Highlights from a summer shoot at Dewees Island

[Benjamin Rowland]

Here are some highlights from a day and a half of shooting at Dewees Island, SC.

This was our second trip there. We wanted to capture some summer scenery this time. It was a good test of the Hoverfly Pro and the new gimbal from R/C Rotors as it was a fairly windy shoot (typical of a small island).

Footage shot with Panasonic GH3, Cinestar 8, Hoverfly Pro, MaxAmps batteries, R/C Rotors Evolution Gimbal driven by an Alexmos board and iPower5208 motors. Feel free to fire away with any questions and I'll be happy to answer them.

Many thanks to all the kind and knowledgeable folks on this forum that helped us get started and continue to push forward.

All the best,
Ben

 

[DucktileMedia]

dont worry ben, one of these days you will learn how to fly and get good shots. beautiful work man! Makes me want to go there. Maybe I can film you filming.

 

[ProPilotWannaBe]

Benjamin, amazing footage. I love the creativity. AP is definitely an art, and not just a technological wonder.
Are you shooting at 60fps? Or higher? And do you have water buoys or something as precaution against total loss when flying over water?
Thanks again!

 

[Benjamin Rowland]

dont worry ben, one of these days you will learn how to fly and get good shots. beautiful work man! Makes me want to go there. Maybe I can film you filming.

It was a fun shoot in an awesome location. Hopefully they'll invite us back again once we get this flying thing figured out :black_eyed:

Benjamin, amazing footage. I love the creativity. AP is definitely an art, and not just a technological wonder.
Are you shooting at 60fps? Or higher? And do you have water buoys or something as precaution against total loss when flying over water?
Thanks again!

The slow-mo was shot at 60 and slowed down to 24. The rest was shot at 24.

No water buoys. But we're pretty thorough about going over the aircraft before, during, and after a shoot to make sure everything is working correctly. We've got nearly 2,000 flights on our Cinestar rig with 0 incidents, so keeping a close eye on all components has paid off. My builds aren't pretty, but I can easily see and check components and replace them quickly if necessary.

 

[tstrike]

How'd you like the gimbal and was balancing/tuning a pita?
Wonderful stuff Ben, Yonder Blue's kickin a$$!!

 

[Benjamin Rowland]

How'd you like the gimbal and was balancing/tuning a pita?
Wonderful stuff Ben, Yonder Blue's kickin a$$!!

Thanks, Tom!

Balancing the camera isn't too bad, but learning to tune the Alexmos can be tough. We recently used it on a Red Epic shoot and it is a time intensive process to tune the PID values to get it working well. But once you get it right, it's pretty awesome. I'm hoping to get the third axis working soon too (servo based for pan axis at the moment).

 

[cbpagent72]

Very nice work.

 

[SamaraMedia]

Ben, once again you and the gang nailed it. Simply outstanding. Look forward to seeing and learning more each time you post. Gimbal looks to have performed very well. GH2 I presume?

John

 

[jcmonty]

Really beautiful, Ben.

Few questions for ya

1) Do you use the 24p, slow speed mode? I like this on the GH3 rather than the 60p method for two reasons. First is it's slowed to 40% (60fps slowed to 24p) in the file itself. Second, you can use the 72mbps ALL I codec vs. the 50mbps 60p one
2) How are you liking that gimbal conversion? We have a similar one that is 3-axis (all brushless) sized up to large SLRs or bigger and uses reduction on pan and roll which we hopefully be advertising soon (Kloner tested and approved ).. It's pretty tolerant to wind and camera weight and size changes with the reduction belts. How is the direct drive treating you? Are you brushless on all three axis?
3) Did you shoot those shots in manual exposure?
4) Any post stabilization?
5) Lens(es?)

Can't find a flaw with your work. It's always outstanding. Keep doing what your doing!

 

[lbg]

You must have a good camera

 

[jfro]

Nice work. The sunset exposure was spot on IMO. It does make me want another beach front vacation ( I just got back 4 days ago from one). I'll have to download & view as Vimeo compression doesn't do your footage justice...


Did the gimbal come with motors but not the AlexMos?
They have a gimble controller listed for 279, I assume that didn't come with the gimbal and it doesn't look like the Alexmos that I have.
You mentioned Alexmos so I assume you supplied that yourself......

Are you using the 10900 max amp?

 

[rdalemercer]

Nice work Ben.
I'm guessing that the shots of the young man running off of the pier at 2:20 & 2:22 were two takes?

 

[Benjamin Rowland]

Ben, once again you and the gang nailed it. Simply outstanding. Look forward to seeing and learning more each time you post. Gimbal looks to have performed very well. GH2 I presume?

John

Thanks, John. It was a fun shoot. This one was shot with the GH3. It can do 1080 at 60p, which is great for slowing down to 24p for slow-motion.

Really beautiful, Ben.

Few questions for ya

1) Do you use the 24p, slow speed mode? I like this on the GH3 rather than the 60p method for two reasons. First is it's slowed to 40% (60fps slowed to 24p) in the file itself. Second, you can use the 72mbps ALL I codec vs. the 50mbps 60p one
2) How are you liking that gimbal conversion? We have a similar one that is 3-axis (all brushless) sized up to large SLRs or bigger and uses reduction on pan and roll which we hopefully be advertising soon (Kloner tested and approved ).. It's pretty tolerant to wind and camera weight and size changes with the reduction belts. How is the direct drive treating you? Are you brushless on all three axis?
3) Did you shoot those shots in manual exposure?
4) Any post stabilization?
5) Lens(es?)

Can't find a flaw with your work. It's always outstanding. Keep doing what your doing!

1) Haven't tried it, but thanks for the tip! We will test it out.
2) We are only using brushless on the tilt and roll at this point, but plan to get the third axis going soon. Right now the pan axis is servo/belt driven. We love the stability, but the Alexmos can be tough to tune. But I'm getting the hang of it. PID tuning is new to me.
3) All shots were manual exposure.
4) Minor post-stab. Mostly to compensate for slight fluctuations in pan. And we hadn't gotten the roll axis quite perfected yet. We tuned it for a Red Epic the other day, and that was pretty solid.
5) Kit lens.

Glad you dig our work! Thanks!

You must have a good camera

Panasonic GH3 - great bang for the buck camera.

 

[Benjamin Rowland]

Nice work. The sunset exposure was spot on IMO. It does make me want another beach front vacation ( I just got back 4 days ago from one). I'll have to download & view as Vimeo compression doesn't do your footage justice...


Did the gimbal come with motors but not the AlexMos?
They have a gimble controller listed for 279, I assume that didn't come with the gimbal and it doesn't look like the Alexmos that I have.
You mentioned Alexmos so I assume you supplied that yourself......

Are you using the 10900 max amp?

Thanks! We definitely want to return to Dewees. Unfortunately we no longer make the original file available for download. Let's just say that some of our footage was being used in an "unapproved" manner.

We bought the gimbal and motors from R/C Rotors - we already had an Alexmos board on hand from Flyduino.

Nice work Ben.
I'm guessing that the shots of the young man running off of the pier at 2:20 & 2:22 were two takes?

Thanks. Yes, multiple takes. Not every shot was from the copter, but most were.

 

[RyanMcCrae]

When setting manual exposures do you aim it on the ground in the general direction of the shot?

 

[Benjamin Rowland]

When setting manual exposures do you aim it on the ground in the general direction of the shot?

That's exactly what we do.

 

[lbg]

Thanks, John. It was a fun shoot. This one was shot with the GH3. It can do 1080 at 60p, which is great for slowing down to 24p for slow-motion.



1) Haven't tried it, but thanks for the tip! We will test it out.
2) We are only using brushless on the tilt and roll at this point, but plan to get the third axis going soon. Right now the pan axis is servo/belt driven. We love the stability, but the Alexmos can be tough to tune. But I'm getting the hang of it. PID tuning is new to me.
3) All shots were manual exposure.
4) Minor post-stab. Mostly to compensate for slight fluctuations in pan. And we hadn't gotten the roll axis quite perfected yet. We tuned it for a Red Epic the other day, and that was pretty solid.
5) Kit lens.

Glad you dig our work! Thanks!



Panasonic GH3 - great bang for the buck camera.

Sorry that was a tongue in cheek reply . I visit many photography forums and we sometimes reply to a very good and excellent technically excused shot as You must have a good camera

Aussie humor

 

[Benjamin Rowland]

Sorry that was a tongue in cheek reply . I visit many photography forums and we sometimes reply to a very good and excellent technically excused shot as You must have a good camera

Aussie humor

Haha - yeah that's actually what I figured, but wanted to be careful about the response in case I was wrong.

The truth is that most modern cameras are pretty good, and if you know your way around the cam and know it's pros and cons, you can make a good looking image with it. But if you want to make the best image possible, you've got to pick the right camera for the job. We felt like the GH3 was a good camera for this particular shoot (great image, slow-mo, affordable). For others, you need an Epic, or a FS700, or C300, etc. Right tool for the job, as they say.

 

[Razzil]

Your style is unique, I love it. You drift off and enjoy every aspect when watching.

 

[RC Rotors]

Nice work very impressive. I can answer some questions in regards to the gimbal but here is the basics. the key to any gimbal servo or brushless is getting the cg right. PID's are a lot easier if your cg is perfect. we have some basic settings for gh3, nex 5,7, 5d to get you started but all will vary based on lens and how well you place the cg. If any one is interested the gimbal can be bought here http://www.shop.rotorsandaerialmedia.com/R-C-Rotors-2-Axis-Brushless-Gimbal-RCR-2AXBG.htm