Beach Beach Beach

Flying the drone over a beach.

Recently I have just got back from a holiday down in Dorset, I thought I would share with you some of the photos and footage I captured.

This was not a particularly difficult place to fly, the cliffs didn't cause much of a problem and the wind hitting the large flat surface didn't cause any odd turbulence. The only thing of note was an inquisitive seagull getting a little too close, at one point forcing me to take a sharp dive thus not to cause a plume of feathers and an expensive repair bill!

Flying along the cliff face:

This is the first video I took. I wanted to check how the drone would be effected by the wind and the turbulence the cliffs and jagged rocks would produce. I was looking to see if the drone drifted towards and away from the face both with my own eyes and also the video streamed back to the controller.

Beach fly over but with lens flare:

At first I was pretty annoyed that I missed the glaringly obvious lens flare but as I started to do a quick edit and colour correction to see if anything was salvageable I started to grow in it. I'll still show you if but nothing more than trial and error and what not to do!

Low level beach fly over:

After adjusting the angle and having a better look at the controller I gave it another shot.  This time I took a much lower altitude and a slight transversal line across the parallel lines of the crashing waves and the shore. It kind of looks like it was shot in a high frame rate then slowed down but in reality it was shot in 24 fps.

Looking down the beach fly over:

What about pointing the camera directly at the floor? What a good idea! (If I do say so myself).

So that is what I did, the effect looks pretty cool, the pebbly beach framed on one side by the green overgrown cliffs and the other flank with the calming summer waves gently meeting the shore.

Zoom up from an old fire pit:

Hey! did you see the fire pit at the start of the last video? Let's have that as the subject of this video!
Zooming straight up to about 100 meters with the cliff taking up more and more of the frame until the ocean breaks up the trend on the opposite side.
The twist in angle towards the end of the video was not of my command but rather caused by the unique winds coming off the top of the cliff.

Calming ocean waves:

This is the most relaxing and calming video out of the lot. The waves slowly breaking on the shore line again and again.

Throwing stone in to the ocean:

Finally why not get the friends who you went away on holiday with to be in a video! In hindsight I should have flown a little higher or further forward to get more of the ocean in frame.

Photos:

A few quick snaps in between longer flights:

The first photos had similar properties to the lens flare video, again not something that I planned and I totally didn't see it on the controller!

A much better photo, slightly lower in elevation and this got rid of most of the glare.  I particularly like the vanishing point dead centre that disappears down the length of the coast almost asking for you to explorer a little bit further. The clouds to the top right also look interesting combined with the breaking waves on the shore.

The photo below was from the same location just a different morning. The moody atmosphere, muted colours and blended non-defined horizon line combine to produce a very calming and tranquil scene.

Behind the scenes:

Once again my lovely assistant (who might I add was also chilling out on the beach) took a few snaps of the drone flapping round.