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Droning On

I have this bad habit of picking up new hobbies.

Recently, I started learning how to play the Violin and the Mandolin. I continue to livestream on Twitch, and produce videos for YouTube. Obviously, I still write blogs, create podcasts, and play tabletop roleplaying games, as I have for years.

Well, not all that long ago, My Lovely Bride™ and I started up a new YouTube channel for our dogs, Abby and Simon, called “Sausage and the Streak” (Like & Subscribe!). We did this primarily because Ten had been recording videos of the dogs for some time, and wanted a dedicated place for them on YouTube. I set the channel up, did some editing of the videos she had, and added some of my own, and now we’re putting out a new video at Noon Pacific time, every Sunday!

But what we have just hasn’t been enough.

You see, Ten has complained that she would love to get more ‘action shots’ of our dogs running around, but she has a hard time keeping them in frame. She simply can’t keep up with our little Monsters! So we talked about upgrading our equipment some, since thus far we’ve just been recording on our LG G6 phones… which are fine for cell phone cameras, but are still just cell phone cameras.

Anyway, now I have a new hobby to master, being flying drones.

Ten thought it would be best if we got a Drone to follow the dogs around at the park, the beach, wherever we might want to make videos of them, actually. That said, we didn’t want to break the bank doing this, either, so I looked into finding a quality starter drone to purchase.

Enter the Holy Stone HS120D.

It is a GPS drone, with FPV features, and a damn nice 1080 camera for the price-point. Is it perfect? No, it is not. But as a starter drone, I think it will do just fine, especially since it includes many of the features we really wanted, including Object Tracking, GPS Follow, Auto Take-off and Landing, multiple Return to Home triggers, etc.

Basically, it’s as close to a bulletproof starter drone as we could get for the price. Hopefully you’ll start seeing videos with footage from this drone by mid-to-late February.

Now then, that isn’t all we got, though. Where I get to learn how to fly a drone, and record video from it, My Lovely Bride™ also has to master a new piece of tech. As she has complained about having issues recording the dogs with her cellphone, I picked us up a nice toy to make that much easier:

I got us a gimbal camera/phone mount.

Specifically, we have an Andoer Gimbal 3-Axis Handheld Stabilizer, which should solve a lot of her problems with getting ground footage. It will provide a much more stable base from which to record, and – once she gets the hang of it – I suspect Ten will have a lot more fun taking videos and photos with her phone!

I also picked up a fold-out tripod foot for the Gimbal, in case she wants to set it up on a table or whatever to take shots, or just to take a break.

Anyway, so we’re going to be working together on this project, so we can spend more time together as a family. Hopefully the dogs don’t find a way to down the drone and eat it. That would put a serious damper on our endeavor…

Scormus
I'm the editor, publisher, and primary "talent" here at Scormey.com.
https://scormey.com

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