Last year, we set off on an epic adventure to Canada for Western Digital to film a good friend, Jeremy Regoto, in the Canadian rockies. We took the My Passport Wireless SSD out in the field to test out its wireless features in challenging summer conditions deep in the British Columbia wilderness.
As a professional drone pilot and consumer drone user, it's extremely important to protect all the valuable content after each flight. When I'm not flying drones, I'm backing up my footage and photos regularly on set and out on location when I have a laptop handy. I've had drones fly away on me during a shoot and have also had crashes from firmware issues. Due to these incidents, I've lost the entire day's work - which weren't due to pilot error. Moral of the story: It's imperative to switch your MicroSD cards after each flight and back up those files to protect them as soon as possible. This is where the My Passport Wireless SSD comes into play. It has a built-in battery and SD card reader with a one touch button to quickly back up photos and videos without a computer anywhere.
Check out this short promo video we shot featuring the My Passport Wireless SSD drive and how we utilised it to back up the aerial cinematography and photography we captured in the remote rockies.
Backing up the MicroSD card in the field to then preview on a cell phone via the WD My Cloud App is extremely useful because being able to play back the content and preview images allows us to know if we got the shot.
One of my favourite features of this drive is the speed at which all my DJI Inspire 2 SSD shots transfer. With transfer speeds up to 390 MB/s, this allows us to send extremely heavy files such as Apple Pro Res, Cinema DNG, and our RED Gemini files much faster thanks to the USB 3.0 and a laptop computer.
Another feature I like is the built-in 6,700 mAh battery with up to 10 hours of continuous use which can also be used to charge a cell phone. I typically use my phone as the FPV screen for smaller drones such as the DJI Mavic Air and Mavic Pro 2.
You can also import media from card readers via the USB 2.0 port and one-touch button. DRONEGEAR doesn't often utilize CF cards, however, if you're a photographer/videographer who uses other media cards, you'll find this feature handy.
As a content creator, I'm constantly on-the-go so it's extremely important to be able to edit anywhere in the world with my laptop. The My Passport Wireless SSD is extremely capable of editing 4K timelines on our MacBook Pro by keeping our built-in hard drive free and our computer optimised leaving the SSD to do all the work with the heavy files.
Check out the testimonial video below which sums up everything we love about this My Passport Wireless SSD. See some of the epic visuals we got from Canada and our commercial aerial cinematography work in 2018.
Special thanks to Jeremy Regoto and Kimberleigh Renee for starring in the videos and showing us a great time whilst we were in Canada.
Special thanks to Director of Photography Hugo Bordes of Motive Visuals who also co-directed and edited the videos.
Written by DRONEGEAR Founder and Creative Director Alex Kavanagh