This video is about how not to fly your drone on an active volcano and I know
that sounds kind of crazy but let me explain how this video can help you so
although I attempted to fly my drone on top of an active volcano really this
video is about what not to do what mistakes not to do when flying your
drone and this video really applies to any place that you fly so it could be in
there a nice River it could be near a nice rice field it could be near a
waterfall it could be any place that you find scenic they enjoy flying your drone
but in this case I noticed extreme example it was on top of a volcano an
active volcano so in this video I'm gonna show you some of my mistakes so
you don't make them so let's get right into it so this was a few weeks back I
was in Bali now here's the thing normally when I go to a place scenic
area or a tourist location I normally go by myself or just with a friend a lot of
times I just fly by myself because I like having the time and the focus just
to do my shooting cuz I take it very seriously the number one thing you want
when you fly at least for me is to really get the shot to nail a shot
that's the most important thing of course for this flying on top of a
volcano combined to the things I really love which is being out in nature and
beautiful places and flying my drone so being able to use my filmmaking
photography ability to capture someplace that's really beautiful and find the
essence of it through your drone so that's what I was trying to do so in
Bali there's two big volcanoes and one of them is called Mount but or so I
really wanted to go this mount Pat or the only way I could get to the top was
going through a guide or going through a tourist group and a tourist agency so I
was like alright I'll just sign up for this tour group so I went around town
talked to a few different places I went to one place it seemed really good the
guy seemed nice show me all the pictures also had a good price and the group was
relatively small it's like five or six people I think six people max so I was
like alright that's not that's cool we'll do that and I asked him I said
look the main point of my trip I want to capture these beautiful shots of the
volcano with my Mavic too and I asked them I said hey we'll be
able to get the drone shots how much time will I have and he explained to me
oh yeah no problem you'll have an hour and a half at the
top we'll go real early you'll climb to the top and you can go all around the
crater and walk around get all the shots you want and no problem so I was like
this is great plus I'll meet a few new people this is cool let's do it so I
checked the weather and I picked a morning where it said it wasn't going to
rain and normally it doesn't rain in the morning normally in Bali it rains in the
afternoon in the evenings so I thought no problem it's not gonna rain this will
be a beautiful day and sure enough the night before I was going it starts
raining and it rains all night and I wake up at 2:00 a.m. because they gonna
pick me up at 2:00 a.m. around 2:00 2:15 so I'm waiting outside in the pitch dark
and it's pouring rain so my first tip is if you're gonna fly your drone make sure
you check the weather forecast see if you can have a backup day one app
that I like using is called UAV forecast it's really helpful cuz it also tells
you the wind profiles so a lot of times the wind lets say is 10 15 miles per
hour on the ground level but then it could be 30 miles per hour just a few
hundred feet up or it could be gusting to like a thirty miles per hour which if
you have something like the Mavic mini that could really prevent you from
flying it or possibly crashing and then have an alternative day in this
situation I couldn't really go another day because I already paid my money I
already had the group their group was gonna go no matter what so if you can
try to set another day or another time to shoot so sort of have a back-up plan
if the weather and the lighting isn't the way exactly that you want that would
be great under ideal circumstances but under this circumstance had no choice so
I was waiting out there in the rain so now they pick me up in this van get in
there with all my drone gear and there's five other people there's three girls
from Spain one girl from Peru and one guy from Germany now everyone's really
young everything was good I was really excited about this trip everyone seemed
really cool we drove two hours around these really
windy roads and then we finally came to this parking lot they dropped us off
there and then that's where our guide was now our guy there's only 19 years
old he was gonna take us up the mountain so
that's what he does all the time now this wasn't a tremendously strenuous
hike but it wasn't easy at the same time as well and you certainly need the guide
because you can make a wrong turn and get lost and a few years ago they told
me someone went up there attempted to go up there and they actually died they
fell off a cliff or something or I don't know exactly what happened but they
ended up dying on the volcano so it's a good thing we had the guide you don't
definitely don't want to die flying you're drunk so I was happy to have the
guide but normally I like going by myself so if you can go by yourself or
with some friends or with some people who are serious about what you're doing
now I'll explain more that'll make more sense towards the end of the story so as
we go up we're hiking it starts raining so we're hiking pretty much the entire
way up it was raining now as it was raining light then it rained heavy so I
had to lug all my deer so I had to take off all my gear put a trash bag around
it so if you have a waterproof bag or even if you have a way to cover your bag
without physically holding it that can be a lot helpful for me I'm kind of
overprotective I put two garbage bags around all my gear and then hold it like
this like a baby so it's kind of like I was walking up the volcano with like a
fourth grader and I was holding him in my arms so that's basically it was not
fun plus it was raining and on top of that its Indonesia so it's really hot so
I was sweating some sweating it's raining I got this bag in my arms like
this but I'm like whatever I'm not gonna hold the entire group back because of
all my gear my stuff so I just sucked it up and kept going because I was really
excited to get to the top and I was hopeful that the rain would stop by the
time we got to the top we get to the top finally and it starts to let up so I'm
like yes after all that effort it's finally gonna pay off and we're just
waiting there we got there I would say around 6 o'clock maybe 5 of 6 so it's
about a two-hour hike to the top of the volcano and then the Sun starts coming
up and right before the Sun came up what I decided to do was to take my drone and
fly it and just kind of survey the land so this was actually a good thing this
wasn't a mistake that I made so this is something I always do let's say 6:30
the sun's gonna be the ideal lighting conditions so I like to fly my drone a
little before that and just kind of survey the land so that's what I did I
flew my drone just lifted it up there wasn't too much wind so it's still
really nice and I kind of just flew it around and just kind of saw what the
contours of the volcano and the whole area looked like from above so that way
when the Sun was perfect I'd have the perfect money shot so I won't be looking
for the right angle the right distance and so forth to shoot so one thing I
like to do is either if you can do it the day before to the location and scout
it out so to speak and look around and see where exactly you want to shoot
that's a good way to do it you could also go online there's a lot of apps
that you could look at and this way you can see where exactly you want to fly
what mode and what camera setting you want to use and so forth so that's what
I did I kind of looked around saw which way I wanted to shoot the different
angles I wanted to capture and that was really good
so all these shots here you see I'm not trying to fly perfectly I'm not trying
to get that money shot I'm just trying to see what the volcano looks like so I
can plan my shot now unfortunately for me Mother Nature was not behind me on
this day so when the Sun started rising the wind also started picking up so I
try to take off my drone right when the Sun was rising and the wind was just
ferocious it was probably I'd say like thirty five miles per hour
maybe faster I'd say between thirty to forty miles per hour
I could take it up but I didn't want to take it up more than a couple feet
because it was already starting to shake and go crazy so then I just brought it
down so what I did was I just held my Mavic to my hand I try to move it around
and just get some shots so as an alternative if you can't fly your drone
like I did you can just hold it in your hands and try to just pan and just get
some shots if you're on top of a mountain or someplace like this now
obviously if you're in a look in a valley or on the ground not on top of a
mountain or a volcano then you can't get kind of the same shot so this doesn't
apply for that but since I was really high I just kind of used my drone and
since it has a stabilizer on it I can move around and you can see the wind
here it's kind of crazy how windy it got but I was like
it's okay we got time the wind will die down or I can go to a different spot
maybe go beneath the crater fly down where the wind won't be as much maybe
part of the crater will block the wind I was just trying to get some shots of the
sunrise and just kind of I was thinking I'll just wait it out so the Sun starts
rising I wasn't really too concerned at this point just trying to enjoy it and
also about that time these monkeys came out so I love monkeys the monkeys in the
wild are actually friendly whereas when I was in the Monkey Forest
the monkeys in captivity or actually means these monkeys were super nice I
had a few bananas for my trip so I held one out and then the monkey climbed up
me and they got some shots now one thing you can learn there's this Russian girl
right in front of me now she was taking some beautiful photos with her iPhone 11
and I looked at the photo so I was like wow those are amazing I want those shots
with the monkey I gave her my website my email address my phone number
and she never sent me the photo so one thing I'll say is if you want the photos
make sure you use your camera unfortunately most people are reliable
aren't cool like that I try to send photos or videos if I tell a person I'm
gonna do it do it so one thing I'd advise is if you're gonna take photos of
someone you get their contact information send them the photo send
them the video just out of courtesy so those photos are in the ether there's
somewhere else and I'll never see them again but that's the way it goes so
luckily I have my GoPro so I got some shots here but not as good as the ones
that she took so if you can and another mistake I made have someone a travel
companion or someone to shoot b-roll or behind the scenes footage for you or if
you want to get photos of yourself make sure you have someone in the group
that'll take photos now I had my guy shoot a little bit with the GoPro but he
didn't really know what he was doing so it was okay I have high standards so I'm
always kind of critical that so make sure you get someone who knows cameras
nose video knows how to film and that sort of thing so at this point I've been
on top of the volcano maybe 15 20 minutes max and then the guys says
everyone wants to go down to the bottom so we're gonna leave now I said what
what are you talking about like I signed up for this tour because I
want to stay at the top I know there's a lot of other people up here why are we
leaving what's going on he's like oh they said they want to leave they all
want to leave now so since there's only six of us if they all want to leave we
have to go by the majority vote we have to leave so it's not my country not my
tour like I was really upset but there really wasn't anything I could do so I
just had to leave and I'm like you know I missed out on the opportunity to
really fly my drone I maybe flew my drone for just a few minutes like maybe
five minutes max and that was it and that was just a survey the land I
really get to shoot anywhere and we just hiked down fast as we hiked down though
there was no wind so I could have flown my drone I mean the lighting wasn't
perfect but I could have got some still some great shots and I couldn't do that
because they were all walking really fast and just want to leave so I didn't
really get it was kind of strange to me I guess maybe it's like the younger
generation maybe they just want to like take a few selfies and then they want to
leave like share that with friends they don't want to enjoy it so one thing I
like to do and one mistake I thought this group made was to always plan time
to get the shot and then once I get the hero shot for wherever I'm shooting I
like to take half an hour an hour as long as I want just to enjoy the scenery
and the beauty of the location sometimes when I'm shooting I'm so intent on
getting the shot that you don't really enjoy it as much as when you just put
down your drone put down your camera and you just enjoy the moment so I like to
do both and in this situation I really didn't get to do either I mean it was
kind of just like paid all this money we hiked two hours in the rain we drove two
hours in the darkness I got up at 2 a.m. and we're just gonna stay for like 15
minutes and leave it it just didn't makes too much sense to me so my biggest
thing that you biggest mistake and biggest thing you can learn is make sure
you talk to other people maybe read reviews online I didn't do that I kind
of talked to this person who ran this tour guide who seemed like an honest
person and maybe he was maybe it was just this young guide was being told
what to by higher-ups and they just wanted to
make money which seems unfortunate but it did it wasn't really a good tour
because what's the point of hiking up a volcano staying there for five minutes
15 minutes and then and leaving so if you're gonna go in a group make sure
you're with like-minded people I would find other people who are interested in
flying drones or interested in cameras or people who just have patience now
sometimes you might have to pay extra money now I could have paid for a guy
just to take me but I would have had to pay the cost of six different people
because they don't go up just by with one person they only go up in the groups
so if you have a lot of money it's worth it because when you fly you can't be in
a hurry you really have to take time and adjust to the situation especially with
flying your drones the lighting can change very quickly for someone to like
curry it it just doesn't work it's sort of like you know if you're a cook you're
like oh we need the food now well to cook a really good meal it takes time
you can't rush it same thing with flying your drone to get the really good shots
you can't really rush it sometimes you know you can get lucky and everything
can be perfect right when you get there but they that's usually not the case you
usually have to wait or you have to plant it out and then even after you get
done getting the shot that you want don't you want to enjoy it don't you
want to sit there and just enjoy nature enjoy the day enjoy the moment and know
certainly with the coronavirus people appreciate the moment appreciate things
a lot more at least I think they do at least I do being outdoors or being able
to travel and do these different things that a lot of us aren't able to do now
and then my last tip is to have an alternative plan so although I wanted to
fly on top of this volcano it turned out because it was so windy I probably could
have flown my drone just a few hundred feet below or maybe even fifty feet
below just down the path but obviously we had to leave really quickly so I
wasn't able to do that but if you're able to fly further down or have an
alternative plan sometimes the alternative can be better than where you
first wanted to fly so always have a couple different locations where you can
fly that way if the wind happens there's a bunch of people in the shot
and you don't want people in the shot things like this you can adapt and
change so try to have a couple different locations within the area that you want
to shoot that way this place doesn't work out you can go over here this place
doesn't work out you can go over here and sometimes you can use all three of
those locations to combine them into your final edit that might give you a
better perspective and a better video than if you just shot at one place so I
like to get all different types of looks and try to go do as much shooting as you
can in that location during the lighting and time frame that you have now the
other mistake I made but obviously it wasn't my fault is to shoot during
extended period times so I like to shoot for at least an hour maybe an hour and a
half and from sunrise to an hour and a half later the lighting conditions are
gonna change dramatically so you're gonna get that nice soft golden look in
the morning and then it's the lights gonna become cooler a little more white
and tone much brighter so you're gonna get totally different looks maybe you
preferred on that volcano maybe the lighting was better early in
the morning you prefer that's your style or maybe you prefer an hour later when
it's a little brighter out make sure you prepare for an extended shooting time
just in case the weather changes as well alright that's the end of my story I
hope you enjoyed this video if you did give it a thumbs up share it with a
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I'm Brett Garamella, the Drone Pilot Pro, and remember, "Fly Like a Pro!"