Looking down on Cannon Beach
An aerial view of Cannon Beach, OR…such a beautiful stretch of coastline.
I really don’t fly my drone very much these days, and keep thinking that I might just sell it. We will see. But my suspicion is that if I get back into it, I may be able to get a smaller drone that is just as good, if not better. Regardless, that’s not what you cam here for. :-) This was captured while flying over Cannon Beach, OR which is just a stunning location, airborne or on the ground. It’s just about my favorite spot in the US.
AirMagic by Skylum: First Look and Preorders!
AirMagic by Skylum is available for Preorder - check out this amazing software for automatic drone photo enhancement! It’s fun, and it doesn’t get any easier than this!
Well, Skylum has done it again - another new product that’s really fun to use!
Today Skylum is announcing AirMagic, an AI-powered editing software product for aerial photographs. It was created to automatically resolve issues inherent to aerial photography.
AirMagic works by first detecting the drone camera used to produce an image, then analyzing its lens and color profile. From there, it makes automatic lens corrections and other camera-specific optimizations. AirMagic uses smart algorithms and Artificial Intelligence to evaluate each photograph, applying modifications such as color reveal, haze removal, sky enhancement, and other finely tuned adjustments to make each photo look just as it was intended.
AirMagic will retail for an affordable price of just $39. Mixed computer households can share the same product key for Mac and PC, and each license can be activated on two devices. AirMagic comes with a 30-day money back guarantee. Pre-orders for AirMagic will begin March 7, 2019 with a release date of March 21, 2019.
Preorder AirMagic here: https://bit.ly/2H3pM4j
During the preorder, along with AirMagic, customers will receive a huge pack of bonuses worth $145.99 — the Drone Photography Guide eBook ($19), “Shoot Professional Photos with Any Drone” video course ($74.99), one AirMagic Premium Style ($12), and a $40 discount on a Lume Cube lighting kit for drones.
Here’s my first look video…because you know I like to make videos about this stuff!
Some features you want to know about:
Auto detects your drone camera and makes lens corrections (raw only) and other camera-specific optimizations such as distortion, chromatic aberration and vignetting
Automatically enhances your photo - analyzes the images and makes improvements
Drag and drop any file, including raw files
Works as a plugin for PS and LR and a Photos extension
Has several creative styles built in (like presets)
Works on colors, removes haze, enhances the sky and more
Sync edits across images
While it’s simple on the outside, under the hood there is a lot going on:
color recovery
JPEG fix - suppresses compression artifacts
Foliage enhancement - color and sharpness
Auto Color Temperature
Auto Lens correction
Smart Dehaze
Sky enhancement
Exposure compensation
Natural Light Correction - keep appropriate tones to best represent time of day
Noise reduction
Tint perfection
Thanks for checking this out and let me know if you have any questions!
A morning in downtown Austin
Here's something new - a drone and iPhone video montage from a morning in downtown Austin. Check it out and let me know your thoughts!
Here's something different - a drone and iPhone video montage!
I have been experimenting a lot with video capture, both with my drone and my iPhone 7+ (which takes 4k video). It's been a lot of fun to capture scenes I would otherwise just observe. So one recent morning I went downtown and filmed with both devices. I then compiled it into the below montage video. It's something different for me, but a lot of fun to capture and share. Enjoy!
The Beauty of the Oregon Coast
The Beauty of the Oregon Coast - my first true drone travel video. This is a combination of my favorite drone video clips from my visit to Oregon. Let me know how it looks!
Here's my first full-length drone travel video!
While I was in Oregon this summer, I took the opportunity to get my drone up in the air as much as possible. Part of this was because I was learning to fly it, and the other (bigger) part was just that it's so incredibly beautiful there. I just had to take some video.
So I fly it several times, tried a lot of different things, and ended up with some nice video clips of these beautiful locations. Now that I am home and had the time to work on them, I decided to put it all together into a "travel movie" sort of thing. It's about 2 minutes long.
I smushed together a bunch of different clips, added some music, and I was done. (Ok, in reality I spent a lot of time on it, switching clips around, deleting parts of some clips, etc). This is my first time to do something like this, and I admit to not being really skilled at video capture and creation just yet, but I will keep working on it.
Nonetheless, I wanted to share this video because it demonstrates the beauty of a place that I love. I hope you enjoy viewing it as much as I enjoyed creating it. Thanks for watching!
Sunset over Cannon Beach - a drone video
A little video snippet from a recent drone flight along Cannon Beach, OR...
I'm working on this whole video thing! :-)
I've been having a lot of fun flying my drone around. It gives me some interesting perspectives on things (er, over things HA!). One thing in particular that I love is taking video with it. While my video capture and editing skills are still pretty nascent, I am getting there and will keep at it. It's certainly a learning curve but I'm having fun.
While we were in Oregon, I flew a bit around Cannon Beach at sunset. It's just a gorgeous place and the light was pretty nice, too. So here's a video showing just what I'm talking about. Enjoy!
Macphun's Luminar is flying high!
My friends at Macphun have updated Luminar (again!), and this time it's specifically for aerial photography. New presets, a new workspace, a new filter - check it out!
Macphun provides another update to Luminar - this time for aerial photographers!
My friends at Macphun continue to innovate and push forward with updates and additions to their award-winning product Luminar. It’s my go-to editor for EVERY PHOTO and in my opinion it’s a true masterpiece of photo-editing software. I absolutely love it. (Read about it here.)
Well now there is a new, free update available for existing customers and it’s called Luminar Aerial (technically it’s an enhancement to the existing Neptune release). It contains a few new additions primarily centered around the idea of editing your aerial photos. They partnered with DJI (makers of the best drones - I fly a DJI Magic Pro myself and love it) and many drone photographers to craft this update.
Here’s what it includes:
- Aerial Workspace - Unique new workspace that features the most commonly used editing filters for aerial photographers, including Macphun’s AI-powered Accent, Dehaze, Polarize and Clarity filters, and more.
- Whites / Blacks filter - This new filter makes setting white and black points effortless.
- One-click Aerial Presets - Instant styling and creative exploration for aerial photos.
If you want to read about it on the Macphun site, just click right here.
If you would like to see it in action, here's my video tour of the new features:
I’ve been experimenting with this Aerial release for a little while now and must say that it works beautifully on my aerial shots taken with my drone (and on any type of short, really). I am pretty new to aerial photography, admittedly, but boy has it really captured my imagination. Since I have been on this lengthy road trip I have been capturing a lot of video and photos with my DJI Mavic Pro. It’s offering me some new perspectives, which is great. You'll see a lot more from me on this,
How about a couple of screenshots? Here's some preset views.
There's a new Aerial Photography workspace, too. It contains the following filters: Color Temp, Accent AI, Whites/Blacks (a new filter in Luminar!), Dehaze, Polarizing Filter, Saturation/Vibrance, Clarity, Top & Bottom Lighting, Sharpening, and Golden Hour. It's great!
And there's also the new Whites/Blacks filter. It's great for adding contrast and controlling the light in an image.
Below are some of my recent drone photos, all edited in Luminar!
If you want to learn more about Luminar, you can do so right here. Thanks and let me know if you have any questions!
Haystack Rock from my drone
An aerial shot from Cannon Beach, OR during a stunning sunset...
I'm having fun with my drone! It's a new an interesting bit of fun for me!
I've had this drone for a couple of months now and although I haven't been shooting with it a lot, I am definitely getting a better feel for how to use it well. I still have much to learn and experiment with, but I thought I would share this photo today. I captured it during a lovely sunset in Cannon Beach, OR. The aerial perspective is just so fun and unique. I suspect there will be a lot more drone work showing up here on the blog!
Drone footage: Haystack Rock sunset
Here's my first published drone video, from a lovely sunset last week in Oregon. Enjoy!
I've been enjoying my drone quite a bit, and starting to learn how to better take and edit video with this addicting little machine of awesomeness. It's been fun. Here's my first "creation", if you will, which is a 20 second snippet of video from a lovely sunset I shot in Oregon last week.
I inadvertently left the audio on when I was flying, and there was a guy on the beach asking me a bunch of questions about my drone, so when I watched the footage I heard that conversation all over again! Easily enough though I was able to pull the audio out of it and instead I added in a musical clip from Cirque du Soleil, a song I love called "Alegria". I really enjoyed creating this video, with the music, so I think I will make more of these. Enjoy!