DJI Phantom 4

Well, it’s been a while ( a long long while ) but I dug out my login and decided to put up another post. The holiday with the rooftop tent on the Hilux is long over and I’ve been hard at work keeping the miners in the north-west of the state supplied with food, beer and toilet paper. In fact, I’m due to leave again tonight on another run with three trailers stuffed full of goodies.

Recently I picked up a quadcopter, or DJI Phantom 4 drone. Neat bit of gear and I’ve only really begun to scratch the surface when it comes to learning it capabilities and uses.

DJI Phantom 4

I started out taking a few aerial stills. Yeah, all very basic stuff – familiarising myself with the quad and camera. It really is easy to fly. I have two other quadcopters, one I built myself, and this thing is like the luxury car version of them.

DCIM100MEDIADJI_0105.JPG

DCIM100MEDIADJI_0020.JPG

DCIM100MEDIADJI_0003.JPG

Took some video too. This is pretty rough stuff but I’m just feeling it out.

When I bought it I had the idea that it would be great for taking aerial photos, or surveys, of properties or areas of interest. I didn’t realise at the time how easy this would be. I found several apps that will run on my iPhone and iPad ( the Phantom uses iOS or Android devices to control it during flight ) which automate the whole process of flying a grid and taking photos. At the moment I’m using Map Pilot for planning and flying the “missions” and Maps Made Easy for processing the images into something useable.

This photo is a series of 71 images stitched into one. I’m going to re-fly the grid and get a little more coverage on all of the boundaries – especially the bottom, top left and top right.

Here is a neat representation of the heights of objects on the ground.

This is the really cool part – this link will take you to an interactive page where you can zoom right down and see much finer detail than the two photos above. Do it! This page is what it’s all about.

 

Video – The Telfer Road

Just finished editing some video I shot with my GoPro HeroHD2 camera on a recent run to Telfer up near Marble Bar in the Pilbara.

Here’s another quick clip I filmed on my iPhone 4S on the Nifty road, a few hours further east.

Go here to see the rest of my video’s on YouTube.

Cheers, Mike.

Diversions Pt 2

Here it is : the embedded video of the footage I shot driving through Meekatharra. I have cut out a few minutes in the middle (where I was refuelling the truck) and trimmed the start and finish, otherwise, that’s it.

When time allows I will try to post a more professional looking clip with titles and using some other footage I have. At the moment though, time is a scarce commodity.

Diversions

Got a little bored this morning so thought I would attatch my Panasonic video camera to the side of my third trailer and film a little bit of Meekatharra.

I have a pretty sturdy twin suction cup camera mount which will let me position my camera just about anywhere there is a glass or (clean) painted surface. I always improvise some sort of a safety tether when mounting it externally on a moving vehicle – it would break my heart to see it lose suction and hit the road at 100km/h or go under a wheel(s).

I positioned the video camera on the rear right side of my rear (3rd) trailer, facing it forward so it would capture all three trailers and the prime mover as well as the street scene in the main street of Meekatharra as I drove through, refuelled, and continued on, leaving the town behind.

I am posting this from “on the road” but as soon as I can upload the video to Youtube I will embed it here.

Kumarina Oversize

This is a video I shot a while ago. I was taking an oversized load to Newman from Perth and stopped near Kumarina to film this.

Cheers, Mike.