10 waterfalls in Iceland

clocksmith · Dec 9, 2014

A video of 10 of the waterfalls my girlfriend and I visited late September in Iceland:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_henIN18dz0

Notes:
- Was filmed in 1440p mode at 48 fps (Originally wanted to get some slow motion footage, but this rate is not very friendly with FCP)
- My girlfriend edited the footage and I flew the quad.

Challenges:
- I had low light mode on on the GoPro the entire time by accident. =(
- The quad was previously in a crash. I thought everything was fine but realized after shooting the video that many shots are slightly tilted to the left.
- We had to do a lot of cropping of the propellers and leg of the phantom.

Questions:
The propeller cropping was expected, but the leg of the phantom that is closer to the GoPro lens was unexpected and very annoying. It was most prominent while side drifting. Does anybody else experience this? If so, how do you get around it? Thanks

dnicu266 · Dec 9, 2014

Very nice - I wish I had a drone when I was touring Iceland a couple of years ago.

garrock · Dec 9, 2014

Did you experience much RF issues while near the cliff edges ?

WiFi Video or RC Control.

clocksmith · Dec 9, 2014

garrock said:
Did you experience much RF issues while near the cliff edges ?
WiFi Video or RC Control.

Not really. It was mostly kept within line of sight. I was using a 5.8GHz 400mw Boscam FPV (TS353) with Circular Wireless Skew Planar Antenna 5.8Ghz , and a Boscam 5.8GHz LCD Diversity Receiver (RX-LCD5802) with 2 x 5.8G Mushroom Cloverleaf Omnidirectional Gain Antenna. My biggest enemy was distance and I could only go about 400 meters before video started to become super static-y.

crash1sttime · Dec 9, 2014

Nice video

raposu · Dec 9, 2014

Uffff..... Very,very nice

paulajayne · Dec 9, 2014

Great video - what was the music called?

clocksmith · Dec 9, 2014

Thanks, song is "blackmill - spirit of life"

sdtrojan · Dec 9, 2014

That is one of the main reasons for my Phantom 2 purchase, love waterfalls and really want to enhance vacation videos. Question for you: is 1440 60fps compatable with IMovie 11?

clocksmith · Dec 10, 2014

sdtrojan said:
is 1440 60fps compatable with IMovie 11?

So the GoPro I used (HERO3+) actually cannot do 1440 60fps. It can do either 1080 60fps or 1440 48fps. I chose 1440 so the propellers could be cropped, but I found out that 48fps is not really a standard frame rate, so the video is actually 30fps anyway.

This was dealing with FCP. I do not know for sure about iMovie but it is probably similar. I also do not know what the HERO4 is capable of.

pilsburypie · Dec 10, 2014

Bonkers good. Scenery out of this world. What better way to capture it than a Phantom. Brilliant

badbrad97 · Dec 11, 2014

Loved the video. Those waterfalls are amazing. It was hard to tell where you were actually standing.

The only suggestion I would give you is to turn down the speed on your gimbal tilt to about 1-2. That way you can make smooth tilts while you are flying. It's impossible to tilt smoothly with the speed high no matter how much you practice.

Judderman · Dec 11, 2014

Amazing locations - agree with badbrad about the gimbal tilt - I adjusted mine to a very slow setting - allows for lovely smooth movement.

I know there is no hard rule for shooting aerial footage, but I tend to try to be as smooth as possible. The one thing that always jars visually with me is unnecessary yawing. Nice straight lines, or arcs. Smooth sweeping motions. Moving forward whilst camera completely tilted down, then doing a nice smooth tilt up - stuff like that. Cut out the unnecessary guff (lining up the shot, any awkward moves).

Settings wise - the gopro 4 black supports 2.7k at medium FOV, capturing 50fps (or 60 in NTSC). It's the perfect balance I find. Mostly the props aren't visible, and if they are, and you master at 1080p, you have the extra resolution there.

Another thing I like to suggest for videos like this is to include non aerial footage. Similar looking footage becomes uninteresting quickly. Shooting some ground level material, perhaps on longer lens. Maybe some timelapses - anything like that to break up the aerial footage is always a good idea!

Stunning location, would love to head there sometime.