Mavic still issues

Still not sure what to make of this with stills, it seems to be hard work processing from RAW, but if you persevere the overall impression is quite good with very natural colours.

But even at largest size the resolution isn't quite there for pixel peepers!

It has become apparent that using RAW there's a somewhat serious pink spot in the middle of the frame - easily clicked away with Lightroom circular filter thing.
This seems to be widely reported though not especially obvious in a varied image like this (I have removed it..)

First proper use of Mavic Pro

This little drone was ordered at the end of September and has taken two months to come (originally it was supposed to be two weeks!)

This seems to have been due to huge demand and some technical issues ramping up production.

There is a widely held view they released it early to beat GoPro's new drone called Karma.
Needn't have worried though as Karma seems to have been a total disaster with early units losing power in flight - and they have been recalled.
It was ridiculously crude compared to the amazing mavic in any case.

What I'm finding is a very sharp crisp image but in video there's quite a lot of H.264 compression/smoothing going on - though you don't really see it on smaller screens.

Slight compromises in quality can be forgiven as the great trump is being unbelievably tiny.
When folded up it easily fits in my small SLR bag which *only* held a Canon 5D with 24-105 lens on. There's room in the bag for controller, charger, spare battery and can of beer or sandwich too at a pinch.
This means it is easily carried when walking or biking,
This was always a real pain with the phantoms as even the most compact backpack was too big and quite heavy. Even in the car it took up a whole seat or half the boot so not something you always wanted in there.

Snow on high ground

This is at least the third time this November which is quite unusual, but we normally get at least one snowy day in the second half of the month.
(DJI Phantom 3)

slightly snowy run to Ruswarp

Taking a trailer load of bullocks to Ruswarp market's special sale on the 9th of November.
Roads were mainly clear but it looked quite worrying earlier on and the high moors further inland continued to get whiter most of the day.

Bransdale on the big bike

This bike will soon be (mainly) confined to quarters as the roads get salty.

From Malton in 08:30 minutes

Due to half term and a mild fine day it was quite busy which had idiots taking risks on the A169 between Malton and Pickering.
Even when it's quiet there are few safe overtaking spots on this snaking road with lots of junctions and lots of impatient holiday traffic.

Worst was an ambulance car (no blue lights on) which drove so close behind a cattle trailer that he could not see ahead - missing 10 seconds safe overtaking chance - then casually dithered past on a RH bend with limited visibility - scaring an oncoming car into panic braking and headlight flashing.

Hero4 Black does a nice job as dash cam but getting white balance right is more difficult with greenish glass.
Watching original on large PC screen you see more than you ever could actually driving along the route.

Back home in 5 minutes

With £200 of new glass in the back for a building project I was actually driving rather gently!

Pickering 1940s weekend

This is a strange event which sounds ... well kind of ridiculous!
However when you go there is such infectious enthusiasm it's hard not to rather enjoy it and admire the effort put into the outfits - especially the women.

On this (Hero4) youtube account there's a longer version with original audio.

Driving down Sutton Bank

Going up is a bit more exciting perhaps.






For a main A road (between Thirsk and Scarborough) this is very steep hill indeed - especially at the hairpin bend but again in the lower third.
 Caravans are banned and Articulated Lorries will often get stuck at the hairpin bend after losing traction to the drive wheels. There are incidents practically every week. Coming down is usually less dangerous with modern braking. This was often not the case in the past!

 The view from the top is astounding on a clear day with the Pennines easily visible and you can pick out landmarks such as the radar domes at Menwith Hill. In the days of steam it was possible to follow a train's progress from York to Darlington.

 Hero 4 Black with single axis gimbal.

Adder alert

These are most often seen on cool but sunny days when they are slower and tend to bask in the sun.
It was coiled up in the middle of the (warm) road but soon went on its way when I encouraged it so it didn't get run over.
It couldn't make fast progress on the smooth surface though.

Baysdale

Fryup road

After a gloomy day yesterday, towards evening the sky cleared and the last of the heather looked lovely in the low sun.

The high moors seem to have had a rather poor show of heather this time.

I might have blamed intermittent heavy rain not allowing a high number of open blooms but surely that would apply to more sheltered spots where it's better too?

Also it seems better the north side of the moors for some reason.

August evening light

Not used the Phantom through haytime and shearing but a lovely sunny evening inspired me to give it a test run in anticipation of some heather hunting runs.
Heather is just coming to peak so of course irresistable ....

Sunset over the moors

I'd been for a short walk round Hutton-le-Hole where we used to live, though it was rather curtailed by meeting someone I went to school with and a very lot of midges as wind dropped out near Sunset.
They've resurfaced a good part of the Blakey road and made a decent job - though it won't last long as there are constant [lack of] drainage issues.

The smooth road and orange sunset made for a somewhat surreal experience.
It struck me The Lion Inn almost passes for the Titty Twisters vampire lair in Dusk till Dawn ... (!)

Whitby summer evening

Whitby is so heavily photographed you almost feel guilty posting photos as it's so hard to avoid cliché scenes.

Going late in the day gave different light if nothing else and the view from West Cliff is always rather nice.

New bike

I decided to part-ex my nine year old BT1100 for a smaller and lighter XSR700.
This is a traditional styled but very modern bike base on the MT-07.
Surprisingly brisk acceleration and very sweet handling and gear shifts.

Anyway this is the second little run with it so still getting used to it and noting differences compared to other bikes.

Houlstons silage team

This job has been delayed by the weeks of fog and drizzle, but a very heavy crop when they got to it on 25th June.
The GoPro and Feiyu gimbal got some good shots but colour balance is still problematic in some scenes - especially into light - despite being set at 5600 it sometimes looks magenta to me?
While this is easy to correct it's difficult to change during a scene.
There was added complication from the green tinted windows but I fixed that fine while leaving a hint of the effect deliberately.

I'm trialling Premier Pro CC 2015 but haven't been especially impressed over my stand alone older version. Some of the minor differences mainly seem plain annoying until you get used to it.
It has easier handling of LUTs built in though, which is especially good for Phantom 3  footage.

There's a longer version on the (4wdfarm) youtube account

Baling silage

This seems to have been a surprisingly popular video from last week - I think most of the hits are coming from related videos - there are a lot of silage making videos uploaded in June!

Blacksmiths Arms Swainby

Milburn Arms and Rosedale Abbey

I had a long standing invite to do some aerials here so with nice late spring weather and needing to go close by anyway it was ideal yesterday.

New housing and more at Malton

Rosedale with pickup and Hero4

Not done much with cameras the past two weeks due to bad back! It is definitely improving now and I could drive to Malton without undue discomfort today.
Came back the bumpy(!) scenic road by Rosedale and it was 17C so could hold gopro outside without freezing fingers off.

I did manage to go last week too and it was heavy snow at +1C over Blakey.

Sunny Sheep

This shows why a gimbal is highly desirable for a gopro!
Attaching to the bike is even worse - fixing on your head somehow is smoother.
This is just handheld, you think you are holding it still but the bike jiggles too much.

However with appropriate music you can almost 'use' the movement for a pop video feel. I think slowing some sequences right down like where the dog is alongside could be rather good.
 

Esk Valley market day run

This is coming back from Ruswarp after taking some sheep.
There's still half a dozen of last years lambs left!
Spent a surprisingly long time playing around with levels and white balance on this, at first it seemed decidedly 'red' but once uploaded it looks a bit green in parts to me?

Also there are times when too much sky is in frame which  made the exposure too dark e.g. looking down the railway line near start.
In Premiere you can tweak the levels just like photoshop but it then needs to be keyed into adjacent parts needing different treatment.

After spending about an hour editing then two hours rendering then 3 hours uploading, Youtube decided to stick at 95% processed for three hours.
I eventually uploaded it (another three hours) again and it went straight on. The first upload never did complete so deleted it

I'm not sure it was worth it but all good learning curve.

Westerdale wild daffodils

The Farndale daffodils are rightly famous, however they are commonplace alongside most of the North York Moors becks and rivers.
Hero 4 handheld,  Mostly 60fps slowed 50%

Exchanged Hero4 Black

I bought a GoPro Hero4 Black, in February - and have been mighty impressed with the video.
The stills are good too even taken as a screengrab later.
I'm still not quite decided if it's best to record everything flat and process later or let the camera do the processing.

When I do the grading it seems to look sepia tinted to me - but on auto things look too saturated and skies very cyan.
Like all previous cameras it will take a while to wok out what's best.
This has not been helped by the wifi being very temperamental from new so after a couple of weeks arranged to exchange it.

You kind of need wifi + the app, as in the interest of battery life and tiny size it doesn't have a screen other than a small front LCD which is mainly to show what mode it's in.
You can go into sub-menus on that but it's really hard to see and not backlit.
Replacement has only been here a few days so kind of starting over again and very busy just now with lambing and poor weather.

First one is with original cam that went back - still not 100% happy with this especially first part.
Do like the trees but wish I looked up!
From replacement last Sunday. And finally a screengrab still from 1080p video.
It can record at 4K which would given even better stills but the 4K files are huge and it runs very hot if in the case! I can cope with 4K from the Phantom 3 but for routine video shorts 1080p is enough.

Cropton

Had reason to visit Cropton this afternoon so took Phantom as I wanted to look at the castle earthworks from above for a while.

The light was disappointing though reasonably bright - still quite pleased with result.

Video looks a bit soft unless viewed at 1080p or higher, I think this is mostly just the hazy conditions, though perhaps additional contrast and sharpen would have helped

Drive to Ruswarp

Taking some 2015 lambs to Ruswarp Market on Monday.

The Hero4 performed pretty well and it's hard to fault the video quality except for a sort of bronze tint? Just can't seem to do away with that although it's not unattractive in some scenes it's a bit much.
The battery lasted there and back plus a brief wait, about two hours and still had probably 20 minutes left. At 1080p the 64GB card was almost 2/3 full.

I noticed it got very warm indeed in the waterproof case after running all that time, and could imagine on a hot day there would be problems.
I have a skeleton case coming soon and really should use the open back in this situation anyway.
I got a cheap frame case too but to me with that the lens looks a bit vulnerable to scratches if not careful.

It's not so much in use but during the annoyingly fiddly attachment process.
I already have an (SJ4000) mount on the rear view mirror stem - but boy is it fiddly to screw the gopro bolt thing behind there with minimal clearance.
An additional stem would help but also be a good way to get vibration.

Roadless

Hero4 with bike

I tried clamping the GoPro to the bars with limited success as it vibrated quite a bit, however I got some usable footage to edit later. It did surprisingly well at stills though - when taken off and pointed at stuff.

Run with new Hero 4

This came last week and it took a little while to get the best results from protune and flat profile!
I find white balance on auto is better for changing light conditions as it's too difficult to set manually unless you are doing a more or less static scene.
The dynamic range is infinitely better than the SJ4000 or indeed the Drift Ghost, also it shoots 4K so could be dovetailed with P3 footage.
Note in second video sometime sun is in frame but there is still a good exposure across the frame.
I'm using LUTS to get the basic look then mainly curves for any additional tweaks.

Snow video rehash

As usual a more considered version a few days later is better.

Ice Age retreat

The van and snowdrifts were real, glacial lake is photoshop ;)

Lion Inn car park, February 2005

Sun and snow again

The recent snow and strong(er) sunshine gave the chance to fly the phantom with the ND8 filter I bought late last year actually 'needed'.
 I found it creates a subtle colour cast but it was easily removed. For photos the shutter speed was rather on the slow side but still acceptable.

When processing the video I noticed a slight softness and added 10% sharpening to counteract it.
Usually I don't add any unless it's a low light scene.
Again it's not certain if this is due to the intended slower shutter or the dark glass is itself to blame - it is quite a 'good' one which directly replaces the original by screwing on.
Definitely not something to be using without good reason I think.

I was pleased with the video shot below freezing on Sunday.
At the top of the dale the data record revealed a 20mph wind coming down Esklets - it was calm here.
As with all these videos much better viewed on 1080p or higher if your connection permits.