When it's still raining but the sun comes out, it's time to look for a rainbow. When the rainbow appears, do you dare send up a tiny drone into the wind to film it?
Don't be fooled by the sunny skies behind me, there were rain clouds right in front!
If you know me then you know my opinion:
Of course you do!
It's a bit scary to send up such a small drone into some fairly strong winds though. Especially when it is the drone's first flight, and my first real flight as the pilot of a drone.
On top of that, it could start raining at any minute, the battery wasn't fully charged due to a firmware update, and I was running the drone on WiFi from my phone, so the range was quite limited.
I can't lose this thing the first time I use it!
So I didn't dare send it too far out over the water, but did we still manage to capture some decent footage of the rainbow and all it's glory? I will let you decide:
Hovedøya, Oslo, Norway
The above film was shot at Hovedøya (literally "The main island") right outside Oslo city center in Oslofjord. This place is amazing! I can't believe I hadn't been before.
It's definitely worth a visit if you are coming to Oslo - the public transit company Ruter operates a ferry here during the summer months, so you can get here for no extra charge if you already have a bus pass. Why not take a stroll here?
The ferry boat that takes you to Hovedøya
In addition to a thousand year-old monastery next to a small cafe, you'll also find old military guard posts, swimming beaches, an active sheep farm, and great views of some rocky cliffs and other nearby islands filled with boats in the harbor and charming cabins on land.
Here's a few additional shots from the day:
Monastery ruins
Baaa!
Toy cannons?
Idyllic Norway
A couple more shots of the rainbow
DJI Spark Drone Review
My mom has come to visit me here in Norway, and she surprised me with the drone when she showed up, which was an awesome start to the trip! This is my first drone, but I have been researching the drone market for a little bit, so I thought I'd share some comments here about it's characteristics and performance for others who may be interested in getting one.
If you aren't already familiar, DJI is the leading drone company, and last year they came out with a compact, foldable drone called the Mavic that everyone was freaking out about. Only about a year later now, they've slashed the size of the drone even more with the Spark.
The price has also gone down to $499 for the base model ($699 for the combo kit with bag, remote, extra battery, etc), making this a very affordable option both for those just entering the drone market and those with years of experience.
The concessions you make are that it does not shoot 4k (1080p max), and the battery only lasts about 16 minutes (so the extra battery is worth it).
As I mentioned, I still haven't used it much, but this is an awesome device!
I don't have the remote yet, so I am using it with the phone app. This limits the range to about 30m, but was fairly easy to setup. I tried installing a recommended firmware update on the first boot, which took some time and seemingly got stuck at 99%, which was annoying. It also seems to not want to show it's WiFi network sometimes, which I've come to resolve by holding in the power button until it beeps 3 times.
I will be getting the remote and an extra battery a little later, so I can write more about it once I have some more experience if any one is interested.
For now, I can't wait to fly this thing again!
Do you have the DJI Spark drone? What are your thoughts on it? Feel free to share your opinions and videos you've taken with it in the comments below!
Adventure Every Day is a travel & exploration channel started in 2016. In addition to the Steemit blog, I post short films of my adventures to the Adventure Every Day YouTube channel.