PDA

View Full Version : Quadcopter over Sydney Harbour - from inside my house in Canberra.



Ezookiel
11-01-2015, 6:16pm
It's too wet to go outside and play with my real quadcopter, so I was playing with a tiny Hubsan X4 inside.
I had the idea of putting a shot of it on Facebook to show how bored I was that I had resorted to playing with a toy quad inside.
That idea then lead to occupying the next 2 hours of my day....

Not content to just use my phone and snap a blurry OOF shot with one hand, while trying to fly the thing with the other two hands, I decided to play around with trying to get a shot where a painting my father did, of an aerial shot of Sydney Harbour, would end up being the background, and tweaking my lighting and DOF to try and fake up a shot that looks a little like it's been taken outdoors.

Well, the Hubsan is a nice stable beginner's quadcopter, but it's still a 2 handed job to fly it and keep it RELATIVELY in one place, which doesn't leave too many hands to operate the camera - let alone get a good focus on the moving quad.

Took 144 attempts to get 3 or 4 reasonable results. This was the best of them.
Ended up having to tuck a remote shutter release upside down under the radio transmitter for the quad, and try and fire it while the quad was in approximately a pre-focussed point. Unfortunately, it's really noisy too, as it's a grey wet miserable day here, and my house is dark at the best of times, so had to crank up the ISO.

I might have to try again on a bright sunny day with some decent light.

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7518/16064279988_891efe20a5_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/qtxCLC)IMG_5533net (https://flic.kr/p/qtxCLC) by Ezookiel (https://www.flickr.com/people/44504565@N04/), on Flickr

Mark L
11-01-2015, 7:56pm
For the next boring rainy day.
If it's a wireless remote you could set it off with your toe.
You could also get the camera much higher (on top of a ladder) and get the quadcopter lower (closer) to the painting making a more in focus BG. Bounce flash off ceiling.
Or forget operating the quadcopter. Hang it from something with fishing line and get on with photography.
But it was so boring, you already tried all that.:):)

Ezookiel
11-01-2015, 9:40pm
As a reference shot, here's the background, which was painted by my Father ....
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7505/16065492320_d000883cb0_o.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/qtDR9U)57537_10152489307002048_8787247803147184911_o (https://flic.kr/p/qtDR9U) by Ezookiel (https://www.flickr.com/people/44504565@N04/), on Flickr