Six months-ish with the Mavic Air

I bought my Mavic Air drone at the wrong time of the year, about October last year. Wrong time meaning that like all digital cameras, the one on this aircraft likes light.

Rather like Baldrick, much maligned sidekick of Blackadder, I had a cunning plan. Learn to fly the drone, learn to do good video with the drone and make a bit of money by providing aerial video and stills with the drone.

My first outing left me shaking. This isn't a cheap piece of kit to put up there and despite the auto take off and landing feature (which I no longer use), there is so much craving your attention.

Compare this to the ones below.

Your phone screen (which is plugged into your remote controller, gives you the drone's eye video feed. Also on the screen are lots of important pieces of information, one being the battery status, as one of the things you don't want is to have the drone at a distance away from you with not enough power to return. I now know how the guys on the Apollo missions felt.

I have to be honest and say the learning curve has been a long and slow one, both from a photographer's point of view and that of pilot of what is a small unmanned aircraft.

With all the bad press dones have been getting, such as the Heathrow disruption earlier this year, it seems to be a no go on drones.

I observe the drone code, which includes not flying over 400 feet high, keeping it in line of sight and not flying close to buildings or over people.

Actually, people are a bit of a problem. "Is that legal" is a question I've been asked about half a dozen times this past few months, when minding my own business out in open spaces.

Before I flew in our arboretum, I checked with Walsall council, I checked and had it confirmed in writing that as long as I follow the code, I could fly over any of the borough's green spaces. Add to this, the fact, that very sophisticated software built into the device, if I was attempting to fly in a restricted airspace, I either get a warning to fly with caution or, if within a prohibited area the aircraft simply won't take off. Note those bolded words. You can fly in a restricted space, there are guides both online and those which are fed you by the flight software.

Incidentally, the software also keeps a flight plan and in some cases, uploads your plans to your account in the cloud.

I impart this information to piss on the stories that came out with the Heathrow drone causes closure stories which I dismissed as total pap.

I won't bone on as to why I reckon the reports on those sightings were utter bollocks, but there were just too many holes in the story and certainly no evidence to support the hysteria.

As the months have passed, I've become stronger both with flying skills and videography. Like I said, I don't use auto land any more, having developed skills that allow me to bring it in close manually, then down stick and the device senses the ground beneath it and will land.

Easter Sunday, I ventured to pastures anew. From down by Lidl and not crossing on to the church grounds, I did a really nice piece of video of St. Matthews church.

Posted it online and received praise from locals and the church itself, who asked if I could help out by conducting an aerial survey of the roof prior to work.

I said yes, but come the hour, I found myself shaking. Firstly, it's an expensive bit of kit to be flying so close to such an ancient building, all those bits of architecture sticking up. Also, it was pretty windy that Sunday morning, which didn't help.

I didn't do too badly, I didn't clip any of that fine old architecture, despite the wind up there making the Mavic wobble about a bit.

They were pleased with the result ans asked if I would go up there with the angels to to a post work survey. Results of which discovered some work missed and a carelessly discarded coffee mug. I didn't share the video with the world at large, because I didn't want people to think you can just fly a device so close to a structure and get away with it. I was working with permission, but strictly still in breach of the drone code.

All I can say, is that after the initial survey, I was shaking for over two hours. The second one was a little less fraught and taught me that you learn from these experiences.

Only a week later, a new challenge presented itself when my employer asked if I could do some video of the inside of our 100,000 square foot warehouse.

Now the roof is quite high and the front area at least is free of obstruction. But these devices are designed to fly outdoors, using GPS from as many satellites it can find, to help keep it positioned, say in windy conditions. No such location fixing luxury inside a large metal structure.

Cutting a long story short, the bloody thing flew like a dream, using its downward sensors to measure distance from the ground, making flying it an enjoyable experience.

The Mavic Air is a magnificent piece of flying kit, but whilst its almost sentient technology keeps it where you want it, you still have a ruck of control options to ensure you keep control.

I'd equate flying it to that old patting the top of your head whilst rubbing your belly and then you need an extra hand.

You're keeping an eye on the screen of whatever is plugged in to your remote controller. This can be a phone or a tablet.

You're controlling its physical action with your controller and of course concentrating on your photo or video content.

Then you have your heart stopping moments, when your screen informs you connection lost.

The manufacturers say in their blurb that the device has in ideal conditions, a range of I think it was 2 kilometres. I've lost connection at about 700 feet (see what I did there) ? The bloody thing also landed and so I had to use the info from the map to walk towards its reported position and pick it up. Fortunately, it didn't put down the other side of any fences or hedges.

Whilst the connection is in the main reliable, you do have to learn to deal with it by learning the settings in the software. As long as you've set it so, after so many seconds of disconnection, the device will return to its take off point which should be close to you. Of course unchecked it could also hover or land as did mine.

I encountered another learning curve on Sunday, when I decided to use the early morning sunshine and fly in the arboretum. I won't say I'm not nervous of sending it over water, but I decided I wanted to capture the tethered swans on the lake.

No, the parkies aren't mistreating the wildlife. These are the rather majestic pedalos shaped like swans, tethered in the middle of the lake when the boat house is closed.

There are special flight modes built in to the device, such as circle, helix and rocket. you lock on to the object of interest, engage the chosen feature and let the aircraft do the rest. I was pleased with the result, but there was a distinct lack of contrast with the bright sun on the white swan bodies.

So now, I have to invest in some filters for it and they ay cheap. I think a simple polarising filter would have paid dividends on this mission.

I'm on holiday all this wee and have the loan of a reliable vehicle, but my plans to either travel to somewhere like the Pystill Rheadr in Wales (the highest waterfall they have) or, Cheddar gorge or even a long deserted beach, it's rained every day thus literally pissing on my plans.

A fun feature the Mavic Air has, is a sports mode. Engage that and watch the thing pissball across the sky. Not exactly good for photography or battery longevity, but certainly fun.

This aircraft is an amazing piece of kit with a decent camera and three axis gimbal on board. The next model up at around £ 1500 has a Hasselblad camera with a 1" sensor on board, I won't be going for that, unless someone, well several parties ring me up and ask me to make them a promo video.