Professional Drone Footage

Hurricane said:
Thanks Nick
That is a very interesting post.
Particularly the bit about your CAA training.

I agree 100% but it still doesn't help me with my decision.
A Mavic with the better camera would be a no brainer.

I will probably be upgrading before the end of May - daughter's wedding and she suggested that I bring the drone.
She isn't getting married in the UK so a more portable drone is more likely.
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Agree absolutely - a Mavic with the P4P camera would be best of all worlds. I guess DJI won't be in a hurry to launch it because then why would you buy the P4P? But who knows.

Hurricane said:
On the subject of still photos.
I believe that vibration is an issue but the camera quality is bigger (IMO)
It would seem to me that the solution would be electronic stabilisation on top of gimbals.
I only have a P3 with the 2.7K camera at the moment.
I've tried capturing in RAW and post processing - big improvement but still not the quality that you would be looking for.
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That's an interesting point. I've seen a few stills from the P4 and they look pretty good, but I've not seen them 'blown up'. Hopefully a fast shutter speed should help, but we'll see...

Hurricane said:
I know we have discussed "catching the drone" on this thread but I don't think catching is as much of an issue as you think.
it is relatively easy to hover over someone whilst they reach up and grab the legs/skids.
I even landed it on the fore deck once when I was on the boat on my own.
For me, the big issue is a "fly away" - for example, if it looses contact with the remote control, it's inbuilt logic is to fly back to where it took off from - absolutely useless if that is 2 miles behind you.
Having said that, it has never happened to me and I'm told that you CAN regain control quite easily!!
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Yes I'm not too worried about hand catching. I had a go when on the course and it seems fairly straight forward. I still think it will be easier with a Phantom than a Mavic though. The interesting one will be whether it's possible to hand catch single-handed! I have a much smaller (and sloped) foredeck! I've also bought some 'cut resistant' gloves for the catcher and some impact resistant safety goggles for all in the vicinity (in a small boat, that's everybody).

Fly-aways was a big concern of mine too - the idea of the drone 'returning to home' when 'home' is your start point and you're no longer there, it's just water... Visions of racing the drone back to the start point and trying to position the boat under it as it comes down!

However, I'm assured that 'fly-aways' are extremely rare and more likely to occur at long distance or when the signal is blocked (when flying behind a large building for example), both of which are unlikely on the water. Also, I'm told (although I'm yet to discover this for myself of course) that it is possible to set a dynamic home point, which is the last position of the controller when contact was lost, so more or less where you are at the point control is lost. And also that you can set it to simply hover where it is if the link is lost, rather than tear off 'home'. As I say, these are things I've picked up on line rather than first hand experience so I can't say for sure that these are true.
 
Nick Burnham said:
Also, I'm told (although I'm yet to discover this for myself of course) that it is possible to set a dynamic home point, which is the last position of the controller when contact was lost, so more or less where you are at the point control is lost. And also that you can set it to simply hover where it is if the link is lost, rather than tear off 'home'. As I say, these are things I've picked up on line rather than first hand experience so I can't say for sure that these are true.
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I did some research on Dynamic Home Point
It seems that in the early models (P2 and before) switching on Dynamic Home Point - kept updating the Home Point - IMO thats what Dynamic Home Point should be.
But I understand that on the later models, with Dynamic Home Point - the Home Point Position is set for the instant when you set/press the Dynamic Home Point button.
If you think about it, to have it working the way we want, the remote would have to be transmitting a New Home Point all the time - maybe that caused the drone some confusion when things went wrong - maybe thats why the feature was removed - Just my thoughts though.
 
That's very interesting. All my info is third hand as I don't have mine yet, so I'm sure you're right. Shame though, a constantly updating dynamic home point would seem the most useful.

Hopefully the option of the drone just stopping and hovering where it is in the event of lost contact with the controller is real.

Better yet, lets hope it never loses contact!
 
I've been contemplating a drone myself and I must admit that the Lily looks like something that would work for me.

1080p 60FPS OR 720p 120FPS, but more importantly is that it is waterproof.

The idea of a "track me" mode appeals to me and I could use it when skiing too.

My boat is not massive, so having a drone that could plonk in the water for recovery if needed sounds like a good way of not writing off a £1k drone.

I've not seen one in the flesh, so I'd welcome any thoughts / comments from anyone who has.
 
Nick Burnham said:
Things may have changed, but my understanding of the Lily drone was that it doesn't actually exist - you can't buy one.

I believe that you can 'pre-order' and pay for one if you wish though...

More info here: https://www.lily.camera/our_faq/
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That's a bummer.

I know they did an initial launch and some units shipped (as we can see from the odd YouTube vid).

Is there any other waterproof options around with similar features?
 
Piers said:
An issue I have with my Phantom drone footage is that when panning it seems jerky or starts too fast. Anyone know if this can be adjusted?

Thank you!
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Just got mine out again today.
I've been meaning to do some more conventional (non boating) video.
Something where I won't crash it into water!!
And - yes - it does feel safer - knowing that the home point is in my back garden.
But we are only half a mile from the sea and guess what - after 10 mins - yes - it was out over the water again!!

Sorry, I digress.
To get it flying today, I had to do a major software upgrade and mine now has a jerky rudder/pan joystick.
Not so much "jerky" as "too quick" so I did a bit of Googling - so see this video:-
It seems to be the Expo setting - so I will try it tomorrow and see what happens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flxXdzcLO2w
 
I think there is a lot of over-worrying on here. You don't need a waterproof drone: as soon as you get the hang of it you will just fly it back to your boat and catch it. You should choose a drone for all other features than waterproofness, otherwise you will get some compromise. Catching the thing is a piece of cake. I've put plenty of videos on here showing that being done - see 2:28 of this one...




and 2:57 of this one (and look at the reflection in the sunglasses)



DJI drones don't fly away because the radio signal that controls the flight has much longer range than the signal transmitting the live video back to your ipad or whatever FPV device you are using. so in normal recreational use, you just go as far as you can until the picture pixelates, then you go no further. You never lose flight control in all this.

To land it easily on a boat you just hit "fly home", if you haven't moved far. The thing flies towards home and you switch off "fly home" when it is 50 metres away and fly the last bit manually. It's dead easy, really. It's so much better to buy a drone that is reliable and simple to fly, with a good camera, than to buy one that is waterproof.
 
jfm said:
I think there is a lot of over-worrying on here. You don't need a waterproof drone: as soon as you get the hang of it you will just fly it back to your boat and catch it.
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It's what might happen before I "get the hang of it" that would worry me.
 
jfm said:
DJI drones don't fly away because the radio signal that controls the flight has much longer range than the signal transmitting the live video back to your ipad or whatever FPV device you are using. so in normal recreational use, you just go as far as you can until the picture pixelates, then you go no further. You never lose flight control in all this.
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Thanks for that - I just found that out this afternoon.
The drone was about half a mile away and I had the house in between so no line of sight.
And, yes - it pixelated - but still maintained control.
Quite difficult to work out which way it was facing - I didn't hit the return to home - I will try that next time.
I suppose I should have looked at the Map Window and flown it using that.

When I bought the drone, I took it out to the boat without using it much at home.
Now that it is here, it is a very different experience flying.
I'm much more confident, knowing that it will always find its own way home.

The reason for flying today was to check the fix for slower panning.
And it works - see that video I posted yesterday.

Maybe a bit more flying tomorrow - perhaps down to the local beach from the house.
Pretty miserable weather though.
 
@hurricane, the important thing about telling it to return home is that it brings the thing nearer to you, but you can switch off return home at any point you want. It's better to switch it off long before it has actually returned home and landed. Especially at anchor, obviously.

As for first flights near pontoons, ahem:encouragement:, here is the near death experience of my first drone, with much crummier software than today's drones. It is (was) a phantom 1. A day after this maiden flight incident it did totally die - I need to upload the death movie to youtube sometime (we managed to retrieve it from the seabed, and the gopro lived to tell the tale).

 
Nigelpickin said:
:)
See my post # for a complete fail! The drone really hit the boat hard, we were lucky to get away with it.
Did your Mavic turn up yet JFM?
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Nope - on further review I decided against mavic. I don't need its portability, and so decided to avoid its design limitations. I prefer the "bigger" features of the phantom 4, and logical next purchase is the new 4 pro, which has an awesome spec, but for N hemisphere boating use I might as wait till next easter after the initial hype and MRSP pricing dies down
 
jfm said:
Nope - on further review I decided against mavic. I don't need its portability, and so decided to avoid its design limitations. I prefer the "bigger" features of the phantom 4, and logical next purchase is the new 4 pro, which has an awesome spec, but for N hemisphere boating use I might as wait till next easter after the initial hype and MRSP pricing dies down
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That makes sense, of course the space saving is a selling point for me right now plus we hike and it's very portable for future trail videos.
 
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