Whistler and Birch Bay Summer Holiday

My wife and I just came back from a wonderful trip to Whistler BC Canada where we stayed 5 nights, then we traveled a few hours to Birch Bay Washington US for 3 more nights.

We stayed in our WorldMark Timeshare which is always very enjoyable and invited up some good friends and relatives to come and join us for part of each trip. It was a lot of fun being able to spend some of our vacation time with good people!

It was a vacation first and foremost but I like to document my trips al least to some degree with video. So I am able to share parts of the vacation with everyone using my Meta Glasses, HoverAir X1 Selfie Drone, Insta360 X4 and GO2 cameras and even a drone shot of me playing around flying my mini Pavo Pico FPV Drone around the hotel in Whistler.

I hope you enjoy the video of our various walks, outings and just simpel hotel lounging around. If you are thinking of going for a vacation in Whistler or Birch Bay, this video may give you a bit of an idea of what you can expect.

Getting it Done in the Gym - Vancouver Open / Pro Am 2024

I often get requests to make more Workout Videos or at least some video of me in the gym doing my thing. Usually when I am at the gym I just want to focus on the workout and so setting up and recording video can be a distraction so I rarely record my workouts.

I do have a very convenient camera for the task. My Insta360 GO2 and with its magnet case and built in mini tripod, I can fairly easily set it up almost anywhere which is what I did for this workout video. It actually was not too much of a distraction, so I will make the effort moving forward with this contest prep to get some more workout videos recorded for everyone. Not too many as they do get kind of repetitive after a while...

In this workout I recorded one set of the main exercises I performed starting with chest using the bench machine (also hit my lagging calf with it), then I moved on to back with some cable rows, followed by a mix of shoulder accessory work, I then finished up with some barbell shrugs and cable ab work.

Iflight Protek35 HD Insta360 GO2 First Flight

Sometimes I just can not pass up a good deal on an FPV Drone if I come by it honestly, it's not like I am trolling in Facebook Marketplace all the time looking for such deals...

Anyway, I came across a slightly older (2 years or so) Iflight Protek35 HD which is a Cinewhoop (has prop protector guards) but was advertised as being not only cinematic but also decent at more advanced freestyle flying. The HD version of the Iflight Protek35 came with an original DJI Air Unit VTX (Video Transmitter). Which means the video is transmitted in digital to the DJI Goggles at 720p which looks really good compared to analog VTX systems that look more like your old tube TV when the antenna wasn't just right.

The Iflight Protek35 HD was freshly rebuilt with new prop guards, extras blades and came with other bits and pieces, and it even included three 4S 1550mAh batteries which on their own are worth about $100 for the lot. The DJI Air Unit VTX if I was to buy one now, I would probably be looking at spending $200-$300 on Amazon for a new one if you can even find one. Yes there is a newer and better DJI VTX called the DJI 03 Air Unit which is 1080p but the difference is not a huge deal, not like the jump from analog to 720p digital.

I was able to buy the Iflight Protek35 HD with the three bats and extra goodies all for only $250, and the best part is that after a bunch of updating and tweaking in BetaFlight, it works great!

Here is my maiden flight with video from my Insta360 GO2 which I mounted to the FPV Drone, I also recorded the video feed I actual see in my DJI Integra Goggles as I am flying. Enjoy the view as I cruise around the back acreage.

Tiny Camera on a Tiny Drone GEPRC TinyGO 4k - Insta360 GO2

I may be obsessed a bit with these little drones but hey, they are super fun and for the price they offer a ton of enjoyment. I am really happy with my GEPRC TinyGO 4k FPV Drone, don't get me wrong, it has for sure exceeded my expectations and thank God it is literally indestructible (Well almost)! That said slightly better video quality would not be a bad thing as the built in camera I have set to record at 2.7k in 60fps looks pretty good, but it is a bit sharp and contrasty and I do get some jell-o effect but overall it does a good job.

So I thought, why not strap my Insta360 GO2 tiny camera to it and see what it looks like? So I did just that with some high tech rubber band engineering and my first test flight worked just fine but I still got a lot of that jell-o vibration in the camera, so I added a dampener to the build using some Velcro and foam. Well that did the trick nicely and even acted as a bit of a dampener for the internal camera smoothing it out somewhat.

Enough talking about it, best to simply show you so here is a comparison video of what the internal camera on the GEPRC TinyGO 4k looks like compared to the strapped on Insta360 GO2.

Dog Walk in FortLangley - Shot on Insta360 Go2

Still figuring out my how to use my new Insta360 Go2 Mini Action Camera and the software for it but I am starting to get the hang of it. This quick video of our Dog Walk In Fort Langley was completely shot and edited using the Insta360 Go2 and accompanying software.

Future Adventurers Series Videos will be more interesting and hopefully have less dog but holes in them ;)