Unfortunately "they" are the MAJORITY and "we" are the minority. If there is going to be any press or attention it will usually be when one of "us" makes a mistake. That is why there was never any main stream media attention regarding most recent Lady vs Pilot. We must be ambassadors for our hobby if we wish to keep the freedoms we now have. Sucks, but that's life now days.
Had my first negative run in ....
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I told the lady I was not interested in photographing her in a sexual manner because there are far more beautiful naked women online in HD. I'm making this up but if it happened... this whole drone paranoia-andrea-meaers-is-our-hero mentality. It's funny because there's a bigger breach of security/privacy whenever you log in somewhere online. I could actually care less if one of you blokes took a nude photo of me, but if you stole my passwords... tsk tsk.
edit: also whenever I fly I usually have my wife with me since she loves the outdoors... this may make me look less like a perv in public.
edit: also whenever I fly I usually have my wife with me since she loves the outdoors... this may make me look less like a perv in public.
OI Photography said:
I like both of these ideas. Yea I get it - parents worried about kids being stalked, but these others... what are they so paranoid about? Growing weed in your back yard? Some other illeagal activities going on?
The best yet - a member of this forum who will be left unamed was flying w/myself when we were approached by an older gentleman who was primed for confrontation and said "it's illeagal to fly those here". My friend replied "hang on a second sir so I can land her - I need both hands to choke the living S^** out of you". The old guy turned and left at a rather quick pace & we had a good laugh.
People are idiots. I'm a landscape photographer and was setup on a beach in Croatia, medium format camera on a tripod, ultra wide angle lens, polarising filter and ND grads, cable release etc, about the least covert kit one could imagine when some clown said to his whale of a wife "oh look, a pedo". Being abroad he didn't expect me to speak English, nor the full and frank exchange that followed.
MarkMullenUK said:
Yes, that includes people of all sorts, including some UAV or drone operators...and some photographers--but certainly none of us.
I was flying on the beach in Santa Barbara at 6:30AM. I hiked down to a part of the beach with rocks with absolutely not one person in sight in either direction. My goal that morning was to observe two items of respect (early and away). I specifically got up before most people are having their first cup of coffee and set up far away from people. I’ll have this beautiful video up this week on my YouTube channel. After 12 minutes of flight over the breakers and out over the ocean about 100 meters I landed, only to see some guy yelling something to me from the walkway behind and above me. The ocean was too loud so I motioned I couldn’t hear him. Within 2 minutes he stepped around a rock and began harassing me with swearing and accusing me of hovering over him. Honestly, I didn’t even see him, or anyone else for that matter, the whole time I was flying. I reached out my hand to introduce myself but he refused to shake my hand. I told him I like to photograph nature (also had my Nikon with me) and intentionally get up early and set up far from where people might be but he wasn’t having it. I seriously thought he was going to commence to physically assault me so I walked away while he was cussing me out. The humorous thing in this is that he didn’t realize that I had more important things to photograph (video) than someone like him.
The publicity is fueling the fire. The word "drone" is a silly word. However, it is one more word that many who have an uneventful life like to add to their vocabulary. This hobby is not in the price range of a kite. It appears that many confrontations are from those who feel they are not able to invest, so feel it is unfair for others to have their Phantom. Others are simply very angry people. Still others believe that anything with a camera must be trying to take a photo or video of them. Pathetic. But there are some situations that are provoked by careless, reckless, foolish individuals that are sadly, changing this hobby in a negative way. They are flying in areas that justifiably offend people and intrude in their space. I've been flying in parks with a camera on a Slow Stick plane since 2006. Please note that the arena is TOTALLY changed now. I now ALWAYS fear the retaliation of the public and law enforcement now. I'm sure that will never change. What can mitigate this feeling is flying totally away from everyone, which is what I tend to do.
The publicity is fueling the fire. The word "drone" is a silly word. However, it is one more word that many who have an uneventful life like to add to their vocabulary. This hobby is not in the price range of a kite. It appears that many confrontations are from those who feel they are not able to invest, so feel it is unfair for others to have their Phantom. Others are simply very angry people. Still others believe that anything with a camera must be trying to take a photo or video of them. Pathetic. But there are some situations that are provoked by careless, reckless, foolish individuals that are sadly, changing this hobby in a negative way. They are flying in areas that justifiably offend people and intrude in their space. I've been flying in parks with a camera on a Slow Stick plane since 2006. Please note that the arena is TOTALLY changed now. I now ALWAYS fear the retaliation of the public and law enforcement now. I'm sure that will never change. What can mitigate this feeling is flying totally away from everyone, which is what I tend to do.
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eroomomni said:
Sorry to hear that, some people think too highly of themselves. If I ever run into situation where I'm confronted by a berate individual I'll make sure to record the confrontation. Austin haughwout did it best when he was attacked by Andrea mears and it proved to be a win for our team. On the flip side I also saw a video on YouTube today of someone purposely hovering atop some bikini clad sunbathers, they were not happy. If I could have reached out and slap someone I would, and was tempted to post the video on here but didn't want the web crawlers to start picking up the link. I surely hope no media outlets find it because it's just more fuel on the fire.
Flying Cephlopod said:
I couldn't agree more. I have tested new antenna mods in the front driveway during (3) night flights this week, and I actually had a woman go door-to-door to determine who was casing the neighborhood. She knocked on my door to ask me about it a couple days ago, though I think she already knew "I was the guy." Her conversation was really paranoid and actually made me feel uncomfortable. Mind you, I tested my phantom nowhere near her house up the street.
The fact that I own a "drone" appears to be enough to get my entire street gossiping and angry.
A man walking his dog approached my daughter & me tonight and said, "We've all been talking about your device. That's a drone isn't it?" I told him it does have a camera but it lacks the ability to zoom in so I only see rooftops when I go up. I tried showing him the iPod min screen so that he could see that I don't see anyone's backyard. He refused to look at the video saying "no that's okay" and quickly turned away.
Some people are just unhappy people and apparently "drone" owners are easy scapegoats capable of harnessing group suspicion-- even anger.
