Garden Railway Forum

VIEWS FROM A DRONE
A friend-of-a-friend is a professional drone photographer. He offered to come around to my backyard and see if he could dodge all the trees and get some videos of my railway. As you can imagine it is a difficult assignment to fly the drone in 3D as well as operate the camera in 3D and zoom, and to miss the trees.

Here's a 5 minute edited version. (There will be more to follow as I do more editing.)


It can be taken as a 'companion' to my older "Introduction to my railway" video taken from ground level, which I linked elsewhere here.
Here's the link to it, repeated in case anyone wants to watch both together.
https://youtu.be/hDOn09Tm7RE

Wonderful video, Greg. My favourite shots are where your big diesel departs Melaleuca across the big trestle and the 4-4-0 leaves Ti-tree. Good to see the horseshoe on the Termite branch from a different perspective as well.

Some clever flying there, especially among the trees. I've never done any rc flying but I've heard it's tricky as the controls are reversed when the plane flies towards you. Did he have a screen on his tx showing the camera's eye view or was he just working on the angle the drone was pointing?

Rik

ge_rik wrote: ↑Wed Jun 06, 2018 7:58 am Wonderful video, Greg. My favourite shots are where your big diesel departs Melaleuca across the big trestle and the 4-4-0 leaves Ti-tree. Good to see the horseshoe on the Termite branch from a different perspective as well.
Some clever flying there, especially among the trees. I've never done any rc flying but I've heard it's tricky as the controls are reversed when the plane flies towards you. Did he have a screen on his tx showing the camera's eye view or was he just working on the angle the drone was pointing?
Rik

His display showed what the camera was seeing. Which could have been anywhere from full left to full right from the front of the drone and straight out front to direct to the ground. I think he was positioning the drone by direct visual and then controlling the camera using the screen. Not something I could do - that's why I DO trains - they stay on the tracks.

Although we like to see trains running at eye-level most of the time it is a great opportunity to see the bigger picture of the whole landscape from the air. Your friend is certainly an expert at his job and given you some amazing footage which would not be possible any other way.

DRONE FLIGHT 2
Here's the 2nd video using footage taken from the drone.
This time I've excluded all views of sheds and people where possible and blanked them out (blue-screened) where not.
It's supposed to be a 'documentary' on how a helicopter was used to make a movie to attract tourists to the SaTR.

Fabulous Greg. It's all good but I particularly like the bit at 1 minute where the train is running round the edge of the cliff.

Another masterpiece, Greg. Must be interesting for you to see your railway from new vantage points - unless you're a secret tree-climber, of course!

Rik

philipy wrote: ↑Thu Jul 12, 2018 7:47 am Fabulous Greg. It's all good but I particularly like the bit at 1 minute where the train is running round the edge of the cliff.

Thanks Philip. It's my favourite scene too - something I could never get without the drone. I have tried on a tall ladder but I can't move it along with the train!

Some steam locos

This video is a year old, but some of you might be interested in seeing some of my steam locos.

A really great set of shots, Greg. Hard to pick a favourite, but I do really like the opening shot as the loco breasts the grade towards the camera and then picks up speed. I can't remember seeing the view from inside Lilyvale viaduct before. That's really scenic, as is the horseshoe trestle.

Rik

I like that No. 5 loco, looks the part.

Thanks Tom and Rik for your comments.

At the risk of cross-contamination of topics, I might just mention the method of 'eliminating' ugly backgrounds that has been broached on other forums.
The view of the loco climbing the grade at the start of the video took a lot of fiddling to eliminate the horrible location as much as possible and even then I had to resort to blue-screening out the garden shed. This composite pic shows the actual location between the fence and shed and the restriction on where I could get my camera. It took a whole afternoon of fiddling to get the camera horizontal and vertical placement correct.
The view from inside Lilyvale viaduct (around 7:50 mins) illustrates how it is possible to blot out a background by judicious placement and angling of the camera. The higher, 'easier' view shows the picnic table and Ti-tree baseboard. By lowering the camera (by lying on the ground) I could get the viaduct to block the baseboard, and the ruined mine to block the picnic table.

Thanks Greg, nice explanation. They say the camera never lies, but it can be very economical with the truth!

Actually the 2nd shot from inside the viaduct is much better anyway, even without the background issue, the old mine building adds an extra sense of realism somehow.

Spring has sprung downunder.
A short clip of our first spring run at a mate's place.

A fun afternoon on an interesting line! That's a new hazard on me - marauding lizards!

Wish I had the money to go down under for your Spring our Autumn/Winter…but alas it can’t be….

Looks a very interesting line indeed and some nice Locos and Rolling stock too.

Great videos Greg and especially where the locos are going around the horse shoe curve.

FWLR wrote: ↑Wed Oct 10, 2018 8:44 am Wish I had the money to go down under for your Spring our Autumn/Winter…but alas it can’t be….
Looks a very interesting line indeed and some nice Locos and Rolling stock too.

You'd regret being in Sydney at present - it has rained all week since we had that last run. Oh well we needed the rain.

I have started a new thread just for Keith's Bottle Creek line, so as not to confuse with my Sandstone and Termite.
https://gardenrails.org/viewtopic.php?f ... 84#p141184

I have seen the weather in Sydney, it’s horrendous.

Thanks for the new thread Greg.

Great video, Greg. Plenty of freight in evidence

Rik