Sharing videos, forum rules, etc - guidance please

Off Topic
#1

I couldn’t find it anywhere else, so into off-topic it goes, for fear of stepping out of bounds and getting a reprimand for doing something that’s not allowed or off-topic.

I had thought to share a few links to some of my ‘creative’ work (hesitant use of the word, not high quality stuff) in the realm of video in the ‘share your photos’ photography thread, so I went looking through the forum rules.

I didn’t see anything prohibiting such a thing, but since it’s not strictly “photography” I elected not to post any links. It is a tangentially related creative sphere though, so I kinda-sorta feel like maybe it could fit in there? Seeking anyone’s input on that front I suppose.

A short disclaimer - The videos are on my personal youtube channel but I am not a ‘youtuber’ in the sense that I aim to generate an income from it. It’s just a convenient place to upload videos to share.

I’ll put one here, and in the event this sort of thing is discouraged I won’t be dismayed about the post being edited or removed.

Enjoy.
Castle Rock Badlands, Western Kansas

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#2

I don’t see a problem posting a video you made. I assume you are the drone pilot? Is that your white truck? Makes me want to pack up a couple of bikes and my camera and head out west.

#3

Yes, I am the pilot and video editor. I’m still learning the video stuff, especially color. Still working on getting a handle on the piloting as well. A multi-rotor does not control like the fixed wings I trained in to get my PPL. This is an FPV aircraft, so I’m flying from the view in the headset strapped to my face. I tend to come away from most flights with a case of the shakes. Can’t afford to replace it if I wreck it heh.

I’ve not had a lot of what I consider “good” results from using the aircraft’s “raw” video format and color-correcting + grading with the tools I find the most convenient (Lumafusion on ipadPro + VideoLUT). I get better, more natural looking results from the “normal” color profile and minor tweaks in post.

This video especially is “not great” due to crappy editing software ruining the output (thanks Adobe Rush CC!) and attempting to color correct+grade the “raw” d-cinelike profile footage.

The white truck was that of another visitor. I was stationed at the top of the ridge. I’m at the truck that is just visible in a few places in the video, especially right at the end.

#4

My strong hunch is that there is a good learning curve to video (or at least good video) and that you’ll get better and better results the longer you keep working on it.

#5

There is, but I do feel limited by my selected tools, and I’m beginning to understand that there’s only so much the little camera on the aircraft can do.

I have access to Adobe Premier Pro should I choose to take advantage of it, but there’s something unappealing to sitting down at a desk for 10hr editing and perfecting when I could lounge on the couch and splice together something half decent in much less time.

here’s a similar location about an hour from the first
Monument Rocks, Western Kansas

#6

Posting here is fine :wink:

My Youtube channel is just for my stuff as well. A very NOT for profit venture lol :stuck_out_tongue: I subscribed as well. :wink:

I love seeing the gorgeous surroundings by air. The only slight problem I have is the pace. It’s a bit fast and swooshy for my vertigo issues :wink: I slowed it down to 0.5 and it was perfect for me.

Really nice footage :heart:

#7

The speed is a flight characteristic that’s easy to change. Sometimes a little slower, sometimes a little faster depending on the environment. The swooshyness is a consequence of the single axis camera gimbal on the aircraft. If the aircraft tilts over or noses up and down, so does the camera’s view.

Entirely different than a “normal” stabilized camera drone.

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#8

A flight around another western kansas pasture, day after Thanksgiving.
The 4K isn’t processed yet as of this posting, but the 1080p 60fps is ready.

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#9

Flying through those trees took some courage. :wink: I’ve been tempted to get a drone, but have never gotten past thinking about it.

#10

A gap that size is pretty easy to handle, but takes a little stick-time to get confident enough to actually pull off especially when the approach is a long, straight shot at it. I wouldn’t attempt it in the middle of a tight turn or if pulling out of a moderate dive. I don’t have that much stick-time.

#11

Had the opportunity to fly for the first time since the last video was posted. I am rusty. yikes.

But I got some ok footage of some extended family’s wheat harvest operation.

It was very hot and very dusty.

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#12

You’ve captured what I think of when someone mentions Kansas.

As a farm boy myself, that’s a great video! Is it irrigated with groundwater or do you depend on rainfall? From the looks of things, you could use a little rain.

We grew barley, oats, alfalfa, and a little corn, but nothing approached that scale. In Utah, there’s not enough water or flat arable land for those kinds of operations. Like my family’s farm, most people here who farm do so on a much smaller scale to support livestock ranching, as in growing feed for cattle and sheep.

#13

Thanks B. Summer wheat harvest holds some fond memories for me - from manning the grain cart to running the combine, 9am to 9pm with lunch out of a cooler on-the-go.

This is winter wheat. And yes, it’s pretty dry out there right now. The wheat harvest isn’t great. They’re pretty happy when a field averages 40-50 bushel/acre this year. I’m not sure what this one averaged, but by the looks of it, I’d wager not much more than 35-40. They didn’t get enough rain or snow between january and end of may.

Normally the ditches by the roads and the pastures don’t look this green if the rain has been lacking, but they’ve had (until the past week or so) some unseasonably cool weather, so things got really green for a while. It was hanging on this past weekend but I think it’ll be back to brownish-business-as-usual within a month.

Typical crops for this part of the country include wheat, corn, some sorghums like milo and occasionally soybeans. Some of the wealthier operators with access to good wells will irrigate but for the most part it’s all dryland crops.

I think they’re about finished with wheat harvest this year, but fall corn harvest will easily take then 2.5 months straight of mostly 7-week days for 8-10hrs a day, weather permitting.

When my grandfather passed away last spring and we were going through some of his things, we found a book of county history by some of his relatives.
In it was recorded a poem written by one of his relatives. We think a great uncle.

Farewell, Gove, I leave thee
Beautiful is they wide spreading scene
When Heaven pours her rain into thy lap
And clothes thy plains in living green.

Has God cursed thee?
If not then by whose mouth
That these flashes of fertile beauty come forth,
Only to be consumed by drouth?

Or art thou what God made thee
All hope for the noble sons of thy soil
Who live but by thy Grace
And not by honest toil.

Well I leave thee
Thy vagaries are too much for age like mine.
Farewell, I leave to the decrees of God,
And developments of future time.

W.D. Jones, 1893

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#14

I was wondering if it was winter wheat since you’re harvesting so early, but I didn’t know how early the conditions in your area might permit spring planting.

People in my home county used to experiment with dry farming and fall planting, but the weather here is just too erratic to make it dependable. Almost everything here is irrigated with mountain runoff (of the kind I got my UTV stuck in this past weekend) and augmented with well and reservoir water after mid-summer when the creeks start to run dry.

The poem pretty much sums up farming. Some years exceed expectations, while others fall short, and there’s nothing to be done about it since the weather has the final say. I do miss the farm/ranch, though. We sold a couple of thousand acres of it a year ago to my nephew who has big dreams of making a go of it. At least it’s still in the family.

#15

To the best of my knowledge, nobody in the western half of KS plants wheat in the spring. There is a pretty significant number of irrigated fields in the state though. Pretty obvious from aerial photography.

We never had that on the family land. We didn’t have the money or the water well access on farmland to do it. We know some folks that had run several brand new irrigation wells last year that ran dry after a single sweep this spring.

I have to wonder how much longer it’ll be before more farmland reverts to pasture/unused, between young people not really wanting to take up the profession and financial resources needed to farm at any profitable size. This family from the video most recently bought a used combine for a little over 700k, and thought they got it for a song. Just crazy. And that’s before considering the natural resources like water availability. It just seems a lot more bleak than when I was a kid, but maybe I just didn’t know any better back then.

#16

That’s what’s happening here. In my home county, farming has always been something done to support livestock. With the exception of dairy operations, it’s nearly impossible to make a living raising livestock anymore unless it’s done in a big way. Most of the farm and range land has been gobbled up by those big players. What’s left over has become small hobby farms to supplement people’s income by growing crops to feed the pet horses other people keep on their small pastures.

As with graphic design, times change, and nothing stays the same.

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