Going aerial

I've recently gotten into the aerial flight and photography game with something called a Phantom 2 from DJI, who have an office in Austin, TX and are based out of Hong Kong. This particular multirotor has four motors and is operated by a set of joysticks over 2.4 GHz. It holds a GoPro Hero 3-series camera with a stabilized gimbal and I've set it up with a first-person-view (fpv) system that allows me to receive a live video feed at the ground.

It sure has been a blast, with a bunch of learning along the way. Here's a couple of stills:

And here's a few videos that I've put together of flights here in Pittsburgh and from a recent trip to the coast of Maine:

Boyd

I went for a walk this afternoon down Main Street in small-town Jenks, OK. It seems like 80% of the stores on the street are antique shops, and I stopped in a couple to see their remnants of the past. At the American Heritage Antiques shop, I met a man named Boyd. He told me that he because AHA is open seven days a week, he occasionally fills in for the shopowner on the weekends to give him a break. They had a bunch of very nice vintage pocketwatches, and Boyd and I talked about the 1886 Elgin that I got from my grandmother's estate. He taught me about watch fobs and showed me some examples from insurance companies from the '40s.

When I asked Boyd if I could take his picture, he said to be careful, because he wasn't sure if my camera would survive.

Boyd

Watches on the tabletop

I got bored last night while I was waiting for some work files to download and decided to take some snaps of my watches. Just set them on my desk and used the back of my laptop to bounce a flash over them. There's a Bell&Ross BR03-92 and a Panerai PAM127. I love the loud tick that you get out of these mechanical watches (gotta wind the PAM, but the B&R winds with your wrist movement).

PaneraiB&R + Pan

Working in Luanda

Well, been working in Luanda and finally brought my camera to show everybody what I've been up to. A lot of treating iron to do maintenance on, which means lots of high pressure grease – my new least favorite compound. DSC_5424DSC_5412 DSC_5414 DSC_5413