Into the wind

Hi All...sorry for the delay in posting.

I believe last time I left you in Colac, hoping that client and/or subject would get back to me re the shoot. They did. Shooting the next morning would be fine. I settled in for the night and crossed my fingers that the weather would be kind to me.

I should probably explain why the weather was so important. Obviously, with every shoot the weather can have a large impact on the final result. In this case, the weather could determine whether the shoot actually happens at all. Prior to booking the job a close eye had been kept on the forecast to determine optimum conditions...the big factor was wind. A large component of the shoot was aerial...using my DJI Mavic Pro. Drone photography/videography is much better and considerably easier in calm conditions.

I awoke to a sunny morning...the tops of the trees were swaying, but not whipping around like they had been last night. Phew! Relief. Time to check out, head off to find some breakfast and fill in the time until the shoot...an hour or so.

A lot can change in an hour. By the time I was getting out of the swish BMW at the shoot location, the wind had picked up considerably. I was a bit concerned...I had never flown in winds this strong (and that wasn't counting the gusts). Would the the little Mavic cope? 

The subject was a sporting field...I needed to get fairly high to achieve an overall shot...and hopefully some video. It didn't take long to realise that video was out. The poor little Mavic was getting severely battered (any vision would just make the viewer motion sick), the GPS was working overtime to maintain position and during gusts was getting blown downwind. Flying upwind became impossible. At one point the camera gimbal locked up as it was desperately trying to point in the right direction. A new strategy was needed if I was going to get the required shots.

I landed, replaced the battery and took my aircraft for a walk. I went about 750m upwind with the idea of re-launching, gaining altitude quickly, clearing the nearby buildings and letting the wind move me toward the target. Success! My idea worked...there wasn't a large window of opportunity...I managed to fire off a series of stills before quickly bringing the drone back to earth before it could be blown into the neighbouring housing estate (I wouldn't have been able to fly it back into the wind).

I managed some low altitude footage around the running track, got more stills (using a more traditional camera) packed up and hit the road back to Melbourne. Colac had been a bit of a challenge.

I was given another shoot in Melbourne that afternoon (again including aerials). A couple of hours and a 150+ kilometres can make a world of difference...the weather was perfect for flying.

Until next time...