I am, as the kids would say, there for this documentary:

The film is comprised entirely of archival footage and audio:

Miller and his team collaborated with NASA and the National Archives (NARA) to locate all of the existing footage from the Apollo 11 mission. In the course of sourcing all of the known imagery, NARA staff members made a discovery that changed the course of the project — an unprocessed collection of 65mm footage, never before seen by the public. Unbeknownst to even the NARA archivists, the reels contained wide format scenes of the Saturn V launch, the inside of the Launch Control Center and post-mission activities aboard the USS Hornet aircraft carrier.

The find resulted in the project evolving from one of only filmmaking to one of also film curation and historic preservation. The resulting transfer — from which the documentary was cut — is the highest resolution, highest quality digital collection of Apollo 11 footage in existence.

I also loved this music video made using mission audio & imagery:

[YouTube 1 & 2] [Via]

Kind of a neat little app that uses iPhone depth data to segment images & create double exposures:

Terrific work from Tarsicio Sañudo, who according to PetaPixel “shot thousands of RAW photos with his DJI Mavic 2 Pro over the course of two months.” He mentions using After Effects for post-capture stabilization.

[YouTube] [Via]

Being able to preset one’s flight path on a map seems like a great way to set up shots that transition from day to night—especially cool when done with hyperlapses. Now to find a sufficiently interesting area in which to try it. See below for a demo/tutorial.

Oh, and there’s a really significant (for me, anyway) tweak hanging out in the corresponding firmware update: “Fixed issue: could not open Sphere panorama photos in Facebook.” The absence of the correct metadata was an ongoing pain that prevented me from seeing panos as interactive in Google Photos or making them interactive on Facebook. I haven’t yet installed the update, but I have my fingers crossed. [Update: It works!]

[YouTube]

Whoa—apparently Irish Wonder Twin Powers involve an insane work ethic for finding interesting earthly patterns:

I was getting a sense of deja vu watching this, and PetaPixel helpfully writes,

If project reminds you of “Arena” by Páraic McGloughlin, there’s a good reason for that: Páraic is Kevin’s twin brother and the two had originally planned to create a single collaborative video before splitting and working independently on two separate videos while working in the same office.

[Vimeo]

Just a little drone fun my Mini Me & I had in Barstow, CA, at New Years (with a big hat tip to Mr. Johnny Cash):

And on the very off chance you’re interested in having a very rail-savvy 9-year-old tour you around the Western America Railroad Museum, well, you’re in luck. 😌

[YouTube]

[YouTube 1 & 2]

This makes me briefly—very briefly—want to move back to the land of the ice & snow:

[Vimeo] [Via]

The lads and I are just back from an overnight visit to the USS Hornet, a decorated World War II-era carrier we last visited some 7 years ago. This time around we spent the night with our Cub Scout pack & several hundred other scouts & parents from around the area. On the whole we had a ball touring the ship, and I had a little fun flying my drone over the Hornet & her adjacent Navy ships:

And here’s an interactive 360º panorama from overhead. (Obligatory nerdy sidenote: This is the JPEG version stitched on the fly by the drone, and although I was able to stitch the raw source images in Camera Raw & get better color/done, I’ll be damned if I can figure out how to inject the proper metadata to make it display right. As usual I used EXIF Fixer to make the JPEG interactive.)

[YouTube]

“It’s a hell of a lot easier to sit on your ass in a vehicle for thousands of miles than it is to carry 80 lbs of gear on your back into the wilderness for dozens of miles,” writes Nicolaus Wegner, explaining his interest in capturing storm time lapses. “Plus, I think supercells and other forms of severe weather are just about the coolest events our planet manifests.” Agreed:

[Via]

I have no idea whether this thing is worth a damn—but I’d sure like to find out (well, with the caveat that if it’s awesome, it’d be one more piece of bulky kit to schlepp around):

Using an astronaut’s perspective on intuitive motion through space, we have patented a unique and intuitive drone controller that anyone, whether they’re eight or eighty, can pick up and begin using immediately.

The FT Aviator is designed to incorporate the relevant 4 degrees of freedom of movement (x, y, z, and yaw) to drone flying, eliminating the awkward interface and steeper learning curve of existing dual thumb-controlled drones. It intuitively unlocks human potential to fly and capture stunning imagery.

[YouTube]

We just passed the 50th anniversary of the creation of “the most influential environmental photograph ever taken,” captured on Christmas Eve, 1968, by astronaut Bill Anders during the Apollo 8 mission. Here’s a great short look into this photographic history:

[YouTube]

What a gorgeous way to ring in the still-new year:

Pilot/photographer Sigurður Þór Helgason writes,

Happy New Year 2019. This is Reykjavik city on New Years Eve. Most households shot their own fireworks just before midnight so the outcome is a spectacular firework show, unlike any other. Music by Adi Goldstein.

Note: I shot this with my Mavic 2 Pro. I used D-log M, ISO 1600, shutter 1/25 frame rate 25 and used the LUT from DJI to bring the colours back. No other adjustments and no, there are no special effects in this video or post production. Hope you enjoy this.