...mainly because I generally don't need that high a resolution while documenting our work being done on sites. But this time, my company is conducting a Phase I environmental investigation on a site that contains a large wooded and marsh area as part of the property. Basically during a Phase I investigation, we look for any items or areas of environmental concern -- often prior to a property sale. Rather than send a team into the tick-laden woods and marsh to walk transits, we decided to first film a 4K aerial downward facing survey in a back and forth pattern across the site. I used Litchi and Google Earth to plan it out and simulate the camera view to insure that each parallel run overlapped a bit for complete coverage. I decided to use video rather than mapping photo tiles because I was concerned that the millions of overlapping leafless tree limbs would mess with being able to stitch the photos correctly. Plus, video has a dynamic aspect to it as it traverses the site. I flew at 180ft AGL at a slow 12 mph. The resulting 14 minute 4K video ballooned to 40 GB after post-production -- which is why I will mostly be staying away from 4K filming. But the video came out great with fantastic detail. Once it is reviewed and any environmental concerns noted, a small team will move in and investigate those specific spots.
The weather was perfect for this operation with little wind and full cloud cover. A bright sun would have cast a spiderweb of distracting tree branch shadows on the ground, so we lucked out with the clouds. And we needed to do this before the Spring foliage appeared for obvious reasons. The fact that the site had A LOT of hawks flying around raised some concern in me, but they all seemed to ignore the strange noisy white trespasser. Note the Mama hawk on the stack railing to the left eyeing me and it's little one in the nest. It wasn't until I reviewed the video that I also noticed a couple of large Bald Eagles that had swooped below me in another frame. (Note the wing span as compared to the two lane road not far below it.) Strange to see Bald Eagles in the NYC Metro area, but it's nice that they are making a come back. All in all, a fun productive day.
The weather was perfect for this operation with little wind and full cloud cover. A bright sun would have cast a spiderweb of distracting tree branch shadows on the ground, so we lucked out with the clouds. And we needed to do this before the Spring foliage appeared for obvious reasons. The fact that the site had A LOT of hawks flying around raised some concern in me, but they all seemed to ignore the strange noisy white trespasser. Note the Mama hawk on the stack railing to the left eyeing me and it's little one in the nest. It wasn't until I reviewed the video that I also noticed a couple of large Bald Eagles that had swooped below me in another frame. (Note the wing span as compared to the two lane road not far below it.) Strange to see Bald Eagles in the NYC Metro area, but it's nice that they are making a come back. All in all, a fun productive day.
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