Here is a very neat video of the 765 Berkshire captured from an eye in the sky drone. Will drones become common items on scale layouts of the post-millennium period?
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I'm amazed at how drones self-stabilize and hold cameras so steady. I can't even hold a camera that steady while standing on the ground. lol
Great!
Thank you.
That is neat, makes a regular photo seem kinda boring
. I'm behind in all this new technology but it sure seems this is the future. At least for avid photographers.
Nice post.
Larry
Very nice! Very steady, very dramatic! Best use of drones ever...but, of course, we're railroadin' people!!
What would be really interesting would be to have a controller 'hand-off' to someone on board the train so that the drone could follow/chase the train. Spotters could advise clearance issues ahead, etc.. Down the line the drone could be returned to a ground-based controller for the landing....before the batteries died! Not without its complications or risks, but the possibilities are intriguing.....IMHO, of course. Things like first-person drone/controllers make this especially dream-worthy.
Just a thought...
KD
Yes, very nice. However, the down side of the drones is, the sound of the drone itself overpowers the sound of the train one is photographing. Note that the sounds of 765 and her train must have been done at trackside, while the drone was flying overhead, in that video posted above.
645 posted:dkdkrd posted:Very nice! Very steady, very dramatic! Best use of drones ever...but, of course, we're railroadin' people!!
What would be really interesting would be to have a controller 'hand-off' to someone on board the train so that the drone could follow/chase the train. Spotters could advise clearance issues ahead, etc.. Down the line the drone could be returned to a ground-based controller for the landing....before the batteries died! Not without its complications or risks, but the possibilities are intriguing.....IMHO, of course. Things like first-person drone/controllers make this especially dream-worthy.
Just a thought...
KD
I was on a photo charter this past spring and one patron had a drone. He used the drone to chase the train taking pictures in a hard to access scenic area along a river. This guy was in the vestibule of the last car while the train was in motion - track speed was 10 mph in this section - and he got many great shots in about a 15 minute span. H also arranged for the train to stop to make bringing the drone back to him an easy process. So what you say above is not a dream but reality already!
Maybe you haven't read about the drone that was "pacing" a fast running steam train in England, about a month or two ago. The operator of the drone got too close to the train, and it crashed into a coach and injured some folks. The railroad and "tour operator" quickly banned steam operations on the main line, pend full investigations!
sounds like a lot of great modeling "opportunities"
pacing drones
launching/recovering drones
crashing drones
emergency medical responders
ambulance chasers (lawyers)
fisticuffs among angry railfans and drone operators who mess it up for everyone else
Garrett76 posted:sounds like a lot of great modeling "opportunities"
pacing drones
launching/recovering drones
crashing drones
emergency medical responders
ambulance chasers (lawyers)
fisticuffs among angry railfans and drone operators who mess it up for everyone else
Sure. All the things one "needs" on their model railroad!
The only problem with this (or in the past, renting a helicopter) is that if you get too close, you ruin everyone else's shots of video of the trip as your drone is seen/heard in everyone else's recording of the event. And that, to me, is right up there with walking right out in front of a photo line and blocking everyone else's shots (which I've also seen, I saw a guy get whacked with a big rock thrown from the photo line once).
I tried integrating a microdrone into my layout several months ago, shown in #40 of my LCJ&I Lines video series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4s7ocLBL2kY
I found microdrones very skittish and hard to control. Even though the one I used had a HD video camera, it wasn't nearly stable enough to take layout pictures, so I faked it by waving a video camera slowly over the layout. But it is interesting that a microdrone seems about O scale, and fits nicely into the layout scenery.
Bob beat me to it - getting back to the OP question about shooting a layout with a drone. Most responses were referencing real trains.
I just looked at some indoor videos taking by a Xtreem QuadForce drone and a Cheerson X-30 drone, both relatively cheap and made to fly indoors. Not the greatest videos, but I think the Quadforce was stable enough to get decent layout shots. With practice you could easily follow along with your train. The larger the layout room, the better. Might work well in an arena setting at a train show (doubt the organizers would allow it).
So I think as the technology gets even better and drones get cheaper, drones videos of indoor layouts will become more common - may even have a separate OGR forum for it
Bob Anderson posted:I tried integrating a microdrone into my layout several months ago, shown in #40 of my LCJ&I Lines video series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4s7ocLBL2kY
I found microdrones very skittish and hard to control. Even though the one I used had a HD video camera, it wasn't nearly stable enough to take layout pictures, so I faked it by waving a video camera slowly over the layout. But it is interesting that a microdrone seems about O scale, and fits nicely into the layout scenery.
Ha ha, I like it. Very creative. "Learning experience" indeed
dkdkrd posted:Very nice! Very steady, very dramatic!
KD
And quite expensive. The kinds of drones that can shoot these quality photos are definitely not your $99 jobs.
I noted:
The drone videoing the drone following the train.
The beginnings of some crop circles (O-o-o-o!).
This is IL or IN, is it not? Few other places have such endless glacial flat and such endless farm equipment.
I still don't like whitewalls on steam locomotives; just silly-looking.
Garrett76 posted:Here is a very neat video of the 765 Berkshire captured from an eye in the sky drone...
Great video! Outdoor drone photography done right provides interesting camera angles not otherwise possible. I like the sweeping vistas with long views and full train coverage. I'd like to have an outdoor camera-equipped drone some day.
A mini-drone on the layout looks like science-fiction stuff. Good fun.
Really? I've been doing fly-overs on the layout long before drones were invented. Any video camera or cell phone "hand flying" over the tracks does the same thing. I can even make "drone noise" if I want . Maybe I should create an O Scale drone shadow to appear from time to time like I see in so many videos. And unless I drop the camera on the train, there is no danger of crashing into an expensive rolling stock or landscaping.
