EOY

Here’s my end of year video. It’s a compilation of scenes from my 2015 travels. During the year I visited 16 countries on 5 continents over an 11 month period. This video doesn’t have scenes from every place I filmed, but it does have something from most of them. It was difficult to pick scenes for the video because I had a very productive year. I had literally thousands of good scenes to choose from, but only space for a little over 130 of them in a very fast paced production. There's a fair amount of aerial video sprinkled throughout the film. I hope you enjoy this trip around the world with me. You can see it on this site in the "Aerial" menu or directly on my Vimeo channel at www.vimeo.com/fishtales/mmxv

Rice in the Sky

Another 100% Aerial video filmed with my DJI Inspire 1. I spent a day in the highlands of central Bali filming Rice Terraces. Since Rice needs a shallow water filled paddy to get started, in hilly areas you have to carve the hillside into terraces. This makes the terrain difficult to film from the ground, but a very interesting locale from the air. Rice crops are staggered in Bali, so this video contains everything from fallow fields, newly plowed land, freshly planted paddies, green fields and golden rice ready to harvest. Bali has two seasons. One is hot and wet, the other is hotter and wetter. I'm currently here in the latter, so it's not a great time to be filming weather wise, but I lucked out with a great day that had some blue sky and fluffy clouds. You can see the video here on this site in the Aerial Videos Menu or on my Vimeo Channel at: www.vimeo.com/fishtales/riceterrace

Goin Divin

I just uploaded a video that I did while I was at Lembeh Resort teaching an underwater video workshop. It's called "Goin Divin", but there's no underwater footage in it. As a matter of fact, it's 100% aerial. It is comprised of scenes filmed from the air as the dive boats departed for their morning dives. Also a couple scenes at the end of Lembeh Resort where the workshop was being held. You can see the video here on this site in the Aerial Videos Menu or on my Vimeo Channel at: www.vimeo.com/fishtales/goindivin

Hong Kong Photos

I didn’t shoot too many still photos while in Hong Kong, but I did shoot a few architectural photos late one afternoon. Most of my photography was aerial with the DJI Inspire to check out the new X5 camera upgrade.


I call this one “New Growth, Hong Kong Style”


In this shot, I was riding an escalator trying to get just the right angle while on the move. I also managed to get a jetliner in this image, though I didn’t see it at the time.


In this image, I actually did see the jetliner and caught it on purpose.


The last bit of sun on the sot of the Bank of China building.


These next three images are still frames from DJI Inspire X5 4K video. I could have shot stills at the time, but I was busy flying and filming and sort of spaced out and forgot to shoot some test stills. Next test flight I do, I’ll try to remember to shoot some stills too for comparison.

New Cam

While in Hong Kong, I upgraded the camera on my DJI Inspire to an X5. I did three test flights with it in various parts of Hong Kong. Here’s a photo of that bad boy.

Loy Krathong Cancelled

Well, I had planned on going to Chiang Mai to film the mass release of lanterns that float up into the air. It happens during the Loy Krathong festival. I went a couple years ago and it was very cool. I thought it would be even cooler to shoot it with the Quad from the air. Last year, the airlines complained about it, even though it has been going on for many years without incident. The mass release is nowhere near the airport, but they wanted it cancelled. The local organizers didn’t want to cancel because it brings in a huge number of tourists (which benefits who? The airlines!). So the airlines cancelled dozens of flights to Chiang Mai over the four nights of the festival. Then the local organizers cancelled the mass lantern release. So now there are no flights, no lanterns and no reason for me to go to Chiang Mai right now. I decided to wait until the Flower Festival in February. I’m pretty sure the airlines aren’t anti-flower yet. Instead of Chiang Mai, I decided to go to Hong Kong for three days instead.

Great Ocean Road Video Online

About a month ago, I did a drive along the Great Ocean Road in Southeastern Australia. It is famous for it's spectacular coastal scenery and offshore rocky formations called "stacks". The most famous is an area called The Twelve Apostles. Also in the area is Loch Ard Gorge, The Bay of Martyrs and Bay of Islands. I spent several days in the area, and also some time inland while waiting for the coastal weather to improve. While inland I was able to film some of Australia's iconic wildlife, Kangaroos, Wallabies and Koala Bears. On my last day in the area, the weather cleared enough to fly the DJI Inspire and I managed to get some nice aerial footage of The Bay of Martyrs and The Bay of Islands. Nearly half of the film is aerial. You can see it at: www.vimeo.com/fishtales/greatoceanroad

This is the last video of my New Zealand/Australia trip. Time to go out and shoot some new content!