I mean it's almost cheating because the location and scenery are so spectacular, but I'm super impressed with what I can easily produce with Kermit the Spark!

Also here are the photos:

Forgot one:

WOW! From the Spark??!! Amazing!

A CW Posted at 2018-1-3 09:39
WOW! From the Spark??!! Amazing!

Yep, all Spark, and in Auto because I'm a camera settings newb at this point.

The location itself and the beautiful weather did most of the work!

Firehawk989 Posted at 2018-1-3 10:12
Yep, all Spark, and in Auto because I'm a camera settings newb at this point.

The location itself and the beautiful weather did most of the work!

Very impressive! Sometimes you can play around with the settings too much and mess it up. This is an excellent example of what the drone can achieve by simply flying it at the right place and right time. Well done!

Great stuff!  I was to Mt. Baker once, such a beautiful area!

Two questions though.....I don't remember seeing the vent in the video, does Mt. Baker still vent?  When I was last there, 15 years ago, you could see the steam coming up....I don't recall seeing that in the video, but possibly you were on another part of the mountain.

Second, how were you able to use Metallica in your video?  That was such as cool song choice, but whenever I've tried to use music like that my video is not allowed.

Great job!

Cheers...

Todd in Chicago

Absolutely awesome, thank you very much for sharing! Just one hint for the future videos. In the beginning a number of your turns have been pretty fast, later it was perfect. You have two options here. Either go in tripod mode right away (helps a lot already) and/or reduce the speed in your RC settings in DJI GO 4. Nevertheless a spectacular video and I still find it hard to believe that all this is truly possible with our little Spark.

Very crisp

Todd in Chicago Posted at 2018-1-3 14:20
Great stuff!  I was to Mt. Baker once, such a beautiful area!

Two questions though.....I don't remember seeing the vent in the video, does Mt. Baker still vent?  When I was last there, 15 years ago, you could see the steam coming up....I don't recall seeing that in the video, but possibly you were on another part of the mountain.

Thanks!

I actually didn't know that Baker was still actively venting steam on occasion. I googled it and apparently it still does, but the view of Baker you are seeing in the video is of the Northeast flank which is less commonly photographed compared to the more iconic views of the West flanks from the Fraser Valley or Bellingham areas. It's also possible it just wasn't venting at this point. The other prominent peak you see in the video is Mt. Shuksan, which is apparently the other most photographed mountain in this area due to its spectacular rugged appearance. All of this footage was acquired approximately in-between those two peaks near Artist Point and a couple other spots.

As for the Metallica, I didn't do anything special, just embedded it into the movie when I was editing it together. Perhaps YouTube will figure it out and block it but I hope not, as I think the song works really well with the video! Maybe we here in Canada have different YouTube song rights than you do in America?

Wachtberger Posted at 2018-1-3 14:41
Absolutely awesome, thank you very much for sharing! Just one hint for the future videos. In the beginning a number of your turns have been pretty fast, later it was perfect. You have two options here. Either go in tripod mode right away (helps a lot already) and/or reduce the speed in your RC settings in DJI GO 4. Nevertheless a spectacular video and I still find it hard to believe that all this is truly possible with our little Spark.

Thanks for the tips!

I noticed this myself and maybe I should've cut those fast pans out, but for having 5 flights under my belt and for my first ever Spark video I'm still pretty happy!

I'm definitely going to try turning the stick sensitivity down as I had to make absolutely tiny stick movements to get those slow pans. One question I have about this is will reducing the stick sensitivity also reduce the overall movement speed of the aircraft when the stick is moved to 100%? I don't want to lose forward speed for example if I turn down the sensitivity.

For Todd:

Photo 1 is Mt. Shuksan, photos 3 and 6 are Mt. Baker.

When you reduce the sensitivity settings the movement of the drone will greatly decrease causing it to fly really slow as if you were flying it in tripod mode.

Some great shots in there! What a beautiful area.

I love Mt. Baker - never been there in the winter! Really nice looking footage, I've been really impressed with the  video quality of the Spark, despite it's small camera and the lack of 4k! It's just too bad you can't save stills as DNG instead of JPEG.

Firehawk989 Posted at 2018-1-3 18:15
Thanks for the tips!

I noticed this myself and maybe I should've cut those fast pans out, but for having 5 flights under my belt and for my first ever Spark video I'm still pretty happy!

Yes, it will also reduce the flight speed. But you can adjust it during flight before and after filming. And your video is nevertheless excellent indeed!

Thanks everyone! Glad you enjoyed the footage. I'll be working on my camera skills for sure, since that's the main reason for purchasing this little guy. Eventually I may want to upgrade to a Mavic or P4P and start using the platform to make a little money on the side if I can get a commercial operator license.

Mt Baker really is an amazing place in the winter; it's one of my favorite places to ski because it's stunningly beautiful, easy to access, and it gets tons of snow!

Awesome pictures! I am hoping to bring my spark on a backcountry ski trip to Canada later this year. How did it do in the cold?

dlewinsohn18 Posted at 2018-1-4 12:31
Awesome pictures! I am hoping to bring my spark on a backcountry ski trip to Canada later this year. How did it do in the cold?

Thanks!

My first 2 flights were at -15c and it handled that no problem, but that was straight our of a warm car, not sitting in a backpack during a day of touring. The flights above were more like -2 to -5c or so, and it didn't complain about that either. In this case it was in my pack all day.

Get the gimbal cover, remote stick protector, and the landing legs from Amazon which attach the same way as the propeller guards and give a nice wide stance. All this stuff together allows you to stuff the spark and its accessories into the fly more combo bag without the worry of squishing/breaking anything while it's jammed in your day pack.

Firehawk989 Posted at 2018-1-4 12:49
Thanks!

My first 2 flights were at -15c and it handled that no problem, but that was straight our of a warm car, not sitting in a backpack during a day of touring. The flights above were more like -2 to -5c or so, and it didn't complain about that either. In this case it was in my pack all day.

Thanks so much!

You're welcome!

These are the legs I'm talking about. They are the best as long as you don't plan to use the prop guards:

https://www.amazon.com/FSLabs-La ... izers/dp/B0742CPXW5

Absolutely stunning footage!

Though I am curious, was this taken outside of the official Mount Baker Wilderness designated area? If not, technically this was illegal. Just watching out for a fellow Sparker, would hate to see someone get fined, get their AC confiscated, or contribute to tightening of regulations. None of us want to be choked out of our amazing hobby by regulations.

You can check where designated wilderness areas are on this handy map:
http://www.wilderness.net/map

"UAS are considered to be both “motorized equipment” and “mechanical transport” as such they cannot take off from, land in, or be operated from congressionally designated Wilderness Areas."
https://www.fs.fed.us/science-te ... ems/responsible-use

Thanks a lot for that heads-up; I was not aware of this restriction! You had me worried until I took a real close look at the wilderness boundary. Fortunately there is a nice little jog in the boundary that excludes the Mt Baker Ski Area, most of Table Mtn, and the Artist Point area which is where I got this footage. Whew! Definitely not looking to break any laws, much less contribute to increased regulation. Interesting that the DJI app doesn't list these wilderness areas as warning zones at the very least.

Looks like it's ok to fly over these areas as well, as long as you don't take off or land in them, or disturb wildlife or people.

The view is awesome. Thanks for your sharing.

Firehawk989 Posted at 2018-1-3 00:01
Also here are the photos:

https://static.rcgroups.net/forums/attachments/2/7/6/0/9/8/a10623605-76-DJI_0008.jpg[/img]

Nice shot !

Nice one keep it up