Video progress report!

[sutty]

Not a video, but some photos taken by my pal today. He had been out with his camera in the lake district and on the way back dropped in and encouraged me to fly, so he could practice his skills, whilst trying to get some good shots of my heli. He tells me, in his own words, that I did not help him by flitting around the sky like a lunatic. Oh well, some of them are pretty good. I like 35.EDIT: Now 59 after messing with the order.

This afternoon with the 550e VX1

Cheers

Sutty

[copterboy]

Very nice indeed Sutty. My personal favourites were 3, 19, 24, 36, 52, 54 and 59 Couple of shots with Winter Hill in the back ground, some nice inverted shot's, and another looks like mid tic-tok. Was so nice to have some more good sunshine today. Now it's back, I realise how much it's been missed. Did anyone mention they don't like winter? It's not too warm yet, but hey it's still only Feb.

[sutty]

Yeah, cheers Denis, it was nice to have a sunny day for a change and I'm pleased with some of the shots taken by my pal, but even more pleased that I was comfortable flying whilst he was there. He tells me based on the experience gained from today he will be able to do a lot better next time.

Believe it or not he has patiently waited for 5 years to come and watch me fly properly, and to get some photographs. I would always put him off saying that I didn't like to fly in company, couldn't fly in company, but today he just turned up, uninvited, and made me fly, lol. Hands were shaking badly at first, but I got better and better as time went on.

Like you said Denis, nice bright day, but still not really warm and just a little breezy.

Cheers

Sutty

[sutty]

Noticed that the latest, or youngest picture that Mike uploaded was taken at 5:18 PM, now that ain't bad is it. People will soon be able to fly after work. Get your helis ready Den.

Cheers

Sutty

[jperkosk]

Excellent photos, Andy What was Mike using to shoot them?

Oh, and quite impressive flying, too, even if captured in a freeze-frame fashion. Wait, this way I probably got to see much more details, instead of the usual blurry spot "flitting around the sky like a lunatic"

31 looks unearthly and 57 captures the changing tracking of the blade during left cyclic command. Priceless

[sutty]

Cheers Jerry. I don't know, a camera? Not the sharpest tool in the box when it comes to such things, hence why I ask all these questions about the GPH3. I've asked him to explain, but he is at work, so it is unlikely that he will see my message for some time. When he does I'll let you know. I've passed on your comments. I'm sure he will be pleased with the feedback. Not bad for his first effort I guess.

As a matter of interest he seems to be far more pleased with completely different photographs than I am. Looking for different things I guess.

Cheers

Sutty

[Luke Warmwater]

Great photos! Did you hold stil for him or did you throw it around? If you were throwing it around, I am doubly impressed!

One thing I learned photographing aircraft at air displays, was that with prop aircraft, slowing the shutter speed gives an image of a prop disc, rather than a freeze frame of the blades. That said, the pin sharp detail of shots 5 and 6 is awesome!

Now, with a full size aircraft, prop speed is probably a lot lower than a 550 head speed, so you may not need to go that low. A 125th / 250th shutter would give a good prop disc on most aircraft....but you need to have a steady hand to track and pan without blurring the subject. If you can do it, you get a nice blurred background, a sharp aircraft and a prop disc....but much easier said than done. Shot 7 would be lovely with a rotor disc imo.

A short depth of field can help as well, as that blurs the background nicely, but brings the added difficulty of maintaining focus on anything moving towards or away from you... (again, shots 5 and 6!!).

Framing and context are excellent; it captures what was happening with atmosphere, which again is far easier said than done. How often do we take a picture of something and then when we look at it at home, we feel that it wasn't quite what we were seeing / feeling? These pics seem to grab an atmosphere really well.

For me, shot 34 is the kiddie!. Good disc...well, part disc which may even be better than a full disc as it shows speed, sharp main image and background showing movement. It may not be showing a 550 in 3D action, but I don't care; it shows the power of the machine brilliantly!

[Luke Warmwater]

Originally Posted by sutty

I like 35.EDIT: Now 59 after messing with the order.

I like that too on second viewing! Blurred head mechanics, but sharp "Align" on the canopy!

[sutty]

He mumbled something about me keeping still a bit longer and being able to slow down the shutter, and then being able to use his monopod for stability, as he tracked me, but to be honest it was mostly lost on me, I just flew around as normal, and left it to him.

He is very self critical, so I'm sure he will be pleased to hear the nice comments, and will take on board the suggestions for experiments next time. He has some ideas to try and he is no longer banned, as I managed to fly whilst he was there, so he can come and practice whenever he wants now.

He mentioned something about blurred background, and getting good sparkly lighting through the trees, he called it 'good bokeh'. That was a new word on me, but now I know what it means, it's true, at least one of them does.

The lighting on some is a bit spooky, and a lot of the session was done as the sun was very close to the horizon, making for long shadows, where you can see them, but more particularly much more red light in the light balance, which I think makes some of them look really awesome.

I just liked 59 because it was clear and I was upside down, lol. I was gutted when he said he'd missed me when I was slowly descending towards the grass, and only bailed and punched at about 2 inches. I was being braver there for a good shot, and he blew it!

Cheers

Sutty

[jperkosk]

Gosh, 1.64GB for a 7:50min clip shot at 1080p/60fps, you realize how long it takes to upload?. Clarity is excellent, though , so H3 may just become permanently assigned to hatcam duty.

This is my old trusty flybarred TR450SE that I installed FMA's hard deck on and had some problems with afterwards. Now I have re-flashed the CP2 just in case it was a download glitch, re-did the setup and was doing some test flying yesterday while waiting for hexa's batteries to charge.

This time I had no problem with flight angles, so adjusted them quickly and went directly to HD testing. It's not shown in the video, but as discussed many times over on FMA forum, 50' minimum deck level is way too high. That's about as high as I ever go with a 450, and trying to fly at this level felt like driving on pothole filled road when the 450 was tripping each time it touched the HD. You need to fly much higher than that and I'm not doing it period, at least not with a 450.

So then I gave up on using HD as it was intended and flew around having it at the ready in manual bailout mode. @1:00 I activate HD and it tries to pull the heli up, which I didn't let it to by switching it off. @2:36 and 2:54 I test the HD-aided bailout by leaning the heli first and flipping the switch, and it's very, very nice: the added collective pitch makes it recover very quickly. For the rest of the pack I just fooled around trying to figure out if I can fly a flybarred 450 in a 20kph wind just as well as a Microbeast one

[ame]http://youtu.be/CCGEyUFR2Dg[/ame]

Edit: I'll double-post this on FMA forum, even if it's slightly against HF rules. That's because I want to add more details which really belong there...

[Luke Warmwater]

Originally Posted by sutty

The lighting on some is a bit spooky, and a lot of the session was done as the sun was very close to the horizon, making for long shadows, where you can see them, but more particularly much more red light in the light balance, which I think makes some of them look really awesome.

The best time of day for photography, for all the reasons you mentioned! Shadows give depth and early morning / late evening light is much softer as it passes through more air. Side lighting is always better than top lighting.

(Top tip for anyone taking photos of people; forget what you were always told about having the sun behind you! Get the sun off to one side or the other and take the picture lit from the side rather than head on. You look at any photograph in a magazine, especially portrait photos, and it will nearly always be lit from the side, giving the face shadows every time!)

[sutty]

Originally Posted by jperkosk

Excellent photos, Andy What was Mike using to shoot them?

Means nothing to me, but his reply was, "Thanks all for the nice comments, I was using a Nikon D7000 with 70-200 f2.8 VRII. I'm sure I can do better now, given a further opportuninty in the future."

Cheers

Sutty

[ragge1]

Maiden my new bird today , was very nervous

Goblin 500 First flight Ragge1 (4 min 15 sec)

[jperkosk]

Nice heli and very nice flying, Ragge. Aren't you suppose to take it easy during the maiden fligbt?

[Tomstoy2]

Very nice indeed!

[sutty]

Excellent.

[Luke Warmwater]

Nice!
Those skids standing on the frozen puddle make it look like it was wearing ice-skates!

[ragge1]

thanks guys

[sutty]

Slapped the hatcam on for a quick blast with the 450 today. Only managed two packs, the first of which was my stuffed one, which forced me to land before my Tx timer expired, as the LVC was coming into effect. After the second pack I was too cold so I gave up.



Hope you enjoy.

Cheers

Sutty

[Tomstoy2]

Wow, Sut! It's always fun watching you fly! I can tell how much more relaxed you are at doing the various manuvers now.
For once the camera behaved well, too. Guess all it needs is a dark crappy sky as a background to hold focus.
So what was with the birds? Hunting dinner?
Can't believe that heavily taped blade worked as well as it did. Notice much difference in performance?