I’ve had a few chances to try using my drone to track the coyotes that are often in the neighborhood. They don’t seem too disturbed by the Mavic but I keep it back aways and zoom in and crop to get some decent footage. One of them even came running over to investigate when I had it hovering some 20 ft off the ground in the nearby field:
This is a short little video montage of my first few flights around my house with DJI’s Mavic Pro – a fantastic, compact little flying camera platform. This thing folds down to about the size of a quart-size water bottle, weighs only 2 lbs with a battery and flies for about 25 minutes per charge. It’s got a tiny gimbal-stabilized 4K camera that can capture up to 4096×2160 video. (The video above is downgraded to 1280×720 but here’s a short snippet of 4K footage.) The Mavic Pro has lots of sophisticated smarts on board too: automatic return to home, obstacle avoidance, vision positioning system, object tracking/following/circling, etc. It maintains a live high definition feed to your phone/controller wth a range of over 4 miles, though FAA rules require that you maintain visual line-of-sight and stay below 400 ft from ground level at all times. (Also, drones and other remote-controlled aircraft cannot be used in national parks, wilderness areas, ski resorts, around crowds or events, etc. without special permission.)
The Mavic Pro is very fun and easy to fly and it’s amazing how clear and stable the video footage is, even enough to use it as a flying tripod or do time-lapse photography. Best of all it folds down so nicely to fit easily into a small backpack or carrying case. It’ll be fun to bring this along on some hiking and biking trips.
Here’s some additional footage – the first from nearby Wilder Ranch State Park, including trying out the Mavic’s “Active Track” flight mode and the second from just north of Pescadero Beach while looking for whales:
Here’s DJI’s related SkyPixel site where you can see sample drone photography. Here’s one of many reviews about DJI’s Mavic Pro, if you’re interested in more detail. I’d recommend buying DJI’s “Fly More Combo Pack” which includes the Mavic Pro but also two extra batteries, two extra propellers, the four-battery charging hub, a car charger cord, an adapter for charging your phone or other USB device from a battery pack and the DJI carrying case/shoulder bag. You’ll also likely want to get a lens shade as the Mavic’s camera tends to easily catch sunlight even when not pointed at the sun. This one works well, while this one is too fragile and breaks easily just mounting it.
And one more bit of footage – sneaking up on Darlene’s family while they were here visiting:
Every year the frogs seem to die off (or get eaten) sometime in the summer but every year there’s another big batch of them in the tiny little pond out front. And good grief, they’re loud!
Beware the mighty roar of Pan!
I’ve finally edited together numerous videos of Pan’s antics, dating back to June of 2009. Enjoy!
If you need to see more of Pan (and who could blame you?), here’s some early photos and video of him from his first few months with me.
Heard of the Tower of Terror? How about The Tower of Frustration? (Otherwise known as the CatIt Senses Food Tree 2.0.) Seemed like a cool idea since Hera is constantly bugging me for food or treats. Not surprisingly, Pan wasn’t interested in it all but then he doesn’t really care about food or treats. Hera, on the other hand, went at it with gusto and almost immediately knocked it over – and scored some treats!
I then braced it while continuing to film her initial efforts and added some weights afterward so I could leave it unattended. It was clear she had great difficulty with “paw to eye” coordination, looking at one level of the puzzle and reaching blindly elsewhere. After her initial 30 minutes of frustrated efforts she completely gave up on it and I couldn’t get her interested any more. Over the subsequent weeks, she would still cry for treats as usual but would never make any more effort to extract them from The Tower of Frustration, despite any prodding or just leaving them out, tempting her 24/7.
I eventually gave up as well and gave it away to Kathie and Dave. Looks like their Penny has absolutely no trouble with it!
It’s been quite a while since I’ve put up a gallery of Pan and Hera pictures, so…
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Click through for the full gallery.
Holy cat snacks! I bought an RV!! To be otherwise known as the Mobile Cat House, Traveling Cat Camper, Cat-Assisted Adventure Van, Traveling Cat Adventure Vehicle? The idea here is to be able to take extended road trips and bring the cats along so that I don’t always have to make arrangements for a cat sitter.
I wanted something small enough to be able to take most anywhere (cities, state/national parks, even dirt roads) and yet large enough that the cats won’t go stir crazy and hate it. Darlene and I intend to use it mostly, if not always, “dry camping” (or “boondocking” without hookups for water or electricity); in other words, our intention isn’t to travel to RV “resorts” or campgrounds. We’ll prefer being able to camp out on open national park, forest service or BLM lands.
Now if this wasn’t mostly about being able to bring the cats along, I’d definitely go for a compact 4×4 Sprinter van conversion that would allow us to go anywhere we would have previously gone and still easily fit in city parking spaces. However, to better accommodate the cats (it is the Traveling Cat Adventure Vehicle after all), I eventually settled on the somewhat wider and longer Leisure Travel Vans “Unity 24TB” (Twin Bed) model, built on the Mercedes Sprinter diesel-powered chassis. It’s a little wider and longer than a normal Sprinter van and thus a “class B+ or C” but it should still be reasonably manageable both in the city and in the wild. Unfortunately, there aren’t yet options for electric drivetrains on campervans and motorhomes, but they’re coming. Mercedes-Benz may well have an all-electric option for its Sprinter chassis in a few more years.
While the Leisure Travel Vans build lacks somewhat in some of the technical features I wanted, many of those aspects can be upgraded after the fact. The rest of the craftsmanship, aesthetics and build quality are fantastic. (I’ve posted my shopping/comparison notes here from my RV/campervan selection process as a sort of a review of what’s available that might be helpful to others.)
Anyway, I found and bought this only very slightly used 2016 Unity from a previous owner in Montana, with just 3100 miles on it, before I drove it the 1250 miles back home. It was great to find a relatively new used one, to avoid the immediate depreciation hit of buying new and also to skip the 6-8 month long backlog for new orders. Leisure Travel Vans are hard to come by and dealer’s orders seem to sell immediately. I wasn’t even able to look at one in person anywhere in California.
It remains to be seen if Pan and Hera will adapt to taking extended road trips in their new Traveling Cat House. If it doesn’t work out with the cats, I’m sure it’ll still be a fun adventure and it should be easy enough to sell again if I find it’s not something I want to keep. In the meantime, there’s a number of changes and upgrades I’ll be making to the Traveling Cat House which I’ll document here, to hopefully help out others like myself: RV Tips, Upgrades and Customizations
Update: The cats are doing great and have adapted well to traveling in the RV. Follow this tag (“RV Travels”) to see and read about Pan and Hera’s traveling adventures!