i'm gonna take off in five seconds
have you ever seen long exposure
photography you probably know the shots
i'm talking about with the really sweet
light streaks across the frame well i've
always wanted to combine my love for
racing drones with this awesome
photography technique
[Music]
i am going to attach some super bright
led lights to the top of this drone and
then gather my photography buddies and
go out to see who can get the coolest
looking shots let's see if we could put
a unique spin on this classic
photography technique
now before we really dive into what
we're doing in this video i feel like i
should at least explain a little bit
about what exactly long exposure
photography is so the way taking a photo
actually works is that there's this
thing called a shutter think of it as a
literal door that opens to allow your
neighboring light photons to come in and
then closing again blocking them in for
life with long exposure photography when
a light moves it doesn't just go away
like it does in a video it leaves behind
a history of the light's position in the
form of a trail all i gotta do is
decrease my shutter speed that's the
same as leaving the door open longer for
photons to enter the sensor have you
ever taken a blurry photo that happens
when the camera moves while the picture
is being taken but if the camera is
steady and you're moving some lights you
can get some really cool looking streaks
of light so just by kind of winging it i
got a 10 second exposure that actually
looks pretty solid now to actually put
it on a drone and test flight this
so in order to get these lights into the
sky first you need a drone and that's
where this comes in this is a five inch
propeller sized racing drone and this is
why i've been flying quite a bit over
the last year this can do flips this can
do barrel rolls it can do all kinds of
crazy acrobatics that your simple
run-of-the-mill autonomous operated
drone can't really do
now we can actually precisely and very
accurately fly the shapes that we want
to do for these light paintings assuming
i can see and we'll get to that so the
goal is to attach both of these lights
to the top of this drone in a way that
doesn't add too much weight to the
overall lift so i did a video last year
where i put a 360 camera on top of this
drone and i still have that gopro mount
on this thing i was actually really
inspired by the mount of this light on
the camera this is this little thing
that clips onto here like that so i
decided to take that principle and model
these two little crevices for these two
lights to sit back to back on top of the
drone on top of the gopro buckles
so this is my first iteration the main
thing that doesn't work is the fact that
the lights are not better secured i need
a way to solve that and the way i did
that was by printing a top piece here
this piece sits on top and acts like a
clamp all right i think i'm ready to
actually test this but in order to
actually do that i have to wait for
nightfall
i haven't flown at night very much
because when i'm flying i've got these
goggles on this camera that i used to
actually see does not have great
low-light capabilities
so that means i'm not going to be able
to see very well when i'm flying i'm
having to you know psych myself up for
flying
blind before we actually do like some
real shoots with real photographers i
want to get a little bit more practice
flying around in the dark i think i'm
ready to fly this thing hopefully i
don't crash and lift off and three
two
one
oh yeah i could totally see oh god oh
god
the only problem is that i'm not getting
nearly as much light ahead of me to see
as i thought the moment i left the
playground i couldn't see anything it
was just like a black void i guess uh
time to look at the actual photos on my
computer
i managed to get i don't know maybe a
couple dozen shots throughout the whole
night so this is my first attempt of the
night you ready
not gonna lie i was pretty pleased with
that i love how the light actually
illuminates the ground and the playset
itself however the problem that i now
see is that anyone with the flashlight
could have gotten these shots i gotta go
beyond the reaches of our arms to fly
around the tops of trees or up the sides
of buildings something that really
accentuates the fact that it's not a
person with the light tracing out the
outlines it's a drone it's really hard
to fly at night so i need a better way
to see where i'm flying so there's an
easy simple fix and that is to take my
light and rotate it 90 degrees sideways
i think this is an elegant solution i'll
have enough light to see where i'm
flying and also if i just keep in mind
where i'm flying in a better way i'll
get better looking shots
i'm an okay pilot like i can fly and do
some cool tricks and whatnot but i have
a friend who is a very good pilot his
name is steel davis and he is widely
considered to be one of the best pilots
in the world steel actually helped us
like four years ago with our drone star
wars video and steel is actually coming
back tonight to fly with us so i
actually ended up remodeling this whole
thing to work with his quad i mean at
the front of it he has like one of these
classic little like hooped gopro things
i basically just took everything i liked
about the top half of my original design
and incorporated in the double
doohickey time to print
so i've updated the design and while i
wait for that to print i wanted to take
a moment to talk to you about something
i have found very inspirational and i
think it will help you finish or even
start that project that you've been
thinking about for so long and that is
an audio book by adam savage called
every tools hammer yes this is a
sponsored segment by audible but don't
skip ahead because you're gonna miss out
on some pretty sweet life lessons adam
has made thousands of projects in his
life and he'll be the first to tell you
he has screwed up a lot of them and he's
also very sure to point out that that's
okay because you can learn from your
failures realize what doesn't work and
then move on from it it doesn't apply to
just like building things in a workshop
it applies to the act of creating
anything i highly recommend getting this
book i think you might find as much
inspiration in it as i did and you can
actually download it for free along with
two audible originals by getting a
30-day trial to audible all you got to
do is go to audible.com quarter crew or
simply text corridor crew to 500 500
again that's audible.com corridor crew
or just text corridor crew to 500 500. i
am a huge fan of audible i don't have to
say that i like talking about things
that i like
the print is done the design is final
and tonight is the night we're going to
a place called devil's gate damn and i'm
really hoping that the light from this
will illuminate all the really cool
architecture of the dam while getting
some cool light streaks while we do it
so the idea here is that nick jan and
clint are each going to use their own
cameras to try to get the coolest
looking long exposure shot while a
world-class drone pilot flies around so
i'm really hoping that everyone will
bring their own creativity to the table
[Music]
we're here for a cool reason we're going
to take some awesome long exposure shots
we're at a dam in los angeles haunted
damn it's haunted
so this is it
flying with a like a spotlight on the
front if there's things around to
balance the light off of then it's cool
but if there's not and you're just
flying an open space you can't see
anything and it's freaking terrifying
i'm excited man this is it
the plan that i see currently is that
we'll just take off fly until the
battery's low and then come in for a
landing you guys just capture whatever's
in up in the air all right i'm going to
sneak off i'm going to go up here
i'm trying to get up a view of
everything yeah that's my goal it's
shooting down on us exactly currently we
have an a7s iii
which i'm uh messing around with here
clint has a a old nikon
and a a7
r are you rolling
how does it feel fine so it's not like
terrifying but the one thing is you got
to remember where what orientation
you're in because if you're going based
off of visuals alone
you'll get super disoriented because the
ground is
all black you know
i got a good couple oh that one looks
pretty cool yeah i'm gonna fly now i'm
gonna try it so i'll probably end up
strafing pointing at the hill is there
someone there i can't even see
all right i'm ready
god speed man
thanks
that was scary
that was that was i want to sit down you
know these are turned out pretty cool
yeah
that is a dope frame
oh
i am setting up a worm's eye shot of a
beautiful dam here steel is going to do
spirals up into the heavens making a
pretty cool look
yeah that looks radical the steel's
gonna try to fly the drone all the way
up do the trench run up the stairs
oh my god these are infinite stairs
are you going a little dutch there i'm
trying to get artsy you getting some
shots too there clint barely it's just a
bunch of butt trash hot butt garbage
this is like being a national geographic
photographer and the eagle like brushes
you with its wings yeah
here it comes again
there's some good ones man sweet yeah
dude i think it was worth waiting for
that shot could you see nick when you're
flying up the stairs there yeah i saw
him at the top i saw his face like
coming in coming and i was like
let's go to the other side oh
yeah
so i'm going to stand here while still
does some orbits around me because he's
very very good at doing orbits i am
trusting you to not run into me
if i do hit you i'll try to hit this
thing yeah no this has so much padding
in it i want to do
a faster orbit i'll try to get as many
ones as i can drones up
[Music]
that way that is
quite scary
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
got some cool stuff man
well still thank you so much for flying
this was a bit of a dream come true for
me because i knew i wouldn't be able to
pilot well enough to get some of these
shots where can we find you on the
internet mr steele on youtube and mr
steele fbv on instagram i just fly
drones and do car stuff now let's get
out of here it's cold
we held the shutter button down for a
long time and it's gonna look sick
you're supposed to hold the shutter
button down
what was your shutter speed
ren's gonna be so mad
all three of these guys have selected
their best photos and they're gonna
display them up on the computer screen
for us all to review together actually
actually i i thought i got garbage i got
nothing but trash i was like kind of
down the whole day i can't wait to see
first photo
sweet look at the colors in that man
what we're seeing is actually the
exposed propellers being lit up by the
lights themselves i love this one i love
the symmetry of this one i was the
keeper for sure jen what do you edit uh
i edit lightroom sometimes in photoshop
but mostly lightroom is great yeah
that's really cool i like the vignetting
on your photos sure you're literally
capturing a circular image like who's
next
we're starting with the weird one first
this is like the flyer you get to go to
like the edm dance concert
whoa
whoa okay i see the dutch angle kind of
threw me there for a moment i guess
steel was doing a bunch of like flippity
flaps and this one's like the treble
clef
sweet this was when he was like flying
up through the railing i thought he was
going to hit us the first pass and i was
worried i bumped the camera when i
flinched because the wind was like
i have the opposite of this shot the
bottom looking up uh yeah yeah well
maybe if someone said more than five
there's some great photos what's clint
got for us
it's so funny that i'm able to see each
of your guys's aesthetic styles clint
likes that crunchy contrast look dude
this one's cool look at the light
reflecting off of the the bridge there
yeah oh an even wider one you can even
see the top of the bridge here i like
the cemetery on this one
yeah okay that i like a lot this is a
pattern that i envisioned going into
this entire night same i wasn't waiting
for you to do this finally you did it
and that was my flight it's your
initials
[Laughter]
man these are all great i'm glad you
guys came with me on this adventure i
think you got some amazing artwork out
of it thanks man that was fun thanks for
setting it up
[Music]
we got a whole year ahead of us we're
gonna try to make a whole bunch of cool
content like this more adventures more
experiments more wacky things for you
guys to enjoy subscribe clint took a
roll of film this night i tried to get
the roll of film developed and they told
me that with this specific role you're
gonna have to do it yourself is this the
film that ren gave you for secret santa
it is and apparently it has a backing on
it that only i can develop myself we
should make a video about your journey
trying to develop your own film
absolutely let's do it thank you for
watching and i'll see you in the next
video