Thursday, June 6, 2013

The Phantom in the Sky

As promised (maybe not as timely) here are some pictures from the sky.  In the past I have posted some pictures from the Parrot Drone 2.0.  That is fun to fly, but I can get a higher perspective and better camera with the Phantom (it has a GoPro 3 Black mounted underneath it).  The picture quality is really nice, so lets kick this off.  As always, click the picture for a bigger sample



So it is winter, and I still want to play with my toys, so I take it out anyway (no touch screens, this one has a real remote, so that helps).  This is before I got good at mounting the camera so you can see the landing gear in the right side.  This is a picture of the house you can compare this view with the one I posted from the Parrot.  Much better camera here.


So I took it down to Virginia when I went to see the Grand Parents in March.  Weather was nicer (it was warm, just a few traces of snow around).  This is a shot of there backyard (you can even make us out in the yard watching it go. 


So now we have a grey sort of day in early April.  This is taken from the Riverside field looking back into the town of Hawley.  Got that pesky landing gear in the picture again.  However nice view of the town.


Here is another picture taken from my backyard (still in April).  This time, instead of looking at the house, I took it much higher and looked out towards the lake.  Still no foliage on the trees, so everything looks a little bare.  Funny thing, is my house is really up a fairly big hill from the lake, but this picture makes it all look sort of flat (so we do not look like we are on such a big hill).  That would be a result of the angle and the very wide angle lens (which also magnifies the curvature of the earth effect).




So here we are in the beginning of May.  I venture out to Lackawaxen with my Phantom in tow (I also had the Drone).  I remembered this field, on the intersection of the two rivers.  I got some nice pictures during the sunset (had I gotten there an hour earlier the light might have been better to shoot towards the rivers junction).



When I drive the little guy off to baseball practice, and take the Phantom with me.  Though I like to watch him practice, I steal away for a few minutes to get some high flying shots.  This is in Newfoundland.  I took it from the soccer/football field looking back towards the school (so all the smaller soccer fields and the baseball fields were in the picture.  


I decided I wanted to try a different camera angle, so I got an extension, and pointed the camera straight down.  This is my house from directly (quite a ways) up.  You can even see the lake a bit in the top right corner (again we are up a big hill, it is further down than it looks).  This is an interesting perspective, and one I will be playing with a bit more (maybe not straight down, but more down than forward).


Finally, a shot from June.  This one from the park in downtown Hawley.  I took this into the sunlight, and I was impressed with how good this little camera did (picture almost looks HDR, but I have done no processing on this one or any others, these are straight out of the camera).  The picture is of the Gazebo, IGA and Settlers Inn in the distance (with the great sunset above).  

These were just some of my favorites (obviously I have many more).  I am really looking forward to hitting more areas, and trying some different angles.  The Autumn should be really nice, and I hope to take advantage of that (last fall the Drone was broke, so I missed out).  Sort of a fun way to get a different perspective on some pictures.