Droning on

I bought a drone. Actually I bought two but one's going back as it was huge and crap.

Anyone who knows me, will be aware that for the past four years or so, I've been making promotional videos as part of my job.

Did I tell you I made two with Alan Titchmarsh and David Domoney on location with Love your Garden?

I've learned a lot about shooting video and the things that make them look more professional than they are (some of which remain my little secret).

So, I made my decision to move my skills a step further and get myself into aerial photography. For that you either need an aeroplane, a helicopter an airship or a drone. The first three, I've no room to keep them at the flat, but a drone is a distinct possibility.

The first one, seemed to do all I wanted. Auto take off and land, decent camera with a gimbal etc. When it turned up, it was enormous and seemed to be made of brittle plastic which, for something that by purpose is going to hit the deck more than once seems to be a design error.

Also, the carrier fucked up the delivery, having to have four goes at delivering, finally managing it on the fifth.

Saying that, a different carrier bringing the second one. must have been from the same strain of fuckwit, managing not only to leave the item at a flat several floors below me, the occupants of which I don't know from Adam, but they put the "you missed our delivery" card through completely the wrong door and put the wrong flat number on it.

My neighbour, thinking the parcel was for her went down to the wrong stranger's flat and then found it at another stranger's flat and saw it wasn't for her after all.

Well done DPD for winning the piss filled clown shoe award for 2018.

Anyway, the drone finally in my possession is pretty amazing and I've not flown it yet.

The build quality, the finish and the promise of what it can do. It's got more sensors on it that the Starship Enterprise so when it is flying, it will avoid collision with large objects like trees, cars, fences and possibly people.

It will return to you if the battery starts to fail. It will take 4k video and high quality stills. It will follow your hand gestures if you wish to convince people you have the power of the Jedi and it will follow you either behind or at your side at the altitude you set.

To pay for it, I have to seek weekend freelance work beginning next year. I've a few ideas there to hopefully claw back a bit towards the rather high cost.

I've reviewed quite a few videos and am convinced I made the right choice. I even last night, managed to link the drone to the remote and my phone to both and get all the right beeps and lights going.

As it's classed as an aircraft, it has all the proper flashing lights on and when I said it's smaller then the brittle plastic one, I mean considerably so. It comes with a case that's only a little larger than a pencil case

In future posts, expect video and a detailed review of how easy or difficult to fly.

I won't be sending it out over the arboretum lake quite yet. Despite its advanced technology, it probably wouldn't float and it certainly isn't waterproof.

Changing the subject, I had a day of sorting problems the other day. Paul the boss noticed this and said in front of everybody "Now we know who ate all the blue Smarties", which cracked everyone up. They are a bunch of dry bones I work amongst.

It all makes for a lot of laughter in our office.