Category Archives: Mavic

Mavic, Photography

Fantastic Weekend 08-24-2019

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What a great weekend. It started out with a new drone delivered on Thursday, a Mavic 2 Pro. This one to replace the one I lost.

When coming home on Thursday I decided not to stop at the liquor store and make sure I stayed sober all weekend. The main reason for this is to stop consuming all those empty calories from the alcohol. It turned out to be the best weekend in years. Sometimes I forget how good it feels to not be ‘sick and tired’ as handovers usually feel.

I also had a Tiffen 82mm variable ND filter delivered. It seemed to review good and I purchased the large diameter filter with step up rings for all of my lenses. This allows me to eliminate the vignette that shows up on variable ND’s at the max settings but won’t eliminate the horrible ‘X’ pattern variable ND’s are noted for. I have never seen this on the smaller variable ND’s I have but this one is very noticeable but you can reduce or eliminate this by pulling the ND from max and or shutting down the aperture a little. I will have to experiment because having the ND is needed for getting the shallow depth of field on a bright day.

The command module arrived from DJI for the Ronin-SC on Sunday which allows me to operate the gimbal without connecting my phone all the time and this is wonderful.

I got out my label maker this weekend and labeled all of my drone batteries, camera batteries, all batteries. The drone batteries especially in preparation for the app I’m going to design for drone flights. It will be a drone flight log keeping track of your flight time, battery flight time, charge cycle, flight logs with telemetry information etc. Looking forward to creating that. I kept telling myself to get everything labeled but was always too dang lazy (see sick and tired above).

I also got on the Peloton Sunday morning for a 45 minute heart rate zone ride with Jennifer Jacobs which felt really great. Bad news now, I tried to take to the most recent class and it was dated around June 20th. I then did some checking and found Jennifer Jacobs left Peloton to pursue new activities. I really liked riding the bike with her classes, particularly the heart rate zone and 80’s rock rides. I’ll have to find another now.

Good luck in whatever she decides to do.

Time to get off here now and get to work!

Drones, Mavic

Win one, Lose one

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One week after getting a new Mavic 2 pro drone I lose the same. I take 100 percent blame for this and is why I am not all that upset. I decided to fly the new drone without doing any compass calibration, no calibration at all. I took off at night which is ok because you can do that as a hobbyist also I’m not in controlled airspace but and this is a big but, I was under the influence of alcohol. Stupid I know and I flew until the battery was depleted and it dropped out of the sky. Being at night I had no luck finding it when I went looking. I know I was close but no luck.

I promptly went in and ordered a new one to be delivered on Thursday the 22nd of August.

On a brighter note, I was notified that my Ronin-SC would be arriving by 10:00am on Monday which I was not happy about because I was going to be home on Friday the day I was originally told was the arrival date. I got my memory card cases on Thursday, my variable 67mm ND filter Friday morning and my lens in just little bit later and then surprise of surprises fedEx arrived and had my Ronin!!

I spent the rest of the weekend just staring at it completely petrified to rig my camera up to it and balance. I was very intimated by this wonder piece of engineering.

I turned on a YouTube video I had saved just for balancing the gimbal and started following his instructions and found the process very easy and was able to balance my camera in about 15 minutes. Now the fun begins 🙂

P.S. The mistake Thursday night cost me $1,300.00

Angela, Drones, Mavic

Bit the bullet for code training

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One of my favorite instructors on Udemy advertised a new batch of training materials with other trainers creating the “Ultimate Tech Career Toolbox 2019” with thousands of dollars worth of training materials for 239.00. If I had not waited a day I could have saved another 40.00 but I flinched. Looks like a great deal and help toward my goal of the residual income for retirement.

Now I need to spend quite a bit of time downloading all the content. I’m going to put it all on a stand alone drive just for training etc.

Angie kept sending Money requests and on Tuesday I had 14 for a total of 8,800.00 and 40 rejected phone calls. They want me to make a house payment for them plus give money to Andy so he can go to his new job. Angie then tried to call twice with someone else’s phone and when I would not answer I got an email tell me to ‘Turn the f…king phone off’ I said fine and two days later I complied with her request.

Last night I gave LeeAnne 100.00 so Andy can go to work and start getting a paycheck. She then proceeded to ask if I was going to help with the house payment. Andy should just ask for an advance on his pay to get himself out of the situation they have got into. I’m done with them.

Friday afternoon, before the sun set I had a fantastic flight with the Mavic Pro. About 20 minutes long and I’ll do some editing in Camtasia and Premier Pro for experimentation and learning these two pieces of software. I know Camtasia but not Premier Pro. I’ll also throw the video clips into After Effects as well and see what I can come up with. It will be fun.

One thing I need to do is change the maximum flight distance for the Mavic Pro. I keep running into that and then because I had such a great time I forget to change it.

Angela, Mavic

And what do you think they did?

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Yes, they asked for the last 800.00 that I was supposed to give them. Angie had never told them I was not going to give them any money. Well, I gave them the 800.00, asked when I could expect to see this returned and she said ‘When I get my tax return.’ I feel it is a bunch of bull shit and do not expect a fucking thing. Sorry for the language but I am tired of that entire family.

New drone

I bought a DJI Mavic Pro Platinum with the remote, five batteries charger and hard case. Have way decent price as well.

New Scam

I had a new email scam this weekend, one involving my phone. Same bullshit as before. I deleted it and will leave it at that.

DJI Spark, Drones, Mavic

I liked my Spark but LOVE the Mavic Air

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Yes, previously I have said how much I love my DJI Spark. Flies very well. I had some problems but those were in each case, my fault. I was able to fly my new drone, the Mavic Air on Friday evening when I arrived home and the rain and wind had stopped.

I had been told the Mavic Air was very loud, the WiFi connection wasn’t that good and the range was bad etc. etc..

I’m here to tell you that all of those negative statements are far from the truth. The drone flew wonderfully smooth compared to the Spark, The Mavic Air was actually quiet compared to the Spark, not much but was quiet. The Wifi was clear with a great signal without my range extenders. I took a short video which I will post here tonight when I down res to 720p, currently it is 4k.

I LOVE it and can’t wait to bring it to the mountain cabin.

Mavic, Tello by DJI

Horrible vitals

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Before get into the vitals statement let me tell you I had a great albeit short time flying my new DJI Spark this weekend. I could not fly at the park I wanted to because of weather but I did fly outside my apartment and just a bit Saturday morning before the rain started again. Flying the Spark is so much easier than the first Parrot drone I purchased years ago. The Tello is great and easy to fly but the Spark is a dream, getting the Mavic-2 Pro will be even better. Pictures will be next with all of the accessories I have purchased for my Spark

Vitals

  • Resting Heart Rate: 76 (I had pizza last night)
  • Blood Pressure: 127/70 (I had pizza last night)
  • Weight: 244 (I had pizza last night)

The statement about pizza lets me know I failed this weekend but also that the pounds that are there are most likely water.