Another precarious day with the DJI Spark

Decided to go fly the drone after work today.  I went to Almonte, Ontario today as I wanted arial pictures and footage of the falls.  I setup and started the drone, connected with my Remote controller and started a flight.  Within a second of me taking off, the battery popped off the drone.  I had thought again that that I lost the drone or at least severely damaged it as it fell at least 15 feet onto some rocks.  The battery was easy to get.  Just climbed over the wall and got the battery within 30 seconds. The drone wasn't easy to get.  Had to climb down rocks to the base of the waterfalls.  The rocks were slippery from the spray from the falls.  There was a lot of moss which did not help.  Luckily I was able to retrieve the drone.  It took about half an hour to retrieve the drone.

Luckily the only damage to the drone was to one of the propellors which were easily replaced.  I decided to fly again and the drone started to act weird.  When I tried to land it, it literally took off on my climbing up at least 30 metres.  I luckily got control of the drone and brought it back down.  It would not land at all.  I literally had to grab it by the underside of the drone and remove the battery from the drone to get it to stop. 

After this debacle I wanted to just go home and not fly the drone again as I feared losing a second drone within a month.  But I gave the drone a second chance and flew it out maybe 25 metres and just started taking shots and video.  Luckily the DJI Spark did not act up.  I got what I wanted and I just left.  Luckily the only damage to the drone was the rear left propellors had to be replaced which was easily done.  

DJI Spark - LOST FOR GOOD

As some of you may know, earlier this week I lost my DJI Spark in mid flight.  No explanation.  Nothing.  I uploaded the log files to the web and sent them to DJI as well.  I have a ticket open with DJI to see what went wrong.

From the DJI forums, it looks like and I hope to be getting a new drone.  But that is just other users opinions.  Not DJI' opinion.  I hope to hear from DJI next week to see what the results of their testing is.  I hope they work quick to find the results.  Hopefully, I will get a new drone.  I hope.

Did not fly yesterday

Met up with an old friend yesterday that I've known for about 12 years now.  We just chatted for a few hours.  Then I went for lunch with the girlfriend.  It had rained during the day so I was unsure of the weather.  If it was going to rain or not.  So instead of flying the drone in the afternoon, I went to a local casino and won $132.50 playing blackjack.  Might have a lead on a job as well so I'm kind of hoping that comes thru by tomorrow so I can start on Monday.  Or my old contract starts again so I can start there again considering it's free parking and I would work 5 minutes from home.

More drone pics

I think it's time to go fly a bit more.  Just rained here for about 20 minutes.  So the air should be nice and clean.

Who needs a plane when you have a drone

I'm in love with the DJI Spark drone.  One little hick up from today' flights.  Lost connection again for less than 10 seconds today.  The only thing I can think of is there were some power lines between myself and the drone.  That is the only constant from the last two flight sessions.

I'm also thinking of at some point upgrading to a DJI Mavic Pro or a higher end drone as I need a drone that can fly longer.  I'm limited to about 15 minutes with the DJI Spark.  The video also looks good but only shoots at 1080p/30fps.  I'd love to have a drone that shoots 1080p/60fps.  I really don't shoot in 4k as I find it totally unnecessary.   The DJI Spark only shoots in the JPEG format and not RAW so editing is somewhat limiting.

I bought the DJI Spark to learn how to operate a drone.  It's been a great teacher so far.  Right now I have other priorities like getting back to work.  With fall and winter coming up quick, I think my drone use will be dead in the winter with the short, cold days and the long, cold nights.  I'm trying to get as much drone footage in as I can.

The Perseids were a bust but...

...I did get to fly my drone some more.  I am more and more confident flying the drone farther distances and higher heights.  I've uploaded 9 of the clips I shot yesterday to Shutterstock and they've all been accepted and are available for sale here.  I've uploaded them to Pond5 and Storyblocks but those two sites take forever to review footage.  I think I have about 10-12 more clips to edit and they will go up on Shutterstock and the other sites as well.