Capturing The "Before" From The Air - Exciting Drone Tech

It is a funny thing with projects, you get so absorbed in them and when they are done, it is hard to imagine what things were like before you did them. A new bathroom we did at home looked beautiful after it was completed, and it was impossible to really imagine how poor it looked before hand. I always get too focussed on getting the job finished and forget to record the "before" - focussing far too much on the "after". 

I was determined, given I missed the 2019 winter season for planting (thanks to incompetent Estate Agents - yes, that is you Simon Blyth in Kirkburton), that I had time to pause and document everything prior to planting in 2020. Obviously photo's are fairly easy to take from the ground and Google is a good resource for other angles, but I felt some arial footage would be useful. 

My friends with hot air balloons are a little weather dependent and Covid19 has scuppered much of their flying this year but Drones work well at low heights and so I put a request into a Facebook group for willing drone pilots and a chap by the name of Nick Ford replied. 

Nick came to visit in late June 2020, all the way from Retford, with a DJI Mavic 2 Zoom drone that believe it or not, fitted into the pannier of his motorcycle. 

It was a lovely still summer evening (you can see us on the video if you look carefully - by my van in the top right hand corner of the field where I built the parking area) and Nick took some amazing footage and was kind enough to allow me to use it and edit it as I saw fit. It didn't need a lot of editing though as the footage was soo good. 

I can't wait to see how it looks in 5 or 10 or 20 years - and to see what magic the drones can perform by then. Until then we have a great historical record of the "before". Thank you so much Nick. 











Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tallywhacker Wood - Open for Business

Image
 So, September 2nd was a bit of a milestone for the project. We both named the field, and also officially opened the permissive paths. It was a big deal for me - so I made a big deal of it - and invited some family and friends to come and make a day of it with a picnic.  The weather was hugely kind and my friends/neighbours/family were also hugely kind. The sun showed up and so did lots of lovely people. We even had family here from Australia.  We did a little picnic-ing , a little wine drinking, a lot of chatting and a bit of tree planting.  I had , in recent weeks dug in and installed some signage (see previous blog entry) to mark the new paths and confirm the field naming. It was the first time most visitors had seen them so it was nice that we could do all of this on one sunny day.  My parents performed the ribbon cut and officially named the wood and opened the paths.  So it was great to have moved onto to a new phase in the projects life - it feels as...
Read more

Naming Signing & Paths

Image
  So, in what seems like a decent milestone, the project now has an "official" name.  I give you, "Tallywhacker Wood". A name suggested by a swimmy friend Kate, I think it rolls of the tongue rather well. No fnar. Absolutely no fnar.  As soon as it was suggested by Kate (after asking a group of friends for suggestions) it stuck, and it was, I think, meant to be. So that is that, job done.  As for the signage, well that is ongoing. I constructed a signage board which I am happy with, and went with a home printed/laminated A4 sheet and some A6 images for the fence post signing. This I was also happy with, until I visited again 3 weeks later and found all the colour is fading extremely rapidly from the home inkjet printing and in another 3 weeks I suspect it will be invisible.  A local printer has suggested using the same material as is used on outdoor printed banners. I am going to try this, hopefully the resolution is high enough and it should at least be fade re...
Read more

We Benched - And Made Schrödinger's Bench

Image
 Having purchased twelve railway sleepers four years ago "for making things" and so far, having used only two (for gateposts) and sold two, they were really getting in the way and given "benches" were one of the original plans for them, I felt I had better crack on.  I had one sleeper cut into three bits (to make legs) years ago, after that it was just the headache of getting them on site, notching bits out of the top sleeper so it sat nicely and them concreting them in.  Given it is tricky moving a sleeper around on your own, I was very lucky to have my friend Mr Peaches to assist me for the final install. And he did a great job.  There is now a nice spot to sit and enjoy the view. Or rest on the way up the hill.  Productivity always declines when the Sky Dog is on site.
Read more