With so much time on my hands these days I’m spending a lot of time thinking of silly/creative ideas and things I can do!
It all started with drone light painting and learning how to do that, followed by astrophotography and teaching myself that.
My next idea was to buy myself a Remote Control Boat and put a Lume Cube light on it, send it off into the water and see what happens!
I ordered myself a Remote Control boat from Amazon and when it came in I filled my bathtub to make sure the idea would work before I headed out to a local lake to bring this idea to life.
First I placed a strong piece of adhesive 3M velcro to the top of the boat and then I put a Lume Cube Air on the velcro. The Lume Cube Air is light and compact so I figured it would work perfectly.
As soon as I placed the boat in the bathtub it tipped over, too heavy!
Next, I grabbed my small Lume Cube Anti Collision Strobe Lights that are meant for drones. They are tiny, water proof and very bright, plus the adhesive velcro is actually made for these lights and they are the same size.
SUCCESS, the boat floats and it stays balanced.
Now it’s time to get out on the lake and try this idea.
My first attempt was a bust as it was windy all day and that made for a lot of waves, plus i had no idea how to properly maneuver the RC boat.
I practiced with the boat some more, learned to ride it smoothly and waited for the right day where the water will be calm
Heading out to the secret location of my lake, I waited on the sun to set and night to set in, while I waited I captured some landscape photos of this beautiful lake!
Now it’s finally dark enough and it’s time to get to work, with my RC Boat, my lights, my drone and my camera gear I set up and get started!
Smooth control of the boat is key, also knowing what your left and right limits are in the framed exposure so I don’t let the boat drive out of the scene, I had done some practice controlling of the boat and knew how to control the speed, the smooth turns and my left/right constraints.
Here are the two finished products of my remote control boat/Lume Cube Lights Experiment!
The first photo is precisely what I had in mind when I thought of this idea and I liked the second one with the tail, caused by me extending the boat out of the circle.
The camera settings for both photos were:
30 Second exposures at f8.0
ISO – 100
Focal Length 18mm
My next idea in this concept is to attempt the RC Boat on the water and a the drone in the air, light painting at the same time. This would probably require two people, but I feel that this may not work as the drone reflection on the water will cause an overlap on the boats light in the water, but we’ll see!
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