Image source: https://thelongwalkhome2012.wordpress.com/2012/01/
One of the experiences I’m most looking forward to during our trip to the Queensland Outback and Simpson Desert, is the concept of Big Sky Country.
Where the land rolls on endlessly to the point where it crashes into the horizon exploding in a vertical wall of blue that towers overhead.
The pleasure of seeing this with my own eyes is something that I hope will last forever in my mind forever, however while we’re there I’m sure we’ll all take the opportunity to capture some great photos of sunsets and sunrises over the desert.
We’re planning on taking along a couple of camera options. The first being our consumer level Canon DSLR 650D. This is a great camera and we have super short 10-18mm lens which will be perfect for capturing those wide landscape shots.
We also carry a 18-200mm lens for everyday shooting, as well as iPhones which have a pretty reasonable camera these days.
Secondly, we’ll have a GoPro Hero 3 HD camera which will be used mainly to capture footage from inside and outside the vehicle.
Along with these we had planned to take along a flying camera called the Lily camera. This state of the art piece of technology that can fly by itself. It can be set up to follow set patterns such as circling around you, following in front, to the side or behind.
This product is currently in development and was originally slated for delivery in February 2016. Unfortunately there has been a delay in the delivery of this unit and it won’t arrive until mid year, with no guarantee of it arriving before we depart.
This is quite sad as the product is compact and did everything we wanted.
The quest to fill this gap has led us to purchase a DJI Phantom 3 Standard aerial quadcopter. This unit many more features than the Lily, and while it can perform similar autonomous moves, such as follow me, circle a point of interest, you also have the ability to fly it yourself with up to a 1 km range.
The main downside of the Phantom 3 is the size, and being larger than the Lily means more trouble finding somewhere to put it in the Jeep. None the less, we’ll strive to fit it in somewhere.
We’ve named the Phantom ‘Not Lily’, and it had it’s first test flight the other day. You can check out the video below. I’m super impressed with the video quality and stability of the camera. I’m looking forward to more pre-trip trials and can’t wait to get it out into the desert.