DLog10 with H.265 4k 30 fps
ND4 or ND16 filters depending on the sun
Edited together using DaVinci Resolve 16 Beta 4

Exceptional. Bravo! and thanks for sharing...

 

[IShouldBeWorking]

Looks like a tour helicopter went down in Kauai, with 7 on board.

No apparent survivors.

I’d actually saved the links for some aerial tours for when I would visit.

May be more inclined to research the places I could fly my M2P, if and when I do visit.

Do these helicopters fly below 500 feet?

I saw news coverage of that the other day. So sad. Yes, the tour helicopters fly up those canyons at very low altitudes. My wife and I actually took one when we went. It was the highlight of the trip and we didn’t feel unsafe at all. I hope they’re able to find the aircraft that went down. That terrain is very unforgiving.

 

[IShouldBeWorking]

@wco81 I saw an update to the helicopter crash story over the weekend. They've been able to recover all but one of the passenger's bodies. It sounds like the aircraft was transitioning out of the Wimea Canyon area when it went down. That's some really rocky terrain.

Officials confirm no survivors from Hawaii helicopter crash

You can see a couple shots of that canyon and the terrain in the video at 1:44.

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Sounds like some are accusing the FAA of being pretty lax on the helicopter tours on the islands. I didn't feel unsafe in any way when we did ours last summer. Sadly, accidents happen especially in difficult conditions.

 

[Thomas B]

@wco81 I saw an update to the helicopter crash story over the weekend. They've been able to recover all but one of the passenger's bodies. It sounds like the aircraft was transitioning out of the Wimea Canyon area when it went down. That's some really rocky terrain.

Officials confirm no survivors from Hawaii helicopter crash

You can see a couple shots of that canyon and the terrain in the video at 1:44.

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Sounds like some are accusing the FAA of being pretty lax on the helicopter tours on the islands. I didn't feel unsafe in any way when we did ours last summer. Sadly, accidents happen especially in difficult conditions.

Love the shots of the island’s interior!

 

[wco81]

So how much of the flight path of the drone in that video would be also in the path of these tour helicopters?

Also, he captured the sound of the surf from the drone or just looped a different audio recording into the video?

 

[eastsidedronr]

That location off pouipu trail is awesome. I was there last summer and wouldve loved to fly that but the state park no fly and the number of helicopters was a no go sorry. But really need to educate about this stuff before hand. Saw lots of tourons flying drones while in kuai in explicit no drone areas. Thats why i left mine at home