DJI Inspire 1 @ Leo Carrillo

Posted on May 15, 2015 by Trent Siggard

15 May

Leo Carrillo is a beach quaint beach on the northern end of the beautiful Malibu Coastline. Ever since I was a kid I remember camping at the campsite across the freeway and coming over to the beaches for long days full of relaxation. Naturally, It’s one of those places that resonates deep in my heart so I have to photograph it from my Quadcopter!

Leo Carrillo is named after an actor who was extremely passionate about conservation. Carrillo served on the Beach and Parks Commission, and helped a lot during the acquisition of the Hearst property in San Simeon. It’s been interesting to see how the waves erode the caves over the years, hopefully soon I can do some 3D mapping of the rocks during low tide and compare in 5, 10, and 15 years.

“Here I am” Pose while flying at Leo Carrillo. I’ve been compiling images of myself front he beginning and ends of my flights. For a while when I catches my Phantom I would spin in a circle with the camera pointed at me so I can cut them together. What also works is a Dronie, a photo or video of yourself while the quadcopter is in the air.

SOURCE: Quadcopter Guy – Read entire story here.

CTRL.ME Showroom Opening

Posted on May 15, 2015 by Trent Siggard

15 May

CTRL.ME Has absolutely solidified themselves as a key player in the Drone industry. With the bulk of their business being custom projects they’re pushing the limits of what this technology can do. It was nice to see people from a lot of different age ranges and lots of women too! Throughout the night there was Drone related give away’s, VR Goggle experiences, beautiful drones on display, and awesome demo reels playing everywhere. I especially liked the “Drone Christmas Tree” where they suspended a bunch of different multicopters and made for a really cool display. At the end of the night I had to lay under it and take a picture.

One of the many innovations displayed last night was the Skysence Charging pad. The charging pad has complete 100% positive and ground connectivity on the surface and will charge your quadcopter’s battery automatically upon landing to make your system completely autonomous for weeks at a time.

The Bird is the newest copter I have seen from CTRL.me. Built on a custom CNC’d Tricopter frame and being shaped out of foam makes this copter lightweight and easy to fly. The Octo-Claw is a multicopter for trickery. With the integrated claw it enables delivery or pickup of goods from the air without getting the airship too close to anyone. The huge quadcopter you see on the bottom left was a special design made for flying gold bars into an event. The guys at CTRL.ME never stop short of delivering the most mind blowing experience for their clients.

The copter below has to be my favorite, and has to be a huge contributing factor as to why i love CTRL.ME so much. Ever since I got a mini I’ve been dreaming of putting a gimbal onto a <300 fame. While in the shop one day I made the suggestion to make a mini X8 with a gimbal. A few weeks later I get a text message from Adam with a photo of the beautiful copter you see below. I will hopefully get to take it out soon and run some tests with the cute little guy.

These hoop copters are the next level for interactive flying experiences. After taking off there is a motor that spins the hoola-hoop around the Hexacopter. In the hoop is sound activated LED lights that will change colors depending on the environment you put them in. In building them, the guys said they had to do very little tuning to the NAZAV2 to get it to fly right. With the ring spinning it does not effect your flight performance at all. While the copters were up in the air I was graciously handed a controller and was able to fly one of these guys; something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time.

The well known Drone Dudes was there showing their newest gear and footage. With their new line of awesome hats, shirts, and other small items that are Drone related they are bound to be in a closet near you. The talented NKDSGN has been in collaboration with Drone Dudes working on the design of the apparel line. Drone Dudes had their kickass van with Plasma FPV screen TV in the back playing various aerial reels they’ve accumulated over the years. The Drone Dudes have a studio in DTLA where they invite different people working on innovative technologies and push the limits of what is possible.

Overall the night was amazing. There was always a copter in the air, things to watch, experience, touch, and ask questions about. CTRL.me is not just a quadcopter distributor or re-seller. They are pushing the limits of this technology more and more each month and It’s been awesome to watch blossom. If you want to stay connected with CTRL.me check their website, youtube channel, Instagram, and Twitter.

SOURCE: Quadcopter Guy – Read entire story here.

Arroyo Simi Community Park Sunset

Posted on May 15, 2015 by Trent Siggard

15 May

I’ve been wanting to photograph this hill for a while now. I can see it from my backyard and I’m always fascinated with how the light hits it at sunset. What made me love this photo even more is the fact that the hill is green, as opposed to brown the rest of the year. California has been in a rough drought and the recent rain has been bringing colors to life in the mountains.

SOURCE: Quadcopter Guy – Read entire story here.

Filming for AWAY

Posted on May 15, 2015 by Trent Siggard

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15 May

When out filming AWAY I had no idea what the story was about. It was a mystery to me, but I was just happy to be out collaborating with someone making epic visuals. Now that the film has come out, it’s pretty reflective of the past year of my life. I was entering into a whole new world of business and a whole new industry for that matter. At a certain point I just wanted to get away and forget about everything that has happened. I started to run, then finally realized that I needed to forgive myself and upon receiving that forgiveness was offered a second chance. To me, the film is very reflective of my experience. Click “Continue Reading” to watch the full film.

More photos, videos, and experiences from the shoot!

On the journey I saw someone taking photos on the side of the Tioga pass in his Range Rover I remember seeing on social media. This was the 1st time I would meet Barry, and by chance that we meet for the 1st time int he mountains when I had such an important decision to make the day before. Barry is so awesome and has such a big heart! I really value his friendship.

Sometimes a set of experiences run deeper than any set of words someone can offer you as advice. As I set out to film aerial shots for AWAY I was in a deep contemplative time in my life. Placed before me was one of this biggest decisions of my life. It was something that nothing could have gotten me ready for besides living through it and making the wrong choice.

It’s not just making the wrong decision that made an impact, but it was the months of depression and desperation that I was feeling during that time. I would be very hard on myself, holding myself and my employer to an extremely high standard. I would be in a constant battle with myself over my purpose in life, if this is what I’m supposed to be doing, and what else I should be trying to seek. It was a hard time, but I was able to get out of it after talking it over with some friends.

Through all this I’ve realized that people are so scared to make mistakes in life, and everything I’ve learned about myself during that time has helped me grow exponentially. The biggest gift that this experience gave me was learning how to offer and accept forgiveness for myself. I have held so much againced myself that I was creating walls around myself that would manifest itself as complete loneliness.

SOURCE: Quadcopter Guy – Read entire story here.

White Face Panoramas

Posted on May 15, 2015 by Trent Siggard

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15 May

One of the greatest thing about flying a multi rotor is that your not limited to one spot to take photos from. When your done with one just zoom around and change your perspective to get a different shot. In the panorama above I was over the driving range to get a better view of the hill in the background. For the bottom exposure I moved about 1000 feet to the other side of the road so it was just in frame throughout the image.

As I was shooting panoramas I was watching the clouds shadow move over the valley pretty fast so I raced to shoot another series of images for panoramas. It was such a spectacular site to see the clouds moving in so fast from the view live from the Phantom Vision 340 feet up and 700 feet away(Thats my white car in the parking lot). Happy flying everyone!

SOURCE: Quadcopter Guy – Read entire story here.

Family Portrait With A Drone

Posted on May 15, 2015 by Trent Siggard

15 May

This year when my family got together for the holidays we wanted to do things a little bit different. Instead of our usual family photo with us standing up, we found a awesome circle that we decided to lay in. I flew my Phantom 2 with a GoPro Hero 4 on time-lapse mode and flew above us. You can see me on the bottom of the photo looking at my monitor composing the image. After shooting some photos, I recorded a video and did the same move above us. This was one of the most unique family photos we’ve taken yet, and we’ll have to see where we can go to out-do this one next year.

SOURCE: Quadcopter Guy – Read entire story here.

G-Shock Watch Commercial

Posted on May 15, 2015 by Trent Siggard

15 May

Sometimes when your flying for productions you don’t see the final product for months, so when I saw this edit for the G-Shock watches so soon I was super excited. I teamed up with Drone Dudes and executed the aerial shots that they needed for the video.

One of the challenges I ran into when using the Drone Dude’s phantom was using the 5.4 mm RageCam Lens. I never flew with the rage cam lens before and a lot of the shots required that the camera points straight down. While the biker rode around I kept the camera at a 45 degree angle to have a little bit of forgiveness-room.

Working for Drone Dudes provides a really interesting dynamic as for how we book our jobs, to when I go out and fly. Recently I’ve been working with Drone Dudes as a lead pilot heading out on different film shoots. Being a pilot for Drone Dudes is best for me as one of my weak points is bidding on jobs with clients. It allows me to focus on my piloting skills and helps me concentrate on translating the clients vision into a reality.

SOURCE: Quadcopter Guy – Read entire story here.

FPV Flying @ The Park

Posted on May 15, 2015 by Trent Siggard

15 May

When I have a day off or an afternoon available theres a high chance you’ll find me at a park flying this little guy. This quadcopter is the infamous QAV250 frame, Graupner 5×3 props, Simok K 12A ESC’s, Lumenier 2206 2000kv motors, and a fatshark 600mw transmitter.

SOURCE: Quadcopter Guy – Read entire story here.

DJI Phantom w/ Lightbridge

Posted on May 15, 2015 by Trent Siggard

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15 May

One thing I think we can all agree on is the success of the DJI Lightbridge as an aerial photography FPV platform. Having a HD feed from your camera not only brings you more situational awareness to be a more cautious pilot, but it really helps to have a clear signal when composing your images. I am also happy to see Lightbridge integrated into the controller and not an external accessory for your drone and makes set up times much quicker.

This was shot using a beta DJI Lightbridge. I was so surprised at how crystal clear the picture was as I flew down the shoreline in Venice for the 1st time. I kept a close eye on the signal strength bar, which was my favorite indicator on the screen that tells you how strong your picture and control link is.

Yes, in the later part of the video you see me sitting in my car flying using the Zeiss Cinemizer goggles plugged into the Lightbridge unit on top of my car. You bet I was blasting some of my favorite music as loud as I could as I was flying up and flying along the mountain. It was really some some of the most fun flying I have done and what made it amazing was the HD video feed from the Lightbridge from DJI.

Instead of having Lightbridge be a separate product, DJI has now incorporated it as a core technology in their aerial systems. With the recent release of the Phantom 3, we can see that we will have light bridge technology in most of DJI’s drones of the future.

SOURCE: Quadcopter Guy – Read entire story here.