The Steamboating Forum

Anyone try Drone photography or videography?

They are getting pretty good and coming way down in price. I am looking at a DJI Phantom 4 or Phantom 3 Professional.

I want to put something on it so it will float, and have it follow Nyitra around and take video. They have follow-me features nowdays, but I could also have it do a preplanned flight path or have a passenger piloting.

-CB

If you go to the SBA website, and click on the "News and Events" tab, you'll find a group of drone videos taken by Ian Davies at Windermere Week 2016 in early August. I gather that operating a drone from a moving boat is not trivially easy, but he clearly managed, and there's some fine photography there. It's clearly a bit difficult to decide how to do the editing, and how long to stay filming in one fixed direction, but those are details, and the overall result is excellent.

At the present level of usage, drones with cameras are fine, but I can see that they could be over-used to the point of irritating everyone other than the operator. In the UK it's perfectly legal to shoot a drone down using a normal shotgun if it's over your property without permission, which could be more fun than shooting at clay pigeons when you come to think about it.

What is the rule in the USA? Shotguns? Longer range semi-automatic rifles? Gatling Guns? (Yes, Gatling guns are legal with no license in the USA, at least in Pennsylvania)

fredrosse wrote:What is the rule in the USA? Shotguns? Longer range semi-automatic rifles? Gatling Guns? (Yes, Gatling guns are legal with no license in the USA, at least in Pennsylvania)

One of the oddities of firearms licensing in England and Wales is that as long as a gun
i) has a smooth (non rifled) bore
ii) uses ammunition with black powder as propellant

then it comes under shotgun rules.

I suspect the original Gatlings weren't rifled, so...

Is there a bore diameter limit?

Gatlings were rifled, though that doesn't mean they couldn't be made with smooth bores firing sabot in rifled carriers... many shotgun slugs are made with rifling on their exterior.

The main gun on the Abrams tank is a 120mm smooth bore with a very high degree of accuracy and a very long range

We used to play around with black powder guns quite a bit, still do when I have time. We shot several smooth bore muskets - Brown bess replica, Charleville replica, original Potsdam, original Harper's Ferry. They were surprisingly accurate. The rifled guns er rifles of their day were only somewhat more accurate. I miss the old 75 caliber Brown bess, that thing was a cannon. They could be used as a "fowler" - fancy name for open bore shotgun. Killed many rabbits with them. Once playing around we fired the Brown Bess at a big tree about 20 feet up, the whole tree shook .

Here is an A Verner (Bucks county PA) I built a few years ago. 45 cal 44" swamped barrel.









-Ron

Get the message? Maybe not a good idea to bring one of those stinking buzzing things around my boat.

What's next? Jabbering on the rotten cell phone while steaming. I allow 'selfies' but draw the line on passengers calling their friends to brag about what they are doing.

I feel guilty enough about using a plumber's torch to light the fire.

RGSP wrote:If you go to the SBA website, and click on the "News and Events" tab, you'll find a group of drone videos taken by Ian Davies at Windermere Week 2016 in early August.

Thanks - I enjoyed watching these.

Lopez Mike wrote:Get the message? Maybe not a good idea to bring one of those stinking buzzing things around my boat./quote]
I didn't say your boat. And certainly I am not going to have it filming all the time.

-CB

Theres a guy by the name of Richard that comes to the b&w meet every year. He had a drone at the 2015 meet. He sent me the footage and if I ever get my stuff together I will make the 2015, AND 2016 videos.