Here’s a trippy one for you. Took two photo’s from slightly different points of view. Shot while in search of natural hot springs, British Columbia, Canada.

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 :)

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.

Minute Five – Infrastructure from Rob Antill on Vimeo.

Minute Five now online.

Trent Snowsports 2011 – Val Thorens Video Trailer from Rob Antill on Vimeo.

Just before Christmas 2011 I headed to the French Alps once more, for a week of snowboarding and partying with 230 Trent Snowsporters. I’ve spent the past 6 months or so producing a 30min long DVD of the recorded antics. Above is the trailer.

Click MORE..

Below is a selection of images from the trip.

Oliver stacking hard

Tom picking up some speed

Launching a firework in the whiteout

Group stereographic projection

Olli 180

Crossing the channel

200 DVDs arrive just in time for the premiere. Graphics designed by Alex Fowkes

Premiere night at RIDE bar Nottingham. Good turn out. Video goes down well.

Very pleased to have complete my third and final Snowsports DVD. It’s been a lot of hard work but I’ve learnt lots because of it. I just hope someone equally keen will step up and take my position this year.

Spent a few days up in the French Alps. This time it was just me and Alex. We did a spot of filming and pretty much destroyed ourselves…

This summer I finally made it to Outlook festival in Croatia. This post is a collection of photos and video I took while out there. There wont be much chat, as it’s hard for me to explain in words what it was like. What I can say is, it was one of the most enjoyable weeks of my life..

Click below and hopefully my photos and videos can do it some justice..

Above is the little video I put together from footage captured on my GoPro, iPhone and D90.

I wanted to put something together that showed that its not just a festival of night time party times, but in the day you can have fun with your friends in the amazing clear blue sea and 30 degree heat.

This video was spotted by the organisers of Outlook, they loved it, posted it their Facebook wall where it received massive positive feedback. Not only that, they said that I had won a prize for it. Turned out I have two press pass tickets and a backstage photo pass for next years event! A little overwhelmed with that outcome. Cannot wait to do it, I have already started thinking of ideas I can try out there.

Most of the festival is located in the old 18th centaury Fort Punta ruins. This makes the atmosphere feel quite special. The deep, dark, heavy bass music and the deserted fortress seem to go hand in hand.

On the last night there was a pretty spectacular storm. The sky was like a strobe light. I have never seen anything like it. Luckily I had my time-lapse equipment with me so I set it up and captured the above video.

I also put this little stereographic projection video together. I’ve been meaning to try this for a long time. This photo seems like a good one to test it on. The results are rather interesting.

So this was a pretty shot post, there’s soo much I could have gone into..

If you want to see more pics I recommend heading to my Outlook 2011 Flickr Set

If you want a more personal and detailed account of events head to my daily photo project.

This summer I decided to embark on little project. I wanted to build a fixed gear bike. I’m familiar with bikes and how they’re put together and have spent a fair bit of time upgrading and replacing parts, but I’ve never built a complete one. My original plan was to take my old Create Fixie and replace the frame and a couple of other components. This is what happened at first but it soon escalated with me buying a completely new bike and spending a small fortune. The result however makes it all worth while. I now have my very own unique machine.

Click below to see close up shots and further detail about the build..

The first thing I purchased was the frame. I spent a couple of weeks searching though many different styles and brands. I decided I wanted a modern design, light weight aluminium frame. I came across this, the Cinelli Vigorelli, a track frame from an Italian company. The tubing is triple butted meaning its thinner in the middle and thicker at the joints, so its rigid and light. When the frame arrived I couldn’t believe how light it actually was. The forks were even more surprising with them being super light carbon fibre.

Shot looking at the front forks of the bike.

Choosing the right peddles was important. I did quite a lot of searching and couldn’t make up my mind. It was on the Amsterdam trip with the 5th floor guys when I noticed a couple of them had the new BLB pedals and straps. Once I was home I had a chat with Peter, one of the guys that works there, and he sorted me out with a set. These peddles are great because they’re super deep, holding your feet in tighter, so it feels like you have more control over the bike. I went for plastic cages because the metal ones I had before were destroying my shoes and dug into my feet.

Before I was riding the gear ratio 44:17. That was getting way to easy, and made going down hill a little mental. So I upped  it to a 48:16. This means I can go faster but the down side is it produces only one skid patch on the back tyre, therefore I will need to rotate it round so I don’t wear a hole through it. I picked up this light weight, 165mm, Miche crank set for around £100.

Choosing the saddle was a bit of a mission too! There’s so much choice and I wasn’t really prepared to fork out mega bucks on it. I ended up getting this, the Charge Spoon. The reviews seemed really good and for the price (£25) I didn’t have much to loose. I actually find it rather comfy. Not as good as my MTB seat but better than the one I had before.

The Seat post is a Cinelli Vai XL that I got for £20.

Right.. this stem was a real challenge to get! I ordered it four times (from different places) online only to later receive emails saying it was out of stock. One order on eBay went through but it was lost in the post! So while I was on the Amsterdam ride I spotted it at one of the bike shops we visited. So I got it there and then. I wanted this particular stem because it was short and its named ANT! very fitting with the DigitalAnthill theme ;).

I was going to buy a set of Profile Design Airwing OS handle bars online then luckily I found that my mate was selling his old pair. Still in pretty good nick and only £10. They kinda remind me of ant feelers…

The brake lever is one of a pair of Tektro RX4.1 Aero leavers I got off eBay for about £15. Having it in this position is fairly odd but it means there’s more room on the handle bars. The bar tape is just black Easton Cork.

The bird is the Colu
mbus tubing logo. As for tyres, on the back I went for a harder wearing Continental Gatorskin and on the front I have a Blue Continental Ultrasport.

The wheel set was the last thing I got for the bike. I didn’t want to spend a fortune on these either, I ended up getting a very good deal. I spotted this set of Navigator Pista wheels for around £180. I liked them because of their deep V profile, light weight, black but also have a fixed, fixed flip flop hub on the rear, meaning you can have two different gear sizes on either side. I saw that on the Dolan site they were selling the set for £99, I thought it must be a mistake, so I ordered them expecting an email the next day saying there’s an error on the site, but nope they arrived the following day!

Shot of the rear drop outs.

Shot looking from the back of the bike.

I purchased this blue half link chain in Amsterdam for around £15. Although it looks nice and allows you to get the back wheel super close to the frame, in reality its not very practical. I’ve been riding with it for about a month now and its rather noisy and is heavier than a regular chain. I’m going to be looking at getting a new one soon.

For the front brake I got a Sram Apex for around £25. Very high quality and gives quick responsive braking. I was a little worried because the rims are not machined and I wasn’t sure what was going to happen when braking on them. So far I haven’t noticed any difference. I haven’t been out on it in the wet however.

And finally the smiley face on the down tube. Basically this was the deciding factor for me buying this frame :).

So to recap here’s a full list of components:

Frame: Cinelli Vigorelli

Wheel Set: Navigator Pista

Pedals: BLB Track Pedals, Double Strap, Double Cage

Crank Set: Miche Primato Advance Track 48T 165mm

Bottom Bracket: Miche Primato Bottom Bracket

Seat Post: Cinelli Vai XL

Seat: Charge Spoon

Stem: Cinelli Ant Stem

Rear Tyre: Continental Gatorskin

Front Tyre: Blue Continental Ultrasport

Innertubes: 48mm Presta valve

Rim Tape: 700c 14mm Wide

Bar Tape: Black Easton Cork

Brake Leaver: Tektro RX4.1 Aero

Brake Caliper: Sram Apex

So over all its been an interesting project, I’ve actually learnt quite a lot from it. I was very fortunate that all the components I bought fitted together and I didn’t have to send anything back. The bike rides beautifully, its so light and responsive. So if you have a spare grand lying about I recommend giving a custom build a shot!

Any questions feel free to right a comment, Ill try to get back to you promptly :)