Drooooone foooootage!

michaf said:
The reason why there isn't any double ring pol filter, at least to my knowledge, is because

a) Due to vibrations the filter could be turning.

b) The gimbal is highly balanced and adding a havier filter would brake that balance. In fact my filters already brakes it as the camera drops its nose, which it doesn't do with the stock neutral filter. The gimbal is an interesting piece of kit, the motors don't "brute force" the camera's different levels, what they do is just bring the camera back to its balance. If the balance is too much out of wack you risk burning the motors.
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I did wonder about vibrations.

Re: the weight, could you stick a little counter balance on the back of the camera on a short extension to get balance at minimal extra weight or would that interfere with things when pointing the camera downwards ?

Henry :)
 
henryf said:
I did wonder about vibrations.

Re: the weight, could you stick a little counter balance on the back of the camera on a short extension to get balance at minimal extra weight or would that interfere with things when pointing the camera downwards ?

Henry :)
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that was my thoughts, how about a bit of plasticine on the back, smoothed so that it doesn't interfere? Wonder actually if you have access to that area or is it fully enclosed?

V.
 
Setting the pol as I have written is not that bad. I'm sure they will come with a better way to do it. I use to put my drones together, soldier all the stuff, balance my props and all sorts of really time consuming things. I had an s900 with a dslr and one day I thought, this is it. Sold them all and bought a phantom, what a relief! Just fly as much as you can, edit only the stuff that's really worth it and discard the rest. It's the situation that makes the great footage so have it handy and know your drone so you can get up and shoot when it needs to be up there.

Forgot to mention. I usually take off from the back of the flybridge. I take off manually and get up as fast as it can. You really don't need much space. I probably have something like 2m/1.5m and rails around it. To retrieve it I do it by hand. I get close and once it's nice and standby I grab a landing gear with one hand and spool down the motors with my other hand on the remote.
 
michaf said:
Setting the pol as I have written is not that bad. I'm sure they will come with a better way to do it. I use to put my drones together, soldier all the stuff, balance my props and all sorts of really time consuming things. I had an s900 with a dslr and one day I thought, this is it. Sold them all and bought a phantom, what a relief! Just fly as much as you can, edit only the stuff that's really worth it and discard the rest. It's the situation that makes the great footage so have it handy and know your drone so you can get up and shoot when it needs to be up there. Forgot to mention. I usually take off from the back of the flybridge. I take off manually and get up as fast as it can. You really don't need much space. I probably have something like 2m/1.5m and rails around it. To retrieve it I do it by hand. I get close and once it's nice and standby I grab a landing gear with one hand and spool down the motors with my other hand on the remote.
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As a very new Phantom flier I have found it surprisingly easy to hand retrieve and I do this every time now, it's less risky than trying to land on the ground (or a boat). Hand launching takes a bit longer to master and I am not quite there yet - it's OK in still air but not so easy in a breeze.
But I am close to giving up before I have anything to show for my efforts. I have wasted nearly 20 hours this week trying to find a stable combination of firmware for my aircraft/Remote Controller/DJI Go App - and right now the machine won't maintain altitude and I can't shoot video. I can shoot still images but the video is all broken, on the screen and when I try to play it back. It was working before a recent firmware upgrade but now it isn't. And the DJI forum is full of people from all over the world with the same complaint.
 
TwoHooter said:
As a very new Phantom flier I have found it surprisingly easy to hand retrieve and I do this every time now, it's less risky than trying to land on the ground (or a boat). Hand launching takes a bit longer to master and I am not quite there yet - it's OK in still air but not so easy in a breeze.
But I am close to giving up before I have anything to show for my efforts. I have wasted nearly 20 hours this week trying to find a stable combination of firmware for my aircraft/Remote Controller/DJI Go App - and right now the machine won't maintain altitude and I can't shoot video. I can shoot still images but the video is all broken, on the screen and when I try to play it back. It was working before a recent firmware upgrade but now it isn't. And the DJI forum is full of people from all over the world with the same complaint.
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The instructions for upgrading the Remote Controller were different in the early releases.
IIRC. for the early upgrades, you had to insert a microSD card into the Remote Control - now the DJI Go App does the upgrade from your smart device.
Maybe the Remote is where you have gone wrong
As I have said, I'm no expert in this field but I have managed to keep my firmware etc up to date.

Have you been getting the correct "beeps" and flashes when downloading the firmware into the drone etc?
 
Hurricane said:
The instructions for upgrading the Remote Controller were different in the early releases.
IIRC. for the early upgrades, you had to insert a microSD card into the Remote Control - now the DJI Go App does the upgrade from your smart device. Maybe the Remote is where you have gone wrong As I have said, I'm no expert in this field but I have managed to keep my firmware etc up to date. Have you been getting the correct "beeps" and flashes when downloading the firmware into the drone etc?
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Too long a story to relate here but DJI customer support told me I had to do my most recent upgrade by plugging the micro SD card from the aircraft into my PC, so that one wasn't done via the App. Then yesterday the App insisted I had to upgrade my Remote Controller from v1.6.0 to - wait for it - v1.6.0. It wouldn't take 'No' for an answer and the "upgrade" took over an hour and nearly drove us all mad with the interminable beeping. At the end of it the aircraft still descends gently to the ground from whatever altitude I put it at, and the video remains utterly broken.
I still think the aircraft is good, and I don't find it difficult to fly, but the software is gradually driving me to distraction.
I have a track record of breaking software. At one point I thought of hiring myself out as a beta tester. You want to know if your software is stable? Give it to me. If anyone can crash it, I can.
I am even thinking of using a sextant on the boat when I can no longer keep the 11-year-old Furuno nav gear alive.
 
I presume if it goes in the water that is game over? Are you not afraid it will do this? I was considering getting one but was thinking about the waterproof types. They are, unfortunately, quite expensive.
 
Waste of money IMO! It's so overused and becoming a little bit boring. Even so called 'flying' the drones has become so 'appy' and boring.

Professionally shot and edited drone footage is absolutely amazing though.
 
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thecommander said:
Waste of money IMO! It's so overused and becoming a little bit boring. Even so called 'flying' the drones has become so 'appy' and boring.

Professionally shot and edited drone footage is absolutely amazing though.
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The OPs video is far from boring, and the quality is as good as the best I've seen, professional or otherwise.
 
If you know your setup, the chances anything happens mechanically or software/firmware wise in minimal. I've been flying over water for years now and I feel very confident. Before flying drones I was flying nasty RC Helis and crashes were either due to me, which isn't possible now with the self leveling drones, or to some mechanical failure. But multicopters only have the motors as mechanical pieces! And once you've open one you understand why there's very little chance they will fail! You have to trust you gear, and they can be trusted. And the more you fly the more confide you will be.
 
michaf said:
If you know your setup, the chances anything happens mechanically or software/firmware wise in minimal. I've been flying over water for years now and I feel very confident. Before flying drones I was flying nasty RC Helis and crashes were either due to me, which isn't possible now with the self leveling drones, or to some mechanical failure. But multicopters only have the motors as mechanical pieces! And once you've open one you understand why there's very little chance they will fail! You have to trust you gear, and they can be trusted. And the more you fly the more confide you will be.
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Cool, so would you advise going for the higher spec standard drone rather than a waterproof job then? I have to fly it off a sailing boat so I suppose I have more things to bump into but from the look of them on youtube etc it seems they can be reasonably accurately controlled.
 
michaf said:
If you know your setup, the chances anything happens mechanically or software/firmware wise in minimal. I've been flying over water for years now and I feel very confident. Before flying drones I was flying nasty RC Helis and crashes were either due to me, which isn't possible now with the self leveling drones, or to some mechanical failure. But multicopters only have the motors as mechanical pieces! And once you've open one you understand why there's very little chance they will fail! You have to trust you gear, and they can be trusted. And the more you fly the more confide you will be.
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my stepson is building a video channel for our business, he's sent the flight record off to DJI; swears it was a battery fault...lets see what they say. The responsible adult with him in the car says that the drone was set up properly and that the propellers were checked. Luckily the beach was deserted.
 
Nigelpickin said:
my stepson is building a video channel for our business, he's sent the flight record off to DJI; swears it was a battery fault...lets see what they say. The responsible adult with him in the car says that the drone was set up properly and that the propellers were checked. Luckily the beach was deserted.
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Looks like a prop fell of and caused it to plummet.
 
elton said:
Looks like a prop fell of and caused it to plummet.
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I agree, there's a bit of noise coming from dji that a sudden motor failure can spin the prop off, there is a good deal on forum feedback discussing battery failure, stop/start in flight.

Could even have been a bird impact, both pilot and spotter could not be sure at the distance.

It will be interesting to see how dji react, new props that week, self tightening and the drone flew for 3 minutes.
 
michaf said:
What do you mean with the video being utterly broken?
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michaf - sorry for delayed reply. The video was broken up so that I got 3 views of the subject repeated across my screen, interrupted with lines and pixellation. This morning I tried again and I got a new problem - the sky was just black and white diagonal stripes. Also, every time I start up I get the message that I have to update the Radio Controller ("RC") even though I have done this 3 times already - to the same version it is asking for again! After a period when I could not fly the aircraft I do now have full control over it, and provided I select still images and not video I can use the camera.
This is beginning to look like the DJI Phantom forum which is packed out with people having problems with their machines - particularly after recent updates to the DJI Go app - so I'd better leave it there.
But may I send you a PM about this please?
 
Nigel, just one thing a saw on the footage. I never take off from the sand as the sand can get in the motors. So usually I put it on the carrying backpack, the one from Dji. Also, after each flight I put it back in the backpack. So basically it goes from the backpack to the air and to the air to the backpack.
 
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