Primbee Quickie

Flying Dutchman said..
Here's the latest instalment of the Primbee Speedsailing sessions I've been filming. This was the culmination of 2 days of sailing footage with the second day almost being too strong for the Phantom 4 with winds gusting to 40 knots + most of the day. It softened to 30 -35 knots gusts late in the arvo and I was keen to get footage so launched the drone to see how it would handle the wind.

The biggest issue with flying in those winds is the wobbly camera gimbal & not being able to keep up with the sailors. For every minute I got of relatively stable footage I must have 5 of wobbly stuff that I couldn't use. I would film someone for 30 seconds and there would be 4 - 5 seconds in there of stable footage to weed out. Makes it a test of patience when filming there were heaps of times I was following someone at 40 knots getting close in on the action and then the camera has a hissy fit and I'm flying the thing a few metres away from someone flying almost blind....that's when I hit the ejector button and head for the clouds!

Filming the speed stuff is harder than wavesailing because you fly the drone at full throttle the whole time so it's hard to set up for a shot. It's like trying to drive a car with finesse with foot planted on the gas pedal the whole time. The acceleration of the sailors going downwind is too much for the drone....there were a few times I would set up behind a sailor on a broad reach and then a gust would hit, the sailor would bear off and BAM they were gone the drone just didn't have the acceleration to keep up and I'd be left behind flooring it trying to catch up but not being able to as the sailor is hitting 41 - 42 knots with drone maxing at 40. Therefore a tip for speedsailors for the future if you have a drone following you on a broad reach and you get a gust try to bear off with less aggression so drone has chance of staying with you.

There's some good shots in the video and there are some that I'm not stoked with however I was impatient and wanted to get a video out so I just edited with what I had. I came home last night at 9pm and sat at the computer till 7am because I was loving the editing process and some of the footage looked awesome on my 5K 27" computer screen. Try to watch the video in 4K, it won't let you in Safari but the other browsers I think should work.

Anyway hope you enjoy the vid,

Cheers,
Paul.

Reflex Films said..











That sounds super challenging.i wonder if an inspire 2 could make shooting in those conditions a lot less emotional.

Some really great shots in there- shooting in sports mode on the p4 is incredibly difficult and twitchy- (do you dial or your gains back and max out expo?) so you did well- interesting to get some insight into the shoot to edit ratio.

I reckon just a little bit of ground footage and some audio / story/ - like the background of the weather chase, a few sound grabs from the local characters- sprinkled in (the opposite of my ratio where i sprinkle in drone footage to lots of ground shots and audio) could add some layers and help it to go next level

But it looks like you are getting tons of eyeballs already so i could very well be wrong!

eckas said..
Hi Paul,

Thought you'd be interested in this perspective of the epic westerleys on Thursday and Friday. This is from the water height metre that is tucked down the bottom end of the speed strip, apparently in a small canal within the caravan park. The water height goes 'fuzzy' and erratic in the strong westerleys (22nd, 23rd). You can also see the 25-30cm normal tidal rise and fall every 6-7 hours, but then there's a macro water level effect overlaid over a much longer time period. It explains well why the water was so high (and choppy) for much of Friday, but then dropped fairly quickly and dramatically to reveal some semi-smooth goodness towards the end of your filming sessions on Thursday and Friday afternoon. For reference, 0.25m in height is approximately where water level is lapping the end copper log. It's now super deep!