Sleep Over

It was the weekend before Ramadhan, right in the middle of the school holiday period. Syahril's son was asked what he wanted to do that weekend. And the answer was to chill at our apartment. Great stuff.

Anita cooked her gorgeous soto ayam and we basically just relaxed and eat the whole day. We then ended the afternoon at the swimming pool.

Syahril did not stay overnight though, but that didn't mean that the night finished early. The boys were still running around the apartment at close to midnight.

Not content with that, by the time I left home at around 8 the next morning, everybody was already up, waiting for breakfast. They were still running around playing games and all by the time Syahril came to pick them up at around 4pm. The boys definitely enjoyed it ....

Selamat Bersahur

Ramadhan had returned for another year. I was on call the evening before the Ramadan started, which meant I was not able to take my customary first of Ramadhan day off this year. But clinic was cancelled, and I only had half a dozen admission - although they could do without coming in after midnight.

The boys were woken up for sahur - the early breakfast before the day of fasting - reluctantly. But they soon realised that they may be starving if they didn't eat. In the end, it did not take much convincing although as you could see, they couldn't even opened their eyes completely ....

After my ward round this morning, I went into Bangsar to join Anita to get her the clothes for Raya. She must pick first at that would set the scene for the colour for the rest. And she got some nice ones. And it looked like it was going to be red or maroon this year around ....

Flying over Tugu

After the morning flight, my hands were itchy for another go. It turned out that the weather was kind. Time to head out again.

This time around, Anita came along. As it was already quite late - we were at our old classmate's place earlier - we decided to go somewhere near our place. It was an easy choice, Tugu Negara - The National Monument.

Climbing above the treesDirectly aboveI set up the take off point at the field by the ASEAN Monuments. I made a few passes over the Tugu before exploring the rest of the park pointing the camera towards town to capture the skyscape.

A quick peek into town ...The sun was almost down ....The sunset was not that pretty because of the heavy cloud cover though. Great going.

Denied Again

This post was written on Friday, 3rd June 2016

The crave for droning was strong. And I was denied again. This time due to heavy rain. Two days in a row. Even Anita felt sorry for me ....

I managed to get to Putrajaya, had a drink before it started raining. Thunder was everywhere and the lightning made the flight a no go.

If I thought it was bad at Putrajaya, it turned out that the rain and strong winds had caused havoc in KL There were hailstorms and trees uprooted. A few buildings were damaged as well as area of flash flood. It was not pretty.

So, the drones would have to wait that bit longer ....

The Maiden Flight

Sunday Morning, and I have less than half a dozen patients to review in the ward. I decided to start the day early with a short drive to Taman Tasik Titiwangsa. There was a fun run going on in town and some of the route were diverted. I didn't have any issues getting there though and at around 7.30 am, I got everything set up.

Then came the calibration and pre-flight stuffs. All the connections were in order and I have updated the firmware on the drone the night before. All charged up and with the press of a button - or in this case, a swipe on the screen - the Phantom 4 was airborne. And off it climbed!

I picked an open space around 100 meters from the car park. There was no trees to block my view and I soon got the drone flying above the famous Tasik Titiwangsa. I snapped some photos, pointed the drone towards the city centre and snapped some more. Next came the video recording. For the first flight, I decided to keep things simple and recorded the footage in HD rather than 4K.

45 minutes later, I was out of juice from both the battery packs and it was time to head home and study the footage.

A new perspective into my photography from this angle. Shame that the light was not the best ...There was a miniature radio car circuit right next doorMe with some spectators at base camp ...The maiden flight went off without an issue. There was a couple occasions where the connection with the drones dropped due to interference, but it reconnected within a few seconds. ANd the footage looked amazing.

I wished that the weather was a bit better. It was an overcast morning and the sun was well hidden behind a wall of cloud. There was hardly any contrast in my snaps but the angle alone from which the photos were taken guaranteed a different perspective on my snaps. I kinda loved it! And the quality of the camera was much more than I expected!

I also realised than how important planning was for each flights, what route to take and when to get images or video. I still got plenty to learn plus I would need to sharpen up on my post-processing workflow as well. I needed some training for Final Cut Pro!

All in all, it was a great outing which made me dream for more .....