[MaineLotus]

 

[SCamper]

Hi.

Nice video. I love things shot from a drone.

Alex

 

[SwingLo]

Wow, that's really cool.

Honest question - how does this all come together? Did you guys hire/friend someone who flies a drone camera? What is the camera tethered to? A plane? A RC plane? A bald eagle?

This brings a whole new level to automotive video stuff. Tons of possibilities.

Oh, and that yellow car was following way too close to the grey one.

Since Obama, Google, Zuckerberg and Dr. Evil all own and monitor this technology, you can expect 417 citations to be coming your way!

 

[MaineLotus]

Here's the copter that was used. Two man crew, one flying and the other controlling video. Apparently the crew was in the canyons and wanted to shoot the cars for the purpose of adding footage to their portfolio (professionals, do this for a living).

 

[bri3d]

That looks like a DJI Spreading Wings with a DJI A2 flight controller.

DJI stuff is spendy but I really do think it's the best out-of-the-box multirotor drone gear you can get today.

Some people also buy off-the-shelf parts and DIY it. There are a couple of open-source flight control projects that run on cheap flight control boards (ArduCopter, MultiWiiCopter, OpenPilot, etc.) that can be made to work pretty well and cost a lot less than the DJI gear.

 

[komiko]

way way cool.

 

[luxige]

All the top drawer real estate brokers are using low-aerial videos like this one to market large estates.

 

[MaineLotus]

That looks like a DJI Spreading Wings with a DJI A2 flight controller.

DJI stuff is spendy but I really do think it's the best out-of-the-box multirotor drone gear you can get today.

Some people also buy off-the-shelf parts and DIY it. There are a couple of open-source flight control projects that run on cheap flight control boards (ArduCopter, MultiWiiCopter, OpenPilot, etc.) that can be made to work pretty well and cost a lot less than the DJI gear.

It is, a S800 Evo. I think the whole setup is roughly $20k.

 

[sturgeongeneral]

Absolutely awesome! We need the GGLC to buy one! Please take note Kioshi!

 

[lotusfun]

Drones (aerial views in general) give such an awesome view of things

 

[<@¿@>]

That's why it's called a "Bird's eye view".

 

[shay2nak]

man, y'all parked right up to the edge.

 

[SwingLo]

Ok, so now that we know what the technology is...

It needs to be put to good use.

Like drone shots of nekkid beaches.

Just sayin'...

 

[ItsThaMonsta]

Ok, so now that we know what the technology is...

It needs to be put to good use.

Like drone shots of nekkid beaches.

Just sayin'...

Planets sometimes align and we agree.

 

[LotusGuy48]

Would like to have seen some more driving footage rather than the two cars just sitting there on the edge of the cliff.

 

[sprocket3]

There is a cool documentary on Netflix about drones. It's worth the hour.

 

[SwingLo]

Would like to have seen some more driving footage rather than the two cars just sitting there on the edge of the cliff.

It's the first half of the video.

 

[SwingLo]

This could actually be an interesting business endeavor. There are car and bike groups that do drives all the time - from scenic Harley cruises to Ferrari guy spirited drives (to the stuff we do).

In addition, track days have photographers. Tail of the Dragon has Killboy. There's also that guy in London that does the youtube videos of the oil guys racing their Zondas around Knightsbridge during 'Ramadan Mardi Gras'

Would be cool do to engage this as some sort of service. For example, I'd LOVE to have this sort of view of a track day I'm participating in. Or what about filming of a spirited drive? Not sure of cost, but if there were say 15 cars on a spirited drive, everyone pitches in $20 and drone guys do their drone thing.

That would be REALLY cool. Wedding photographer? Nope. Drone guy motorsports photographer for hire! Now I gotta find someone who does that.

 

[bri3d]

That would be REALLY cool. Wedding photographer? Nope. Drone guy motorsports photographer for hire! Now I gotta find someone who does that.

I was going to start a company doing exactly this, but there are two problems:

1) It's technically illegal to take money to fly one -it's a "hobby" or "model" aircraft until you take money, when the FAA says it's a "real" aircraft and goes after you for flying without a license.

2) Jokers keep crashing them, and so they're getting explicitly banned a lot - I know that at least one Colorado track (HPR) banned them explicitly and I think that SCCA here did too (not sure if it was a local or national decision).

With that being said a lot of people go under the radar for 1 and get away with it - plenty of TV and commercials are filmed using drones already. Only one person has gotten a fine so far and they won in court (although it's in appeals). A lot more have gotten cease and desist letters but they generally ignore them.

Getting an "aerial photography" company to film a Lotus meet could be really cool!

 

[mr.woolery]

That's some pretty impressive aerial photography there! I have a drone/camera and couldn't possibly do a vid of that quality...once edited it really pops, too.

I'd love to see a service like that available locally.