Amazing Drone Video And Photography In Liverpool
Home Made Drone
In 2014, I built a homemade 4 propeller drone, before they were mainstream and easily available as they are today. You can now get yourself up and running with a drone for less than £20.
The purpose was to send it up and get a bird’s eye view of some parts of Liverpool. Once I had it working and could control it reasonably well, I attached a camera. I didn’t have a gimble to stabilize the camera, so as you can see in the videos, the picture is a bit shaky and introduces some blur, but you can still easily make out landmarks such as the Boating Lake and the Palm house in Sefton Park
Video captured by the camera fitted to the DIY drone in 2014. You can see the fields in Sefton Park along with the Boating Lake. It is interesting to see what’s behind the houses on Mossley Hill Drive.
Second drone video capturing aerial views of Merebank, Rutland House, York House, Buckingham House, Sydenham and Brompton high rise. You can also see the Sefton Park Cricket ground, swinging around to the Cathedrals and other Liverpool landmarks.
Aerial view of junction of Greenbank Drive and Mossley Hill Drive taken by the Drone’s camera
Aerial View From Drone in Walton Park
The camera mounted underneath the drone captured these images around Walton Park and surrounding areas including Long Lane industrial estates and Jacob’s factory.
You can see from the third video, views of Walton Park and surrounding areas. You can make out Asda superstore in the distance along Abingdon Road.
The drone’s camera shows views from above of Long Lane industrial estate with Tasker’s store and Jacob’s factory. You can also see Everton’s football ground at Goodison before the drone turns towards Long Lane.
The Drone Crashes
If you listen carefully, while the drone is descending at Walton Park, you can hear the motors reducing speed. This is when the battery level dropped causing the drone to fall out of the sky, breaking the camera. that is why the video footage ends abruptly. It was a job trying to recover the video data on the SD card, as the camera wasn’t able to complete the MP4 file before it crashed.
Disappearing Drone
Back in Sefton Park, I sent the drone up after I had repaired the damage to a couple of plastic arms after the mishap at Walton Park. I also obtained another decent camera for £5 from Cash Converters! I was hoping to take some aerial photographs of Lark Lane and surrounding areas in Aigburth.
Up the drone went, but it kept on going up and up despite me trying to correct it with the Turnigy radio remote control unit. I watched as the UAV became a little dot, then disappeared from view. It seems that it lost the GPS signal and got confused.
Despite combing around Sefton Park, I never saw the drone again. After all these years, it may be on someone’s roof somewhere around Sefton Park with the SD card in its camera holding the secrets of the Drone’s final moments. At least the camera only cost a fiver!
Some drone video footage was used in this video featuring Liverpool landmarks. A taster for those visiting the city for the run up to the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest in May
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