I finally was able to get a few "okay" still shots from my Snoop-E and DV3100 combination. The rain and wind finally left me alone for a while. I still need to decide where to aim the camera for the best shots. These were all forward and really at a little more of an angle than I would like. Somehow the ball mount fools me into thinking I have it at a lesser angle than I really do. I'll try it a little different next run. Most of these were shot with the motor running. I think the only one that was in a glide was the cow shot. I did what I usually do and flew to altitude then made a long glide down while framing and shooting my shots. I did have to shoot one every few seconds to keep the camera live on the way up. On this run, my best shots were mostly the lower altitude shots with the motor running. The glide shots were as sharp or sharper as these, but the angle of the camera let very little or no sky in on the shots. I personally like to see the horizon in high altitude shots. Most of these are un-edited with the exception of sizing for posting, which seems to reduce the quality. I'll make a note on the ones that were touched up. My first impressions are that I like the quality of pics better than the pencam, but it is a pain having to keep the camera online by firing every few seconds. I think that won't be as big of a pain if I downlink the video and can tell if the camera is live or not. That is probably the worst part..... flying for 5 minutes to get your altitude and having to wonder if you're even getting anything. Oh well, I'll get used to it. I'm just spoiled being able to take shots at my leisure. Okay, here's some pics. Hope to get better ones as I get more used to the cam.

Randy

Busy East Texas intersection.

The neighborhood. Man, everything is dead and brown around here. Maybe we will get some color in the next couple of weeks.

My house.

Our pond and neighbors house.

I really had to make these last 3 small to get them to post.

I did some minor contrast adjustments to this one and the one above.

Thanks for posting! Nice landscapes -- no matter if with the horizon or without.

(It does appear that when a JPEG picture contains big evenly colored spaces, it compresses much better. Complex patterns on the other hand... compress very poorly. )

I personally can never decide whether I like pictures with a horizon... or without it. For which reason I'm also trying to build a tiltable camera mount.

Although a camera looking sideways also helps -- you bank one way, get the horizon, bank the other way, get a picture without it.

Busy East Texas intersection.

Truly heavy traffic, I must admit.

I can *almost* see the ten beetles flashing their turn indicators, while a steady row of ants keeps them waiting.

Randy,

I would suggest that you mark your your ball with that angle. It is perfect for orthagonal shots, which tend to be the most pleasing and useful to prospective clients. You can work out your "skyline" angles and get your ball marked up for that as well and it would be a simple switch.

Good effort!

CTF

Nice motor on pics. The ball must be nice and snug.

Good idea CTF -- that ball should make it heaps easier to mark favorite angles.

Arp,

You ought to see the 5:00 traffic. It really gets busy when the grasshoppers get off work!

CTF,

You must have ESP. The first mark is on the ball already! I thought that angle would be good for the lower altitude "house" shots that might be sold to people. I am thinking of offering my services to some realtors. I have a small pest control business and we already have many realtors as clients, so it should be an easy transition. I hear they use aerials for their ads. For my own personal tastes and entertainment at the moment, I prefer the specked out shots, so I'll be marking the ball when I find that sweet spot too. That's the cool thing about the ball.

fdisk,

I was surprised at the motor on shots. I guess the fact that the camera is mounted firmly inside the foam ball and also strapped tightly to the fuse a good distance from the motor may be the reason. I still get some with evidence of vibration, but none too bad so far. It seems to show up more on the video.

Randy

Here's a few from this evening. I tilted the ball up a little more so I could get the horizon. Still all firing forward. It looks like this camera may have a problem with shooting the ground and horizon at the same time. I'm guessing it's something to do with the white balance, but I'll let all the camera experts decide that for me. Of course there's no adjustments for that on this camera, so I may be stuck with that problem. I'll try it in different lighting to see if there is a way to get around it. Notice how white the sky is compared to the terrain in the shots below.

Randy

Here's another of the same target, only framed a little better. That is Lake Palestine in the upper left corner. It's probably about 5 or 6 miles away, as a crow flies. As you can see, it's washed out as well.

I believe both of the shots above were from a glide. I was shooting South at near sunset, so my lighting wasn't perfect at that position. I think the rest of these shots were "motor on" shots.

I was wrong. The one above was from glide also. The rest should be "motor on". Also the one above is being shot at about Southeast. You can see part of Lake Palestine in it also. The one below is North.