Shooting Dead Horse Point from a DJI Phantom quad-copter... are you crazy?

So I got in my head that I really need to go and shoot several of the really well known locations of natural wonders that we have here in Utah at least before I get told that I can't.  So I headed down to Southern Utah, and tried to go to both Dead Horse Point and Arches.  I had exactly 4 hours of shooting time and the following is the best of what I came away with.  Enjoy.


So here are the things that I learned:

1. Don't try and shoot this much in so little time.  People don't like when you tail gate them because you are racing to spot to get a good shot.
2. Moab is a cool little town.  People have told me this, but I was skeptical.  Lesson learned.
3. Always bring tools.  My GoPro locked up on me and I didn't have an allen wrench to take it off the DJI Phantom to reset it.
4. Don't be so scared of flying.  I told myself that I was willing to risk the $1,500 to get the good shots, but I held back because of my fear of the wind taking the copter.
5. Always have a good model with you for those people related shots.  Or at least carry a model release so you can have strangers fill in for you.

Huge price drop ($200) on the DJI Phantom over at Dronefly.com

---BREAKING NEWS---  DJI Phantom price drop

If you are interested in getting into the fun of flying your GoPro Hero 3 using a quadcopter, now is the time. Dronefly has dropped the price of the DJI Phantom down to $479.00 (from $679.00) That means that you can get the whole package, DJI Phantom ($479.00), DJI Zenmuse Gimbal (still $679.00), and GoPro Hero 3 Black (now $329.00) for a total of $1487.00. Of course you will still need extra batteries, extra props, and other accessories but this is huge.  I have worked with the guys over at Dronefly and they are great guys who go above and beyond to help all their customers.  Tell them that David Watson sent you.

This amazing quadcopter is so easy to fly and easy to get amazing HD aerial film. It is so easy to fly that even a child could do it!  Here is some of the amazing video that I have shot with this great combination.

Fire dancers in video raw

Hi all, I had the chance to attend the Luau at Thanksgiving Point this year. It was my first time. I gotta say, it was fun! When I got there, I was thinking that parking was going to be a nightmare. It wasn't. Smooth as silk, easy in, easy out. After parking, the line for getting in was at least a quarter mile long. I got in line thinking that I didn't even know if they were going to be sold out, or worse, run out of food. But the line moved pretty fast and I got in pretty quickly. The lines for food were fairly robust, but the cater company was keeping up nicely.  I waited until most people got their food before getting mine, it gave me time to walk the gardens a bit and shoot some video.

If you haven't been to Thanksgiving Point Gardens, or if you are like me and thought that the gardens were just in back of the shops, first of all you would be wrong, and second, you really need to see this place.  It is tucked away just to the north of the golf course clubhouse.  It is HUGE!  It will take you a couple of hours to walk around this place.  There are waterfalls (and they are not tiny), streams, hills, and the flowers of every variety and breed, all manicured and on display.  Seriously, you couldn't find a more amazing place hold, and to shoot, any type of event.

You see, if you take a camera into the gardens, it will cost you a photography fee of $100.00.  You can bring 2 people with you but anyone beyond that has to pay $10.00.  If you just want to walk around and take pictures with your iPhone, only $10.00.  The luau cost $21 for entry and food.  So, I figured if I was able to go to the luau, and take pictures with my equipment, I was saving myself 100 bucks.  Turned out I was right.  I brought everything but the quadcopter, which would have been cool... but after the latest news report of someone crashing into a crowd of people, I think it might be best to stay away from formal crowds of people.

So I shot some with the Canon 7D (16-35L II), and most of the Luau entertainment with the Canon 5D Mark III (70-200L IS II) using Magic Lantern Raw video.  Take a look.

Wild Tarantula crossing... up close and personal

So another day out looking for amazing video... Today's venture took me to the west side of Utah Lake. A long stretch of two lane highway with shooting ranges and beautiful views of the mountains all around.  I haven't been out there since I use to ride my bullet bike at speeds faster than I should have.  The weather was stormy, but not a bit of wind.  Perfect conditions to fly the DJI Phantom quadcopter.  I flew around for while, trying to capture some the beautiful light that was shooting through the clouds.  Got some footage.

It wasn't until the ride back that things got interesting.   It was about 7'oclock when I saw something on the road from quite a distance. As I came by and passed it, I realized that this thing was a big tarantula!  I flipped my car around and drove back to find this guy hanging out in the middle of the road.  I grabbed the camera and went to get up close and personal with him.  I realized that this guy was not going to move, despite the danger of staying in the road.  I grabbed a stick and helped him along to get out of harms way.  Luckily all the cars that passed stayed out of the lane and he safely made it to the other side.  I got back in my car and started driving home again.  I wasn't another mile later that I saw yet another one!  I decided that I wouldn't go back this time and kept going.  Another 1/2 mile, and another one and this one was even bigger than the last two.  I stopped and got the camera, and the tripod and got right up in this ones face.  Wow, what a face.  These creatures are amazing.  They are so tall when they stand up and get all defensive.  So I got some good video of that one and set off again.  I saw 3 more on the road.  I knew that we had tarantula's here in Utah, but I had no idea where they were, or how many there must be.  Scary!

So here is the video.  I added some of the flight video as to not scare you too badly.  Watch in 1080p if you aren't scared at all.


As always, this was shot with Canon 5D Mark III, Magic Lantern Video Raw (14bit), 24fps, DJI Phantom with GoPro Hero 3 attached to Zenmuse H3-2D, 1080P 48fps and color corrected in Adobe Premiere.

Ice Hockey at Seven Peaks Ice Arena

Hi all.  Yesterday I invited myself to a hockey game that my daughter's-boyfriend's-friend plays in. It is a C-league team called the Mudds.  As you can probably tell I am trying to learn about shooting video and want to try and get better at it.  I decided to once again shoot with the 5D Mark III, Magic Lantern Raw (of course) and the Canon 70-200 F2.8 L II lens.  I gotta say, this lens never ceases to amaze.  The stabilization that the lens has makes it really great for video.

So here is what I learned.  Following a puck and keeping everything in focus is hard to do... and I thought football was hard!  I started out really getting up-close and personal with the zoom, mostly keeping everything at F2.8 and ISO 100.  I ended up, near the end of the game, shooting at F8 and ISO 1600 and keeping the zoom to a minimum.  Oh, I also ended up mounting a GoPro Hero 3 above the goal to catch the action.  I shot it at 1080P, 48fps, Spot metering: Off, Protune On.  This is because when I merge the footage of GoPro and the Canon it looks much better to have matching frame rates.  I know that people will tell you that Adobe Premiere can handle different frame rates, and it can, it just ends up skipping frames.  For me, this ends up looking jerky and not good.  The 48fps makes it so I can slow the action down for those really cool instant replay action shots.

I also asked the people running the place if I might be able to fly the quadcopter above a game.  They said "maybe... let me get back to you", so at least it wan't an outright "no".  I think I would have to have FPV googles to pull it off though.  It would be fairly hard to follow the action without seeing what the camera is seeing.

Here is the video.



I also took some stills.  Stills are what this camera is really meant to be able to do.  And it truly does!

 Gooooooooaaaaaaaalllll

Pads, who needs pads. 

 You talking to me?

Nice save

Sundance ski resort... a little piece of heaven

Hi all.  One of the most amazing places here in Utah is Sundance ski resort.  It is about 15 minutes up Provo Canyon. My family try to make it at least a few times a year to see the sites and take in the fall colors. While the leaves haven't changed yet, I could definitely see signs of colors coming.  (photos of last year below)

While they don't have any cool amusement types of rides like Park City, they do have amazing scenery, food, drinks, biking, hiking, and just about anything outdoors that you could want.  They also do weddings, company parties, family get-togethers and everything in between.  They also keep the ski lift running to take people up on top of the mountains!  Some of the hikes that they recommend also start at the top of the mountain.  Even if you are just looking for a little refreshment while traveling in the area, Sundance is great place to stop in for a treat.

I gotta say, I have been kicked out of a lot of places trying to shoot some aerial shots with the quadcopter. Some really stupid places that had no real reason other than just "no".  I was approached by a security guard at Sundance and I thought for sure that this was going to be just another "no" type of place... To my utter surprise, he actually pointed me to a open area that I could use and film to my hearts desire.  He not only said "YES", but helped me out!  Awesome place, awesome staff.  Thank you for your hospitality Sundance!

click for high res version

A little football anyone??? Lone Peak vs. Bountiful and the dynamic camera combo

Bountiful High School vs Lone Peak High School

Hello blogger readers.  Today I did some testing of the Canon 5D Mark III with Magic Lantern software installed shooting a high school football game.  I am going to be shooting a professional lacrosse game in a couple weeks and I wanted to test out the 70-200 F2.8 IS II mixed with high action and fast moving sports.  We all know that this lens and this body are amazing at sports photography... but what about video?  Can this dynamic combo really hold it's own when shooting video?  Well, I think it can, but can I.  Well, after looking at the footage, I need to get a lot better at controlling the focus and don't let people stand in front of me during big plays.  Other than that, I am amazed what this combination can do.  I'll keep trying to learn and get better to be worthy of this camera.

Congrats to the Lone Peak football team, they won 32-14!

As always, watch at 1080p... it's the gear icon, just below the video.

Here are some photos from the game...

Timelapse of clouds... what you don't see with the naked eye

Hi all. I spent some time yesterday taking some up close and personal video of the amazing clouds that are going on here in the Wasatch Front. Luckily, I still had A's lens... the amazing 70-200, mixed with the 3x Zoom factor that Magic Lantern allows for in RAW mode. It turns this lens into a 600mm lens at F2.8. I let it run for quite a while to capture all of the movement and beautiful billowing that is amazing to watch... especially when you then speed it up in post. You could do individual frames like a nighttime timelapse but it is so much easier to change the video frame rate to a slow speed (5fps) and just let the camera capture each fully raw frame. Take a look and tell me what you think.

AVP womens volleyball... fun, sun, sand, what more could you ask for?

As promised, here is the video compilation of yesterday's tournament up in Liberty Park, in Salt Lake City.  AVP knows how to put in all together.  Up close and personal with the fans, it was quite a day of beach volleyball.  Enjoy Kerri Walsh Jennings in full HD quality.  Music by yours truly.  ESPN and CBS Sports Channel were both doing full coverage.  It was also very cool that they let everyone in with great cameras, (including myself).  I saw several people with full amazing camera rigs.  One guy even had a slider on a tripod.  I hope everyone got some great shots!  Here are mine put together in a nice package.



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Thanks to A Palmer for the beautiful 70-200 F2.8 II lens that he let me borrow.

Cascade Springs - Utah Mountains Video Shoot

I spent last Friday shooting the beautiful mountains of Utah.  Traveling up American Fork Canyon, over the Alpine Loop, there are a couple of amazing reservoirs and an amazing mountain spring called Cascade Springs.  If you are ever in the area, you should visit here.  You can also stop by the famous Sundance Ski Resort for some fine dinning any time of year.  Enjoy.

I shot with my Canon 5D Mark III, with Magic Lantern Video RAW.  The dynamic range is amazing!  Should have brought my variable ND filter along to slow some of the water shots but otherwise it was very exciting.