Flying low at RAF Holbeach

Established in 1926 in the sleepy little village of Gedney Drove End, RAF Holbeach is a practice gunnery and bombing range. For those of us that live in the area close to, its a constant source of NOISE.

For sure you can see your fair share of fighter planes and gun ships but the majority of the time you just hear the jet engines and the thud thud of distant helicopters and this can go on for hours!

Drones are a bit of a novelty. A very expensive novelty too.
I like them, no doubt about it, they're cool but......

Things are no longer off limits, well apart from airports (for most people apart from those near missers), places are now in reach that were never in reach before. Views and angles previously only available to people with light aircraft are now achievable to every member of joe public.

A cold and windy Sunday in October, i loaded up my bike on the back of my car and drove to the marsh and then got my, head wind, pedal on to the waters edge.

Fly safe!

The view from above

So I had the burning desire to buy a drone.

It was all I could think, read and talk about.

Which one is the one for me?

What's the camera specs like?

Image quality?
How far do i want it to fly away from me?

I chose to buy a DJI Phantom 3 Advanced. Ive flown it 4 times and its great fun.

Boys and their toys.

Its not overly difficult to fly but I'm yet to take a look at all the settings available. Right now i know how to fly and to take photos and video. Next will be options like point of interest, follow me, planned route etc.

I plan to use it to explore a new world; the view from above.
To get shots that I've never been able to get before. To find out whats at the top of the church, tower, building etc.
A new challenge, a new angle.

What do i think so far?
Its a lot of phaf; every time it gets switched on it needs to be calibrated, updated, you name it. Putting the propellers on, taking them off.
But when it takes off and you can shoot up at what seems like a million miles an hour to this big kid, all that gets swept away by a big smile.

Drone photography will be a challenge to me though; I'm used to full frame Canon and the brilliant Fujifilm X-Trans sensors. The drone has nothing like that.
Noise!!!
The lens has a fixed focus, I'm yet to figure the sweet spot for focus and compared to my DSLR's and CSC's the image's are soft.
However i can shoot raw, import to Lightroom and edit away like any other photo and that is definitely a nice touch.

What makes Sutton Bridge