My first planned video from The Old Man of Coniston in the English Lake District.  Any comments welcome, good or bad.  I've been a stills photographer for many years, which is what I bought my P3P for, but I'm finding aerial video too irresistable to ignore...

Hi Nigel great video how lucky are we to have so much to film in our great country watching it has made we want to get my phantom 3 as soon as possible. Have you had any problems with any updates I no a few people have and are you running apple or android .

It amazes me on the  huge variety of the videos here,   A cheap way to travel without a passport, LOL    Nice job! Very interesting site,  do you  have any historical information regarding  you subject?

Wenney Posted at 2015-10-13 23:32
Hi Nigel great video how lucky are we to have so much to film in our great country watching it has m ...

Thanks, no problems with any updates at all.  I'm using an iPad mini 2

CaveDrone Posted at 2015-10-13 23:43
It amazes me on the  huge variety of the videos here,   A cheap way to travel without a passport, LO ...

I've a fair bit of info on it from a forum, a book & my own explorations.  Where to start?  The mines were last worked in the 1950's but are literally centuries old.  Here're some selfies I took last year inside the ones in the video...






I'm currently thinking of ways to light the mines enough to fly & film inside, but it would need a massive amount of light  to work well & it's not exactly accessible being halfway up a mountain!

Wow, Massive!  The selfies were a great idea, otherwise there wouldn't any point of reference to which a viewer could get a sense of scale.  The slate looks somewhat unstable,  scary...   What was slate used for?  I get that Pool tables, flooring perhaps,  but for centuries.  Please excuse my ignorance,  I am from the "New World" LOL

CaveDrone Posted at 2015-10-14 12:07
Wow, Massive!  The selfies were a great idea, otherwise there wouldn't any point of reference to whi ...

Slate was mostly used for roofing in Europe.  These days most houses in the Europe use manufactured tiles, but almost all houses used to have slate tiles up until around the first world war.  Many older houses still have slate though because it's so durable, but also because planning regulations mean many older slate roofs have to be replaced with original materials.

Very nice. The P3Ps do work good.

Hi Nigel

What a co-incidence. I was there with some friends doing some 4 wheeling, 2-9th October. We visited Honister slate mine and did some climbing. Some of them also scaled the Old Man.

Here's a very quickly edited video I shot overlooking Coniston...

Is that Grizedale?  I've never been there but looks like where it is looking at the background.  I wish I could get up the mountains in a 4x4 rather than having to walk up every time.  No doubt the "Friends of the Lake District" would have something to say about it though!

The fog shots are REALLY great.  Thanks

Thanks...they're actually low-flying clouds

nigelwilkins Posted at 2015-10-14 21:54
Is that Grizedale?  I've never been there but looks like where it is looking at the background.  I w ...

Yes, just South West of Grizedale. There's some brilliant tracks in the Lake District that you can legally drive, such as the one in my vid.. You can get to some great places for flying.

nigelwilkins Posted at 2015-10-14 08:31
I've a fair bit of info on it from a forum, a book & my own explorations.  Where to start?  The min ...

Wow amazing place to film and photograph,

I am interested to see the images or film from a flight inside the mines if you get the guts to do it as it will definitely take some to fly inside a mine partially lit and all manual controls as i doubt there is any GPS signal down there.

Please post if you do or have already flown inside the mine

Rather evocative old boy! Great mix of sound and imagery.

Speedbird1 Posted at 2016-5-11 14:52
Rather evocative old boy! Great mix of sound and imagery.

Thanks! I appreciate it.

Shaun_au Posted at 2016-5-11 14:21
Wow amazing place to film and photograph,

I am interested to see the images or film from a flight ...

Not done inside the mine yet, although it keeps entering my head.

I've managed to fly my P3 carrying a 412g camera underneath, so it shouldn't be difficult to carry a good sized lamp under there.  That chamber is the darkest place on Earth & swallows light extremely efficiently!

Here's a GoPro video of my first trip into the mine using a reasonably powerful bike light.  This is into the top of the chamber, where it breaks through the tunnel above that I'm standing in.  Fast forward to 9:18

Nice one Nigel - You really captured the feel of the place !

GM01 Posted at 2016-5-11 18:20
Nice one Nigel - You really captured the feel of the place !

Thanks.  It took several visits to get to know the place.

Very nice, and great drone control, very smooth!!

helidan Posted at 2016-5-11 19:33
Very nice, and great drone control, very smooth!!

The secret was waypoints & lots & lots of editing.  It's very frustrating trying to get smooth control!

Lovely Nigel, really nice work. Particularly like the climbing shot halfway through and the wider view from further away. The clouds add an eerie, forgotten landscape feeling to the video. Hard editing cloud though, what kind of post production did you have to do? Much colour correction?

Btw, I've recently started using Autopilot for use with the P3. Takes a while to learn but is really effective for getting smooth shots with a constant focal point.

ARM-001 Posted at 2016-5-11 21:07
Lovely Nigel, really nice work. Particularly like the climbing shot halfway through and the wider vi ...

Thanks.

No post processing at all!  All done on auto settings.  I was concentrating on smooth flying more than anything & also keeping sight of the aircraft through the moving cloud.  It wasn't long after I'd bought the P3, so I was still on a very steep part of the learning curve.  I've only recently learned the downside of using auto white balance with video (I'm used to shooting RAW stills where white balance is irrelevant).

I might start using 3rd party apps now I've got the hang of it, although to be honest, I'm more interested in stills than video.  The problem is video's so addictive it's hard to put down.

Lol, I've just clocked the date of your first post! Thought it was a recent one - doh!

ARM-001 Posted at 2016-5-11 22:06
Lol, I've just clocked the date of your first post! Thought it was a recent one - doh!

Haha...can't get too much publicity!

Good job Nigel. Very 'moody'. I loved it.

Homestead72 Posted at 2016-5-11 23:07
Good job Nigel. Very 'moody'. I loved it.

Cool, thanks.

nigelw Posted at 2016-5-12 02:55
The secret was waypoints & lots & lots of editing.  It's very frustrating trying to get smooth con ...

But you've done well. I thought the controls were great. And you did a good job (this is where others so quickly fail) of editing out any jerky motions you may have experienced. We all have them, but leaving them in the video ruins them, in my opinion.

Someone said above that the P3Ps do a good job. I have to say that in this case, it was the photographer that did the good job: great eye, knowledge of the material, practiced controls, and skillful editing!

Chris

Not A Speck Of  Posted at 2016-5-11 23:43
But you've done well. I thought the controls were great. And you did a good job (this is where oth ...

Thanks!  If I can get my head through the door I'll make some more soon!