Welcome Our New Drone – Sensei DJI Inspire 1

Well we finally did it, we have added a DJI Inspire 1 Pro to our drone photography! We are very excited to welcome Sensei into our small little photography family.

With this new drone, we will be able to provide stunning 4k 30 FPS video to you our clients and customers. In addition with the dual operator setup, one person can focus on flying while the director or other can get the perfect shot every time.

Here are some specifications on our new DJI Inspire 1:

  • 18-20 minutes of flight time
  • 6.82lb weight
  • Zenmuse X5 4K 30 FPS Camera
  • Maximum speed 50 mph
  • Maximum range 2km
  • Dual controller system
  • 200% awesome

We look forward to bringing Sensei with us to your next project please contact us today to book a shoot.

News – New Canadian Drone Laws

On January 9, 2019 Canada has published the new drone rules for flying your drone in Canada. These laws will come into effect on June 1, 2019. In this article we will cover how these new laws effect you from a residential point of view and as a professional.

So What Does This Mean For Myself And My Drone?

Well first off, you will need to register you drone which can be done here

They have now broken down the rules into two categories, Basic Operations and Advanced Operations. Both of which require a test to be completed at the same link for registering your drone.

Additionally you will need to do the following

  1. Mark your drone and register it with the registration number
  2. Pass an online exam.
  3. Stay below 122 metres (400ft)

More information can be found here

What Are Basic Drone Operations Rules?

  1. You can fly in uncrolled airspace
  2. You can fly more then 30 metres (100 feet) horizontally from bystanders
  3. You can never fly over bystanders

More information can be found here

As you can see there have been some positive changes, and will hopefully help drone operators everywhere secure work.

Guide – How to fly your drone in winter

With the weather dropping to -40c (yep c not f) here in Winnipeg, Canada, we thought it would be a great time to talk about winter drone flying. Here are some hints and tips you can use to enjoy flying your drone in colder winter weather and get the most out of every season!

This article is our first in a series of guides to get the most out of your photography in any weather, for camera and drone! Keep checking our instagram, facebook and blog for updates!

Winter Drone Flight Batteries

Batteries are critical to your drone, they are the source of power and if they die your drone will crash to the ground. We all know that cold weather affects battery performance, so how do you handle this when its -20c or colder?

Our trick is to keep them in an inner pocket within your jacket while hiking or traveling to your location. If that is not an option, wrap them with hot pockets or other warming pads to keep them at a nice temperature.

Do not use frozen or ice cold batteries in your drone, they can suddenly lose power and cause your drone to fall from the sky.

Winter Drone Flight Pre-Flight

So now that we have warm batteries we are good to go right? No! Your drone is a complex piece of technology with various circuits, fans, motors and sensors. These all need to be warmed up! Our typical process is follows.

  1. Remove drone from backpack or carrying case. Install rotor blades if required.
  2. Remove transport protections such as the gimble lock and covers.
  3. Install any filters.
  4. Install warm battery (see above)
  5. Power on drone
  6. Allow drone to power up and perform any pre heating on IMU and other sensors as required.
  7. Once Drone gives you the all clear spin up rotors
  8. Allow rotors to spin and warm up for 30 seconds to a minute.
  9. During this warm up, confirm battery discharge rate and sensor checks.
  10. Enjoy your flight but make sure you stay within line of sight.

Winter Drone Flight Cautions

Remember that your drone might not be designed to operate in colder temperatures. This must be done at your own risk!

Also remember that snow, ice and ice fog can cling to rotors, and intakes causing you drone to fly abnormally or even crash! Always stay in line of site and monitor your drones performance.

With all of these in mind, go out there and enjoy one of the most rugged beautiful times of the year. Also stay warm!

Here is a shot taken in -40c of Tulabi Falls, enjoy!

Breakers Beach Bar Drone Video

Hello everyone!

It has been a little time since our last post and we have been very busy with travel, photography and working on various projects!  As such we wanted to share a quick update with our latest video for Breakers Beach Bar in Bucerias Mexico!

We had the pleasure of filming this location while on our trip in the spring and just now had a chance to assembled the entire video.  If you have not visited this place you are missing out, great food, friendly staff, great views and right on the beach in Bucerias.  They even have hockey playing for us home sick Canadians.

Please enjoy!

If your looking for your own drone video or want us to come out let us know!

Traveling Manitoba – Grand Beach and Pinawa

Thanks to a break in the winter weather, we were able to do a bit of traveling in Manitoba and ended up at Grand Beach and then Pinawa.

Saturday we packed up our cameras and new lenses and headed off to Grand Beach.  This would be a great opportunity to fly the drone and test out our new lenses we had picked up earlier in the week.  We had a bit of a shopping spree and picked up an Ultra Wide Angle, 35 MM F/1.8, Fish Eye and Macro from Photo Central.

Of course it was also a great chance to use our snow shoes! Hiking through the snow dunes which covered the board walk we were able to get some great drone video of the stark frozen lake, and also took some amazing pictures which can be seen below or all of them in our portfolio.

Winter View of Lake Winnipeg From Grand Beach

We had so much fun outside that we decided on Sunday to head up to the Pinawa suspension bridge.  So we charged our batteries, packed our snow shoes and headed out!  1.5 hours later we were there and it was amazing.  Cool, quiet and peaceful as you can see from our pictures below.

Pinawa Swinging Bridge Through Crystal Ball

As you can tell it was an amazing weekend!  We are now planning our next adventure to CFB Rivers which is an old abandoned military base!  Stay tuned and as always contact us if you would like us to take your pictures!

 

Trappist Monastery – St. Norbert

We had a great weekend!  At the urging of Ewelina we headed to the Trappist Monastery in St. Norbert Manitoba and took 4K drone videos with our DJI Mavic Pro.

We got very lucky and managed to get the winter setting sun during our filming which provided a stunning golden light to our video and photos.

For fun we also brought along our new Nikon D7000 to test out our Nikon 55-200mm lens, these photos are being processed but we will put them up as soon as they are ready.

Please see our video below.

As always follow us on Facebook or Instagram and if you know of somewhere we should take video of please contact us.

Jennifer & Cole – A Winters Walk

We had the pleasure of being asked by Jennifer & Cole to provide family photos and drone videos for their Christmas cards!

Our day started off with wonderful warm winter weather at Assinboine Park.  It was a great day and after a few hours of photos, filming and walking we are all exhausted.

We would like to thank Jennifer & Cole for letting us take their family photos, and you can see the photos here and the video below.

If you would like to engage us to do your family holiday photos please contact us!

November Hecla Island Trip

Last weekend Ewelina and myself managed to go on a brief road trip to Hecla Island Provincial Park.  As with all of our road trips, we randomly picked a day and a location.

We set off around 11 AM and arrived at Gull Harbor in Hecla Island around 1 PM.  It was a warm sunny winters day with a strong breeze out of the south which made drone flying almost impossible over the lake.

However that has never stopped us before and we managed to do some filming around the dock.

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Season of Tuxedo Drone Photos

We were at it again!  Centre Corp contracted us to take drone photos of Seasons of Tuxedo during the fall.

Of course we were thrilled and took amazing photos both above the ground and on the ground.  You can see some of our images within our portfolio.

If you know of anyone else looking for stunning photos, or video please let us know by contacting us! 

As always follow us on our Instagram or Facebook page for the latest updates.

Our latest project – Dakota Collegiate Lancers Football Field

Hello everyone,

It has been a crazy October!  We were contracted to perform drone video and photography services for the wonderful people at Dakota Collegiate for the grand opening of their new football field!  Go Lancers!

We will be adding the pictures taken to our portfolio shortly for everyone to enjoy.  But for now please enjoy this video of the opening day ceremonies and kick off of the new Dakota Collegiate Football Field!