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  #21  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2021, 10:29 PM
mr1138 mr1138 is offline
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Originally Posted by destroycreate View Post
looks like mexico
When I was there in Summer 2018 I had a similar thought. It feels way different than Dallas or other parts of Texas I have spent time in - it actually feels a bit like a Mexican city that the US somehow took control of (in fact, that's kind of what it is...).

Or another analogy is that it feels a bit like Santa Fe, NM - except instead of being a quaint historic district stuck in a single time and architectural style, a modern mid-sized American downtown has been layered right on top of the historic settlement.
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  #22  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2021, 11:47 PM
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Originally Posted by mr1138 View Post
When I was there in Summer 2018 I had a similar thought. It feels way different than Dallas or other parts of Texas I have spent time in - it actually feels a bit like a Mexican city that the US somehow took control of (in fact, that's kind of what it is...).

Or another analogy is that it feels a bit like Santa Fe, NM - except instead of being a quaint historic district stuck in a single time and architectural style, a modern mid-sized American downtown has been layered right on top of the historic settlement.
I think the most Mexico-looking thing is the big pink public library seen in a couple of my photos. Spanish missions notwithstanding, most of the rest of San Antonio is very American, with a South-Southwestern and Latino or Tejano accent to it. I do feel like I'm more in Capital-T-Texas here than I do back home in Houston. Which, to be honest, is one of the things I like about Houston. I live in a part of S.A. where it starts getting hilly. It reminds me a lot of Austin. It also reminds me of Houston 50 years ago. But suburban, everyday San Antonio can be every bit as ugly as un-zoned Houston at its worst. And the freeways are designed to kill people here!
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  #23  
Old Posted Mar 6, 2021, 1:23 AM
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Originally Posted by bilbao58 View Post
I like that photo, too. What is your city?
I live in the Toronto area. Maybe you've seen my photos, not quite as colourful as these. There are some nice buildings, although I also notice some parking garages, but that can be fixed.

Does drone have a super wide angle or fisheye mode? Or did you stitch multiple images together in the first and fourth pictures?
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  #24  
Old Posted Mar 6, 2021, 1:40 AM
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I live in the Toronto area. Maybe you've seen my photos, not quite as colourful as these. There are some nice buildings, although I also notice some parking garages, but that can be fixed.

Does drone have a super wide angle or fisheye mode? Or did you stitch multiple images together in the first and fourth pictures?

I lived in Thornhill for a couple of years when I was a kid. Be glad you live there instead of here! Anyway, the drone can take wide angle or 180 degree (or even 360) stitched photos. Does it all itself. It's pretty remarkable. Also, since the resolution of the raw photos is 8000 x 6000, I can crop and still get large, detailed photos.
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  #25  
Old Posted Mar 7, 2021, 12:50 AM
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Nice drone shots. I've only ever seen San Antonio on Google Street View, but it has some very imposing, elegant blocks downtown. And I'm always surprised how little you hear about the city compared to other places in Texas. Given how many people live there, it seems to fly under the radar.
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  #26  
Old Posted Mar 7, 2021, 11:38 AM
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So you guys are allowed to fly your drones over your town just like that? It's prohibited where I am, unless you're accredited or something.

No wonder. It would be anarchy and chaos otherwise. All kids out here would fly their stuff, then you know, there would be some problems.
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  #27  
Old Posted Mar 7, 2021, 4:50 PM
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So you guys are allowed to fly your drones over your town just like that? It's prohibited where I am, unless you're accredited or something.

No wonder. It would be anarchy and chaos otherwise. All kids out here would fly their stuff, then you know, there would be some problems.
No. We're not allowed to fly over town "just like that." Whatever "that" is. To simply fly a drone legally I first had to register with the FAA, Federal Aviation Administration. There is a minimum age of 16 to register. And with so much military activity in San Antonio, plus the airport being so close in, most of the city is under some kind of restriction. In many areas I have to get automatic approval granted by the FAA. In others, I would have to go through a rigorous process beforehand to gain approval. I'm not even allowed to fly above 0 feet in my own yard because I live in a restricted zone. Even in non-restricted areas, it's illegal to fly higher than 400 feet out in the open without special authorization, though it is legal to fly above 400 feet if the drone is within 400 feet of a taller structure. Aircraft will already be avoiding existing structures, so there's little chance they will hit a drone without hitting a building at the same time. And if I want to sell my photos I have to obtain a special license which requires even stricter rules. Why would you even assume from my photos that I can fly "just like that?"

Last edited by bilbao58; Mar 7, 2021 at 5:05 PM.
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  #28  
Old Posted Mar 7, 2021, 5:12 PM
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^ Oh? So you're a touchy and paranoid person too? Merde, people on here can't get over themselves.

"Just like that" means "juste comme ça", like at random, when something would be more or less incongruous.
I thought you could speak a bit of French...

Oh wait, "just like that" means casually to me. That is it, precisely! Ha ha. Can you get it, now?

But you know what? It's better for you guys to have some kind of regulation in that matter.

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Originally Posted by bilbao58 View Post
And if I want to sell my photos I have to obtain a special license which requires even stricter rules.
Ah ouais ? Well, your regulation and bureaucracy might even go farther it does over here.
That is too much regulation. If you're accredited by the local authority to fly a drone, then you should be entitled to sell your pictures by the very same license.
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  #29  
Old Posted Mar 7, 2021, 5:17 PM
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Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout View Post
Nice drone shots. I've only ever seen San Antonio on Google Street View, but it has some very imposing, elegant blocks downtown. And I'm always surprised how little you hear about the city compared to other places in Texas. Given how many people live there, it seems to fly under the radar.
San Antonio's population of 1.5 million seems to be a lot, but its metropolitan area population of 2.5 million makes it only the 24th largest in the US.
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  #30  
Old Posted Mar 7, 2021, 8:33 PM
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Originally Posted by bilbao58 View Post
I lived in Thornhill for a couple of years when I was a kid. Be glad you live there instead of here! Anyway, the drone can take wide angle or 180 degree (or even 360) stitched photos. Does it all itself. It's pretty remarkable. Also, since the resolution of the raw photos is 8000 x 6000, I can crop and still get large, detailed photos.
180 and 360 degrees and 48MP RAW files, that's very interesting. I've been using 20MP camera for only a year, before that it was only 7MP. I definitely need a rectilinear ultra-wide lens, but your photos makes me wonder if I should get fisheye also.

I remember you mentioned once living in Thornhill in one of my threads. There's both positive and negative to every place, although maybe Thornhill leans more negative compared to San Antonio.

One of my favourite films ever is Dazed and Confused which was filmed and set in Austin. I'm sure it's a different city, but I can't help thinking about it and maybe that's part of why I was compelled to click on this thread in the first place.
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  #31  
Old Posted Mar 7, 2021, 9:01 PM
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maybe Thornhill leans more negative compared to San Antonio.
Only if you hate Toronto. Where I lived was literally a block from what is now the northern city limit of Toronto. I'd rather live near Toronto than in San Antonio.
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  #32  
Old Posted Mar 8, 2021, 3:37 AM
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Originally Posted by mousquet View Post
"Just like that" means "juste comme ça", like at random, when something would be more or less incongruous.
I thought you could speak a bit of French...

Oh wait, "just like that" means casually to me. That is it, precisely! Ha ha. Can you get it, now?
My point is that it seemed to me that you just assumed that I went out, bought a drone, and sent it flying without any preparation or restrictions..."at random" as you say. "Casually" is exactly the way I took it. As you now know, we are not allowed to just casually fly drones over town. Excuse me if I mistook your intent.

Last edited by bilbao58; Mar 8, 2021 at 3:49 AM.
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  #33  
Old Posted Mar 8, 2021, 3:43 AM
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But you know what? It's better for you guys to have some kind of regulation in that matter.
I have to tell you, you may not mean it this way at all, but to an American ear, or maybe just to *this* American ear, that sounds patronizing. Of course we have regulations.


Quote:
Originally Posted by mousquet View Post
That is too much regulation. If you're accredited by the local authority to fly a drone, then you should be entitled to sell your pictures by the very same license.
They separate recreational from commercial flying. I'm not happy about it. Though I assume commercial flying carries with it more liabilities.


Look, French and Americans often misunderstand each other. It's easy to take offense when none is meant.

Last edited by bilbao58; Mar 8, 2021 at 3:57 AM.
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  #34  
Old Posted Mar 8, 2021, 7:55 PM
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@bilbao Well, to make it clear, there are some people doing some kind of crazy things with no license of any kind, because there's just no license for what they do. Like this for instance.
You may think they are nuts, they are not, because they're trained as professionals. They know exactly what they do. Like that shit is actually almost safe to them.

They need drone operators to make the general public aware of their performances, so they can make a living by the media of all kinds. But they get arrested by the cops all the time anyway.
All their aerial pictures are illegal and they frequently have to spend some time in custody.
Needless to say, that is annoying to them.

They are ahead of the law, so to say.
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  #35  
Old Posted Mar 8, 2021, 8:07 PM
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Originally Posted by bilbao58 View Post
I think the most Mexico-looking thing is the big pink public library seen in a couple of my photos. Spanish missions notwithstanding, most of the rest of San Antonio is very American, with a South-Southwestern and Latino or Tejano accent to it. I do feel like I'm more in Capital-T-Texas here than I do back home in Houston. Which, to be honest, is one of the things I like about Houston. I live in a part of S.A. where it starts getting hilly. It reminds me a lot of Austin. It also reminds me of Houston 50 years ago. But suburban, everyday San Antonio can be every bit as ugly as un-zoned Houston at its worst. And the freeways are designed to kill people here!
It is definitely clear that most of San Antonio is both modern, and as you say VERY American. We also spent time on our trip in Austin and New Braunfels and a day at Six Flags in the hilly part of San Antonio (shameless amusement park enthusiast here), so I totally get what you're saying about the similar feel to the "hill country" part of Texas.

I guess I'm just always fascinated by the "palimpsest" of cities, and there was something about walking around downtown where I could feel the history dripping from it. Part of this might be from the layout of downtown's street grid, which is not strictly orthogonal and reminded me of Santa Fe. Part of it is probably the presence of historic colonial structures like the Cathedral and the Alamo and their associated tourism. The climate and plant life also plays a role. And of course there are the colorful modern buildings like the pink library you pointed out, but also many other buildings that seem to reference both the city's colonial architecture or sometimes a more modern "Mexican" aesthetic. In any case - the feeling of the city being a historical "layer cake" seemed very real to me (and I loved it).

I also found it interesting to learn that the city's meatpacking industry in the 19th century was closely tied to its Tejano heritage and to the railroads, which meant that the city had a complicated relationship with other parts of the state both before and during the Civil War. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, but it feels like this history continues to inform the culture of the city today.
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  #36  
Old Posted Mar 11, 2021, 2:49 AM
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I have the same fears as you do flying a drone lol

I lived in San Antonio about a decade ago, I really liked it. The downtown area was quite alive for Texas but I always felt that a few large corporate moves down there and a ton more residents could really create a special place.

Regarding it looking like Mexico- thats part of the charm!
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  #37  
Old Posted Mar 11, 2021, 3:13 AM
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I have the same fears as you do flying a drone lol

I think I'm getting better! I had no trouble pressing the stick forward and whipping the little sucker up into the sky the other day. Even let it get a block and a half, maybe two blocks away. Still in line of sight, though kind of hard for my aging eyes to see. I'm able to look at it up in the sky without getting what I called "acrophobia-by-proxy" like I got looking at it when I first flew it.
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  #38  
Old Posted Mar 11, 2021, 3:49 PM
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Really enjoyed my time in San Antonio, and first visit to Texas, a couple years ago.

I've been trying in vain to find some Shiner Bock here in Canada ever since.
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  #39  
Old Posted Mar 11, 2021, 5:29 PM
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Really enjoyed my time in San Antonio, and first visit to Texas, a couple years ago.

I've been trying in vain to find some Shiner Bock here in Canada ever since.
We have a lot of even better regional beers and ales, nowadays, that you REALLY won't find up there!
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  #40  
Old Posted Mar 12, 2021, 4:03 AM
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Love DT SA! Great shots.
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