I'm back from Saint Lucia and I created my first drone video!

in #blog5 years ago (edited)

SPARKY-SAINT-LUCIA-MAIDEN-VOYAGE-jjjj

Well not only am I back home but I'm happy to announce I'm back to posting regularly on Steemit! I have tons of content to share with you guys and things are going to get super busy. So the plan is to pre-write my posts via the #esteem desktop app.

Anyway last night we got back from celebrating our 10 year anniversary in Saint Lucia. In the future I'll be sure to share my experience there as well as write some reviews of the excursions we went on and what it's like having a butler in the Sandals resort.

Another exciting thing I'd like to share is that I finally bought a drone! I decided to go with the DJI Spark. Mostly due to the low cost and conventional wisdom states always good to start out with a "cheap" drone as you're bound to crash it.

I'm happy to announce that I didn't crash or have any close encounters. I was more concerned about people and / or resort staff complaining about using a drone. If anything people were excited to see one and everyone was cool about it.

Flying a drone is simply exhilarating! It's like having a video and photo camera in the sky - which makes it a different ball game in terms of how to compose shots from the sky. Another tidbit of info I'd like to share is that it's super annoying that every time I flew the drone people kept asking me a million questions. As a first time "pilot" it's very distracting to say the least! LOL

And speaking of footage I've got at least 5 videos I want to create - but as you can imagine I couldn't wait to see and edit my drone footage.

The footage from the Spark isn't that great as it's limited to 1080p at 30 frames a second. I wish it at least had the option for 24 or better yet 60. Plus I'm not crazy about the compression and over-sharpening. But overall I'm super glad to finally have a starter drone and with all that being said....

Check out my first drone video "Sparky's Maiden Voyage" by clicking on the video below...


I hoped you enjoyed my first stab at shooting drone footage. It's hard to gauge how it looks until you get home. But I learned a lot and I'm happy with what I was able to achieve in less than 5 hours of experience!

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Hi mikeycolon,

This post has been upvoted by the Curie community curation project and associated vote trail as exceptional content (human curated and reviewed). Have a great day :)

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Very cool! Thank you for the support!

What a wonderful sight. You sure had a great place to start with droning. I really do not notice much of the weakness you mention with my untrained eye.

If you can get one minute drone videos uploaded to dtube and use the dtubesnap tag, you might get good votes. Drones are hot over there :)

I am using esteem and getting great results. I'm just about to try scheduling with it and I hear that works well. Best of luck, and go in their discord for more support to your posts.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by! The imperfections are minute - but I'm a bit of a perfectionist. Well you kind of have to be as a photographer.

I'm not sure how much I'm going to be flying in the upcoming months as it's wintertime now and it's pretty windy. Plus in NYC and Boston it's hard to find spots where one can legally fly.

Thanks for the hot tip as I'll keep it in mind!

And yes - the eSteem app is great for scheduling posts. PLUS you get upvotes from them as well!

Thanks again! ✌️

You're welcome. You need to protect your new toy for sure. When I lived in California there were all kinds of laws coming in about the drones. This new technology is also a new frontier :)

Yea - it takes just 1 person to mess it up for everyone else when it comes to new laws! But regulations are needed.

:D

The town I was in was a beach town and drones were flying low over people sunning themselves at the pool, lol.

Congratulations on your anniversary Mikey! And also on your purchase! I'm thinking about getting a drone as well. But my camera broke last week so this is taking over the priority at the moment.

I'm not sure if there is something wrong with the sound on my end or if you didn't include any music? Just asking..

I enjoyed your video. St. Lucia looks like a paradise. The complex that you were shooting at the beginning, is it where you were staying?

I love to see different colors of the ocean. It's so calming and just lovely. I also like those big palm trees moving with the wind - beautiful!

Overall, you made a great first video and you have something to be proud of! I'm looking forward to seeing more videos from you.

Have a great day!

Hey thanks for taking the time to comment!

I'd definitely work on getting a new camera as you'll get more use of it. But if I went traveling by myself - I would have been flying the drone every minute I can get. I even flew it at night and I was surprised to to see that it can shoot long exposures.

The Spark is a good starter drone and you can get in the game for $600. Trust me when I tell you that it's super exhilarating to fly and you won't regret it.

As for the complex it was the Sandals Grande Saint Lucia. It was where I spent most of my time and since it was my first time with the drone (and knowing it was winter back home) I tried to fly as much as possible.

I agree - the palm tree shots were pretty cool! Plus palm trees are my favorite trees as if I'm looking at a palm tree - odds are I'm somewhere tropical! 🌴

Thanks again for taking the time and for your support!

HUGS

I've heard from so many people how excited they are about drones but you are right. Generally you use the camera more often.

$600 doesn't sound like too much and it does take good videos so I might consider it :)

I have never visited a 'warm' country during winter time here but it must feel so good when you're there. Not that good when you come back though :)

Thank you for getting back to me, Mikey!

Sending lots of love your way :)

The 600$ was for the "fly more combo" plus I purchased an extra battery. The combo comes with extra propellers, a remote, a bag and another battery.

Visiting a warm country is very weird. Especially during Christmas when there is a zero chance of snow! But coming back to the cold is bittersweet. Especially when people see you with a tan! LOL

HUGS

I love the video @mikeycolon! What a great first drone video! :) Love the music too. It goes very well with the breathtaking scenery. It is such a fun video to watch, it is like watching a travel advertisement :) I love how some scenes were fastforwarded or spun to create a tinge of excitement with the scenery changes. Is flying a drone like maneuvering a toy car? i.e. you need to have a good sense of control or you'll end up crashing. I can imagine the excitement that you get from flying your drone :)

Thanks for the kind words and support! Flying a drone takes a bit to get used to as on the left stick up is up, down is down, left / right is yaw left right. The right stick is forward, back, left, right (if that makes any sense). All that to say is it's not like driving something on flat ground with a remote.

As for flying - it's very exhilarating - especially in exotic places as flying around in a "boring" place isn't going to yield great footage.

Thanks for stopping by!

Wow, that is a view, amazing how everything looks from height, the place looks like paradise and I believe it is real place that you never forget, like these bungalows seems to be really much space inside of them adn clean sand beach with crystal clear water. Like the hundreds different umbrellas that we can see in your video and all the palms there. Thank you for such spectacular video, it might be worth to offer to touristic agencies, they may love it. Never thought that drones could have such clear picture.

It's funny you use the word "paradise". A lot of the locals use it and in my mind paradise is a place where you don't have to work - and be hassled by people trying to sell you things. The property was beautiful - but it's not the reality of the people living there as there is a lot of poverty there.

Thanks for the words of encouragement and reaching out to travel agencies has been on my agenda for quite a while. Thanks again! ✌️

I can imagine what you mean and this is the other side of our society with obvious separation between wealth and poverty. But at least for those people who can work for such resorts and been paid that is already some support for families although I can imagine probably far too little :)

Although the Spark footage might not be a professional grade of quality, for showing things with a different kind of perspective it is just perfect! Compared to its size the perfect traveltoy for great out of this world movies.

First drone movie you created here is way better than the first one I created! 👍 Looking forward to more of this drone scenery

Thanks man!

On the plus side the lack of functionality is good because there's a lot less to worry about.

The key is location and time of day. The Spark doesn't have much dynamic range but if the light is soft, diffused or low you can get good results.!

Thanks again! ✌️

This is awesome. It was really grand to see the palm trees blowing in the wind from above them. Well done and thanks for sharing.

Thanks! One of the best angles is to shoot straight down.

Beautiful footage. Couple of month ago, I set up a drone discord channel .. maybe it will become popular after all :)

The drone industry is around 2 billion dollars a year now. I'm sure your Discord channel will pick up steam!

If you're interested I could send you the invite. Also, I would love to have an admin buddy helping with it.

Thanks for the invite! But I have my hands full as it is plus I'm just starting out anyway. Thanks again and good luck!

Totally understand :)

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The quality is by far better than I thought for the spark. Beautiful video my friend!

Thanks - it's not horrible but if you're a pixel peeper you'll see the lack of quality. But like I said earlier - it's a great starter drone. Especially since it's limited with options.

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