I flew the drone again

DJI has some of the worst products on the market.  Their customer service is atrocious and their stuff is probably spying on us  and sending it back to the Chinese government.  I wish there was a Canadian or American company that made good, inexpensive drones.  The last time I flew my DJI Spark, I nearly lost it twice in a span of 5 minutes.  Do I trust the drone?  Hell no.  It's my second DJI Spark since I lost the first one last year somewhere near Pakenhanm, Ontario because my remote lost connection with the actual drone. I think next year, I'll actually spend more than $1,500 on a real drone that shoots raw and 4k videos and use that for my microstock photography business.  In the mean time, the above shot was taken with the DJI Spark and edited in ON1 Photo Raw 19.5.

I am pretty sure...

...this will be my last contract in the I.T. field.  With the current contract, I am not getting any help whatsoever.  They want it done by December 20, 2018 but there is no way I am getting it done alone. I love doing photography and shooting footage.  I'm probably going to sign up for two evening classes at Algonquin College for the winter semester.  Both are dealing with how to shoot and edit movies in an NLE type program.  

I just checked the Algonquin College website and it looks like I have time to sign up for the courses I want.  It's a three course program and the Video Composition and Audio Production classes run on Saturdays and Tuesdays which is perfect.  I can take both classes at the same time.  I've already taken and successfully passed the Photography Techniques course at Algonquin College.  I've pretty much learnt Apple Final Cut Pro X on my own but I know I've barely scratched the surface of the program. I need to learn more.

I regret not keeping up my skills with Photoshop.  For 99.9% of my photography I just used to use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.  In Photoshop I only used the Camera Raw portion of the program and then use some of the presets to sharpen the image and run the Denoise option.  I've forgotten how to do lets say a sky replacement.  Thankfully I can look up pretty much everything on YouTube and follow a tutorial there.  I know it's not the best way of doing things but it's better than nothing.  I don't want to do so much to my image in Photoshop or Affinity Photo so I try and get the image right in camera rather than Photoshop.  

I basically am a minimalist when it comes to photo editing.  I do landscape and wildlife photography and shoot landscape and wildlife footage.  I don't apply much to my image and footage.  Just some colour correcting, noise reduction.  Remove any glaring things that take away from the image.

On a side note, I haven't sold one video on Shutterstock yet this month.  It's uncommon for me not to sell at least one video on Shutterstock.  I sold one this month on Pond5.  Storyblocks has been quiet for months.  I've added and added footage and photos to all my sites but video sales are non-existent this month and have been for quite a while.  I am hoping it picks up pretty soon.  

I do love drone photography

I only have the DJI Spark.  I'm planning on upgrading my drone to a DJI Mavic Pro 2 in the spring.  The Spark only shoots in JPEG which limits my editing in Serif' Affinity Photo.  The problems with the DJI Spark is the flight time.  I have 3 batteries and I can only get about 12 minutes per battery in flight time.  So I'm limited to about 36 minutes per location.  There is no RAW file format for photography as well.  I like to shoot video at 1080p/60fps.  The DJI Spark is limited to 1080p/30fps.  The distance also sucks.  Since I lost my first DJI Spark due to connection issues, I won't fly it more than 300 meters away from me.  With the above shot I was over the Ottawa River which really isn't a bright idea since I'd lose the drone in water if it were to lose power or if I lost connection.  I've had my second drone for about 6 weeks now and I haven't lost connection to it which is good.  I am still hesitant to fly it great distance or in an obstructed area where I lose sight of it or where I have a chance of losing connection.  I do want a drone with a bigger battery and longer flight time.  Also I want to shoot in RAW mode and I want to have an option of shooting in 4k.  Next year I want to go to Prague with my girlfriend.  I already have good cameras and a good camcorder.  I want to have a better drone for those arial shots.  I am currently saving all my photography money for a Sony RX100 Mark IV.  I am planning on getting the DJI Mavic Pro 2 with my tax return.  We shall see, the shall see.