Snowmobiling out into the Canadian backcountry with Nolan, Darcy and Jay. Photos from the trip can be found here.

Minute Ten now online. Following Tyy, Alex and Jamie for a few laps of the whitewater terrain park. Mad technical skills.

Here it is. My first video using the new DJI Phantom. It was a serious challenge trying to snowboard whilst controlling this. As a first attempt goes, its okay, Lots of room for improvement though. Since this was filmed I’ve made some adjustments to the props and built a shock absorber mount. Future footage should be smoother with a bit of luck. Enjoy

Here’s a quick post running through how I’ve tried to smooth out the footage coming from the GoPro and DJI Phantom.

There are basically two important things to do so that the footage doesn’t have a jello effect.

You need to balance your props and create a shock absorber between the camera and aircraft.

Continue after the break…

It took me three days to come up with a solution to separate the camera from drone. I ended up finding a Meccano set and using parts from that.

I tried ear buds as dampeners, but they were too soft and the camera wobbled around.

I tried reducing the wobble by adding springs in, but this didn’t work either. The rubber needed to be harder.

Here I have replace the headphones with rubber seals. The GoPro mount is still separate from the drone but tight enough not to wobble. I added the extra springs just to help with the sturdiness of things… also it makes it look pretty interesting.. like it should work, even if it’s pointless.

Next challenge was to balance the props. This literally means making sure that both sides of the propellers are of equal weight. This is important because unbalanced props create vibration that is noticeable in the footage.

Trying to get a spindle to fit this shape was hard. I ended up relying on the trusty Meccano box again.

Using a dremel I span a small plastic washer at high speed and used a knife to create a taper.

I could then use these tapered washers to wedge into either side of the prop, and keeping everything perfectly centered.

When I placed this spindle between two points so the blade could move freely, the heaviest blade would rotate towards the ground. This told me that I needed to sand some material off this side until it would not spin any more.

This method was very effective. I would highly recommend you invest in a prop balancer. Due to my current location, buying one online would mean a two week wait, so I set out to make one my self, but remember what ever you do it has to be pretty accurate so you dont end up causing more damage.

It will be interesting to see what others come up with to reduce the vibration. I can vouch that this method works pretty well. Footage to prove it on its way..

I haven’t been this excited over a piece of tech since I got my hands on the first GoPro Hero nearly two and a half years ago. Back then the ideas and possibilities of this small water proof camera seemed endless. Over this time GoPro have boomed, and now everyone knows about them. Some of the stuff being captured now is truly ore inspiring. The versatility of this small little device is changing the industry in many ways. Some for the better some for the worse, it depend on how you look at it.

I’ve had two dreams since I was very young and first started dabbling in this tech business… one being, owning something capable of capturing super high speed film and the second owning a device that could carry a camera to capture aerial shots. Now part of that dream has come true..

I’ve been on the look out for some time for a Octo/Quad Copter. There has been a huge gap in the market. There has only really been two options, a foam tacky based toy, or a pretty high tech and very expensive professional RC type thing. I’ve been waiting for a Pro-sumer based product to reach the surface.

I happend to do a bit of research a few weeks ago, and discovered that DJI had just realised this. A all-inclusive design with a small sturdy body suitable for easy travel. I couldn’t believe the luck, I was trying to come to terms with the fact that I might have to fork out a few thousand pounds on a quad and here is everything I need/want for £470.

Being in Canada, I couldn’t find anywhere that stocked them. So I ordered one in the UK and got it sent to a friends house who was coming to Canada the following week to visit. It all worked out rather nicely.

After a few minor issues we managed to get it flying, and oh boy, does it fly.. the maneuverability and speed of this ting is next level. Easily the most fun RC device I’ve played with.

Taking it on the slopes for the first time. I wanted to try and capture snowboarding in way not many people have done before. The aim was to try and snowboard whilst controlling this and chasing others down the hill.

I was successful with the first flights, only crashing it once (the battery was dying and it could fly back up). This is the first edit I’ve put together from the footage captured on the hill. Still a little shaky which I have since fixed by balancing the props and building a custom shock absorber mount.

Here are a selection of stills taken from footage of recent test flights:

Shots from over our house looking down towards the lake.

Views over Nelson, BC one evening.

Looking over the WhiteWater Ski Resort car park.

First Flight over water. I was nervous. The lake is glacier fed and bloody cold, so going in after it would have sucked.

Strange artefacts in the lake.

Finally, an evening sunset in the valley.

So yeah, there it is, a quick run through my thoughts on this new ‘toy’. Basically I love it, and cant wait to take it more places. It really excites me that we have access to such amazing things these days. Seeing the world from this perspective is important to understanding the bigger picture, that we’re all part of the same thing. Its my way of understanding the Overview Effect I guess.

I have a very strong feeling that these will become the new GoPro and boom massively. If you are thinking of getting one and have no previous RC experience, please be careful. This thing goes fast and could cause some serious damage, plus it would be an expensive crash :s

Either way, I’m look forward to seeing where this all goes :)

Been shooting a fiar amount of footage with the shiny new GoPro3 Black recently and the shakiness of the footage was bugging me. I tried using my DSLR handle and found it worked well at getting lower shots and keeping the camera still. However the size of this was totally unnecessary. I did a bit of hunting online and couldn’t find anything that was suitable.

Continue after the break…

So just like the GoPro pole I devised over two years ago, I set out to make my own contraption. After a bit of hunting in the shed I found an old rusty trowel covered in hard cement. I could see the potential, so I started by prizing off the flat trowel area. This left nasty sharp weld points on the under side, not ideal.

Using a bench grinder I soon got rid of  any sharp bits.

From then I sanded away any remaining rust/concrete. The wooden handle came out really nice.

Next challenge was attaching the GoPro to the bar. To get the camera to fit between the wood handle and the bar I had to bend the metal a little. This was just a matter of sticking one end in a vice and pulling gently on the other until the desired angle was achieved. I then used a standard flat sticky mount and popped it on the bar, however there isn’t enough surface area to provide a sufficient stick. I carried on looking for an improvement, and eventually found a pipe clamp that tightly secured everything in place.

That’s about it really. Keep a look out on my Vimeo, there will be videos coming that take advantage of this little device.

And as always, go out and be creative. Im sure these will be available to buy soon.. but theres no fun in that, trust me.

Got some time to finish this video off. Brought back a lot of memories putting it together.

Enjoy.

Sony Music Timeline from Rob Antill on Vimeo.

Glad to finally get this project out! It’s been in development that past 5ish months and we’ve had to keep it strictly under wraps.

Check out www.sonymusictimeline.com for all the details.

Click below to see some behind-the-scenes snaps.

For most shots I used this mono pod. Originally I got the pole for gopro stuff.

Printers down near Portsmouth that had the laborious task of weeding (removing the negative vinyl) from 54, 2m tall columns.

DIY time-lapse GoPro Dolly in action.

Implementation weekend.

One of the biggest challenges of this project was carrying the ever increasing collection of gadgets around with me. For the implementation weekend I rammed two very large bags with nearly everything I own. Riding bikes 10 miles through London was interesting.

Make-shift track for the GoPro.

Had my old D90 set up capturing time-lapses of each wall. I was using the tripod for other things, so this construction made do.

You may have noticed some shots in the film pan down across the work. Well this was done by simply releasing the height adjustment clasp on the monopod enough to make the camera slide. Low-tech, but effective.

If you haven’t, already be sure to check out the time-lapse video we made using the left over footage that didn’t make it to the main cut.

Sony Music Timeline – Timelapse from Rob Antill on Vimeo.

Me, Alex (AlexFowkes.com) and Joseph worked together on the edit. Joseph (Avenue Beech) brought his mac round and produced the track to fit to the edit exactly. This was a luxury. Above is a shot of his project in Logic.

left to right: Audio – Design – Visual

We had a lot of fun over a couple of days getting the project wrapped up.

I’m super proud of this. It’s the cleanest project to date. Having the extra time to properly plan everything was a massive bonus.

If there’s anything you want to know more about just leave a comment below. Would be happy to answer any questions..

Follow on the twitters for more current beans.