[Goldwingnut]

Just wanted to give a little more detail to the discussion from earlier on what can and can't be viewed by a drone.

Attached are 5 pictures. The first is the original picture taken with a 20MP camera the native resolution is 5472x3078 pixels and 7.4MB file size. This is a large high quality image. The drone is at 100 ft, which put the man with the dog about 120 feet away from the camera and 65 ft forward of the drone.

Zooning to 100% resolution a man and dog are clearly visible.

Zooming in to 300% of native resolution the 3rd picture show more details but the picture is starting to pixilate and there is no substantial details visible.

Zooming to 500% resolution in the 4th picture the dog has become a blob of pixels with few distinguishing features and the man in the picture begins to blend in with the background. Further zooning in makes the image less distinguishable.

The 5ht and final picture is 500% after undergoing several levels of software enhancement, no additional details are shown and image quality is questionably decreased.

Keep in mind that these are taken at a relatively low altitude of 100 ft. which is pretty much the safest height flying over trees in this area. From higher elevations the results are even worse.

One of the first lessons a drone pilot quickly learns flying is that altitude is your friend. At lower altitudes communications quickly fades for telemetry, control, and video over a short distance due to interference, also visibility of the aircraft is more difficult at lower altitudes as it becomes very difficult to distinguish from ground clutter. When one or more of the data signals starts to fail the safest direction is usually UP where a clear data path and line of sight can be reestablished. With UP comes the loss of image resolution.

Looking at my golf course flyovers, these are shot at 50-100 ft AGL in 4K, then rendered in down to 1080p (1/4 native resolution) and at 150% of normal speed, both of which cause loss of resolution and clarity of the image. It looks good on YouTube, but hardly "spy video" quality.

Most drone flies can fit into some simple general categories:
1. Racers - these fly low and fast with cameras designed for FPV navigation. These guys don't normally go far but they get there very fast and are fun to watch.
2. Novices - these are flying less capable aircraft with low resolution cameras and limited range and altitude - about 300 ft. total from the operators.
3. Explorers and photographers - they are flying the high end consumer drones with theoretical ranges of several miles and high quality cameras. Some of these are very sophisticated aircraft with lots of high tech features and capabilities.
4. Professional pilots - flying high end birds ($5K, $10K, and higher) these guys do lots of work with movies, search and rescue, surveying, and agriculture with more areas opening up all the time as more uses are identified.

My experience here in The Villages is that the majority of the fliers are in the 2nd and 3rd categories and leaving the 1st to those younger crowd with faster reflexes.

[pauld315]

Great job !

[Bay Kid]

Thank you!!!

[KSSunshine]

Looking forward to more construction videos! We enjoy the Exec golf course tours even though I don't golf (hubby will). Thank you for sharing your hobby with everyone!

[fastboat]

Boys and their toys.

[maynebonnie]

'Thank you for the great videos ! We are stuck up north and really miss the villages !

[Packer Fan]

Originally Posted by Goldwingnut

More golf course videos are coming, I plan to do all 666 holes. I have the flight plans worked out and ready to go for another 54 holes and working on more.

Right now I'm just waiting for my drone to get back from being repaired, the camera gimbal motor failed about 2 weeks ago for no apparent reason, it should be back on Wednesday according to UPS. I shot some footage before sending it back but there was so much camera movement in the video that when I was reviewing it I started to get motion sickness.

More construction area videos are also in the works.

More Construction videos and the new GC bridge! Waiting is torture. I am addicted to your videos

[Dennys37Packard]

For those worried about spying, just look online to some great videos that are posted. Drone users are just getting beautiful aerial footage of surrounding areas you can’t see in windows or really see faces from 100 feet up. It’s a fun hobby.

[Goldwingnut]

Originally Posted by Dennys37Packard

For those worried about spying, just look online to some great videos that are posted. Drone users are just getting beautiful aerial footage of surrounding areas you can’t see in windows or really see faces from 100 feet up. It’s a fun hobby.

Thank you. For many like myself the photography & videography really is the driver for the flying.