Why have a drone?

General Drone Discussion
22

Back in the seventies and eighties did any of you with nice properties get called on by people trying to sell you an aerial photograph of your spread?

The picture might well have been taken by me.

Skyview and General Ltd were our competitors, I worked for the other Leeeds based company, Views. S&G were the victors in a landmark lawsuit regarding airspace rights over private land:

I would shoot up to 70 36 exposure rolls of colour negative per day from a hired Cessna 152 or 172 and, in my time saw most of England, Scotland and Wales from a nominal 500 feet. (We often gave ourselves a discount and flew a little bit lower :slight_smile: )

Iā€™d trained as a photographer at Manchester Poly around the same time as Martin Parr and Dan Meadows who some of you may have heard of. I didnā€™t have the drive of either of those guys and ended up working in advertising before becoming involved in aerial snapping.

When we moved dahn sarf the work was still available but the paycheques seemed to get stuck in the post between Leeds and the South Coast. so, I got involved in computers instead.

Didgital photography came along. I invested Ā£500 in a 2megapixel Samsung with a 300mb microdrive. I now have around 15 various cameras to compete with the 10 or so film cameras i still hoard.

Early retirement due to my first heart attack and subsequent CABG meant a small amount of tax rebate coming my way. After days reading all I could and agonising over my decisions i bit the bullet and got a seconf hand Mavic Air, 6 batteries and hard case via eBay. It was three weeks before i nerved myself to to fly it.

The first flight was over something very level - water. It was fantastic!

Since then i have bought far more drones than anyone needs - Air 2, Mini 2, s900, s1000, F550, Inspire 1 - 4 of them but one drowned :frowning: - Phantom 3, Droidwork, Tarot, Vanguard, Matrice 210 , 3DR Solo and Iris and a couple more I canā€™t remember orbe arsed to go downstairs and and check. I have sold none but Iā€™m slowly steeling myself to do so so that I can get soom room space back.

tl;dr - drones and tech and photography keep me sane!

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23

One of my best mates & his parents did at lower Early Reading also at Twyford,
I remember the picture on each of their walls, did you pass over reading way rob in the 80ā€™s ?
I remember them saying some one that flys over in a plane or something takes Ariel pictures :+1:

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24

They sure did and but it was a general view of a the area rather than any "show-case+ type shot.
Got me wondering what the hell happened to it now. The shot covered a large area of the Loughor Estuary near the Gower in South Wales. Believe it was done by Skyview :man_facepalming: flying out of Fairwood airport on the Gower

25

My dad had an ariel photograph of his house (I think a farmer friend of his took it, he had an helicopter, poor farmers eh), he loved it, got me thinking when I retired I could earn some extra pocket money from taking ariel photographs, but these days more likely to incur the wrath of some Karen nor Ken, so I endeavour to stick well away.

26

thanks for that link, an interesting link + useful to list on a Karen + Ken informational leaflet

27

I ask people who complain about ā€œinvasion of privacy ā€œ to get the bus into the city and wander round the streets/ shopping centre for a few hours. Then come back and tell me how many times their image has been filmed. :wink::wink:

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28

a lot of similarity with many of the posters hereā€¦ After years employed and my last job (Lift Engineer) got more dangerous (single working in lift shafts or under the lift in the shaft etc) I started to get into building PCsā€¦ when that was worth doingā€¦ got into company with a set of small film producersā€¦ and then into photography with them. They actually used to hire helicopters and hang out of the open door with those massive Betacam camerasā€¦ after many years doing olo work got interested in access to scene impossible by hand camerasā€¦ Disastrous start with a Yuneec Breeze 4Kā€¦ Would lose control very suddenly and drift awayā€¦ etcā€¦ got a refund within 14 day period and got a Mini 2 comboā€¦ chalk and cheese although I really liked the footage from the Yuneec. Sold the Mini 2 a couple of years ago and regretted it soon afterwards. Got a Mini 4K for less that Ā£200 recently and enjoying flying rather than purely getting photo access.

good fun!

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