Post Christmas snow

Annoying jitter in this a couple of times - I suspect wind related as it was quite gusty not far above ground.


From this still, there is suddenly a striking roughly circular feature on The Common - which would seem to be an ancient enclosure of some kind.
Previous similar photos don't obviously reveal it.
Our local History specialist has forwarded it to the Medieval Studies centre at York.

Valley mist forming at sunset

Douthwaitedale - Vision Plus

I did a remix of that, mainly playing about with neat video noise reduction - probably gone too far with it but some parts are definitely better.
One problem with it is you can't seem to get a decent preview of how the effect will turn out - so I just set it on defaults.
To see it properly you have to render the sequence. Even on my 16GB desktop that takes about an hour for this 3 minute clip.

Westerdale - late November

I needed to half use the Phantom battery as they are supposed to be kept at about 50% if unused for a few days.

It cleared out at sunset today and wind was not too bad - quite surprised by the detail in this from a quick flight - but video was noisy and nothing special.

Lastingham phantom edit

Shorter version of this from last month.
Wish I'd worked on the rolling shutter while panning (forgot) not too bad though.
Used Film Emulation in Adobe Premiere to colour grade slightly.

Highland cattle in the snow

Needed this shot from January 2013 for something else so thought I'd stick it here too. A hint of soft focus worked magic on this.

Westerdale overview

Blakey Bank - Farndale

Tree Tops

These trees were planted around 1910 so are more than a hundred years old. Every time there's a big storm one or two (at least) blow over but some around the edge are stocky and rugged. Apparently if you are in Germany this is blocked probably the extreme graphic XXX rated nature of it?

The Vision plus camera shares some similarities with my MotoG phone.

With subjects at closer range the resolution seems acceptable but with a wider view with fussy detail involved it can go a bit pear shaped.

Phantom compilation

I realised the other day that with more than 50 short videos on youtube it's a bit daunting knowing what's on there - so made a 2014 summer season compilation.

First 'winter' bike ride

The CRF250L has been a bit neglected through late summer, but had a really nice ride out on it yesterday. Exact route was made up as I went along but I did fancy going to Bransdale as it's always rather good in autumn due to large numbers of oak trees colouring by late October.

Barns at Cow Sike

Track out of Bransdale onto Rudland Rigg

Bransdale road at East Moors

I do rather like the first one but it's made by the song found on youtube.

A couple of duff jerky cuts towards the end should have been faded!

This is mostly due to it being windy and I paused video recording to take a photo.

Quick afternoon Phantom-ing

After worrying about bringing cows home along the road for the last few days, actually doing it proved fairly straightforward which was a relief.

Decided to 'celebrate' by taking a couple of hours to do some phantom flying near Church Houses and in Danby Dale.

It was a bit windy but no problems.

Light not great though.

There will probably be a couple of videos later, it looked quite decent in a quick review, but processing, rendering and uploading is a lengthy business.

St Marys near Church Houses

Upper Farndale from near High Mill

High Mill and lower Farndale

St Hildas with third cut silage being raked up.

Newtondale and the NYMR

I knew there was a train due at any minute, and had heard it whistle near Levisham.

I quickly tried the phantom as I was a bit worried about satellites in the deep sided valley, and the only launch site not under powerlines was a reinforced concrete bridge!

All seemed OK, and I took this picture.
I landed it and was suddenly aware that while concentrating on that, the train was just 100 yards away! - the line is very bendy.
I didn't like to risk taking off almost in front of it - so annoying that I had ample battery to have  just hovered as it went under.
It was Sir Nigel Gresley but it was running backwards so did not look particularly photogenic.

Pickering 40s weekend

Lower Farndale and Barmoor

Nice light today with much clearer air after a little rain first thing.

Gillamoor drive thru

Misty morning

Very September

Sewards at Sinderby Station site

There are a good number of photos on this site www.disused-stations.org.uk/s/sinderby/ from when the site was a station on the long-gone Northallerton to Harrogate line.

Whorlton Castle

Little Fryup Dale

High Castleton

Pleased with this one.

Another CRF Sunday afternoon run

Almost a year since I got this little bike - lots of fun and so many new places visited.

Village cricket

"Evening League" match at Westerdale

(vision plus)

Hutton-le-Hole

Taking off from the car park I was nervous of going far due to the thick trees all around.

It would probably be OK from the village green on a quiet day, or perhaps by the Rosedale turning to the NE - but that's stretching the range a bit.

Ingleby Bank

Two recent biking videos

Youtube looks so much better viewed on a tablet (or phone) I find?!

 Had a twitter row with virgin who did not tell me that a virginmedia email I used to open a new Youtube account would no longer work after 1st July.
They did send a (muddled) instruction about changing details on accounts using my main virgin.net one. There was no mention that changes were needed on the newer virginmedia account.
A major and serious oversight not to realise people have more than on account in use.

 The result is there's no way to access my original planz bike video channel although it probably isn't impossible to regain control by contacting youtube directly.
Anyway I started a similar one with link back to the older account with a dozen or so vids on.

Westerdale overview

I've been using RAW with the phantom but it is so slow to write 20MB+ to the card I thought I'd try large JPG and to be honest they are pretty good and write in 2 seconds.

Trouble is you have to pause and wait pretty much while it writes, as you can't see where you are going!
With RAW it is about 10 seconds with black screen.
You have to pause video too which is a pain but understandable.

Baling on hold

Silage grass

I had a mind to fly over while they were baling and wrapping this today, but was too busy cutting and spreading my own!

Misty summer evening

Hay meadow flowers

Spot weeding docks yesterday I photographed these.

Early Purple Orchids - a first in my field

Village fly over

These are from about 150 feet up.

High Hamer after the rain

Bank Top at Rosedale

It was just that bit too windy all day but was determined to fly the beast away from home.
By sunset it subsided for a while so nipped over the hill to Rosedale Chimney Bank.

On the Live feed it looked way too dark but the downloaded result was not bad at all and rather atmospheric.

Another tour of the field

I have a case  for this now so can more easily take it further away - but haven't yet.
It is curiously scary as soon as it becomes a distant dot which is easily lost if you glance away, even though I can bring it back easily and see on the phone what it is 'looking' at.
The other day I suddenly realised what I thought was the phantom moving in an unplanned way (!) was in fact a seagull...

Rudland Rigg and Chimney Bank

Start of May

Have to say, the new Vision Plus Phantom is startlingly good.

Farndale

DJI Phantom with Drift Ghost HD

Pickering and the castle - drive-by

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Newtondale on Sunday

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New truck!

High and Low Muffles

Some of the original spruce trees between Head House and High Muffles. These would have been planted around 1950.

Bungalow at Low Muffles.

There are two of these simple but rather appealing houses down here.

They were built to house forest workers, but this one has been a holiday let for several years. 

It is now for sale - but at a rather ridiculous £320,000.

If the adjacent fields which previously were with it were included this still seems far too much!
To be fair internally it has been completely refurbished, and there are some small but quite useful outbuildings, plus space for another workshop or garage of modest size.
Can you tell I rather like it?
There is no internet or mobile phone though :(

Sunday ride video

Quite pleased with this one, the improving light levels and getting out a bit earlier made a big difference.

Caydale Mill Ford

This an unusual long ford maybe 40 metres where the stream runs along the road, which is surfaced with concrete.

Today it was about a foot deep which is unusual as often it is more like a couple of inches even in winter.