Sardinia in October (with vids)

[MapisM]

What happens if it conks out over the water? Doesn't look like it will float that well!

Easy, you buy another one.
Dunno if they sell it without the remote, if they do you might save a few quids! :nonchalance:

 

[jfm]

Funny you should mention it, because I asked scubaman if he had one, and not only he didn't, but he told me that you can't fit any screw-on filter on the camera.
Then again, a polarising filter wouldn't make a lot of sense anyway, if you think about it: the reflection angle is constantly changing while the copter moves around, and you can't just rotate the filter by hand as you do with your camera, for very obvious reasons...

You can buy filters specially for the dji phantom camera
I'm going to try a polariser but I agree your concern. Also I'm worried it will spoil the nice shots where you get twinkly reflected sunlight on the wavelet tops, eg 0-3 and 25-40 of the vid below. But I'll give it a try

 

[vas]

I'd try circular polarizing (if they exist that is!)

 

[scubaman]

What happens if it conks out over the water? Doesn't look like it will float that well!

A funny anecdote on the subject; just as we were about done shooting the boat under way, I received a low battery warning on the remote. I was then flying the drone towards the boat for P to catch it and literally a meter or two from his hands it decided to engage the 'emergency return home' -function and whizzed off to the sky again... Luckily it was easy to cancel from the remote, otherwise it would have found the place we launched it from and performed a nice landing into the sea.

A further note on my reply to Vas regarding the cost of the thing. When I mentioned that the prop guards are useless, I meant that as they need to be attached to the drone using screws, they are not easily removed once you put the drone into the backpac. This makes them too much of a hassle to use, IMHO, as I'd consider the backpack more important. It did fall over on one of my first landings on a lawn and the guards would have protected the props but there was no damage done other than a bit of green on two of the blades.

 

[scubaman]

You can buy filters specially for the dji phantom camera
I'm going to try a polariser but I agree your concern. Also I'm worried it will spoil the nice shots where you get twinkly reflected sunlight on the wavelet tops, eg 0-3 and 25-40 of the vid below. But I'll give it a try

Ahh ok, so the front lens, which is a UV filter, unscrews and you can then insert the polarising filter inside.

It will be interesting to see the results if you try them.

Those were really nicely done vids, btw. Match looks fantastic also when underway :encouragement: .

 

[scubaman]

Hi,

I've only now gotten to sorting out the few photos I took, so here are some misc pics to go with the videos.

Our first morning dawned clear and calm. Our hotel’s balcony had a great view over the rooftops of Carloforte.

There was some bad weather on the way, which brought rain and high winds. Yes, it does occasionally rain even in Carloforte .

Luckily the winds passed quite quickly so we got a change to go out with P & S and two of their friends. Our first stop was to admire a beautiful cave which had deep enough water for P to drive the boat into. The water clarity just never ceased to amaze me.

The rock formations are very interesting and the cliffs steep.

Note the Eleonora’s Falcon, an endangered species that migrates from Madagascar for breeding. There were loads of them.

The Caves at Mezzaluna. It was a fantastic opportunity to have a look at into them.

On one particularly nice evening we drove to the lighthouse with P & S and R & L to admire the sunset. They came well prepared with some sparkling and nibbly things...

Beginning of the journey home...

 

[MapisM]

Some stunning images as always, K! :encouragement:
Many tanks for brightening the end of a day spent with duties nowhere near as pleasant as the moments you captured so nicely... :ambivalence:

 

[scubaman]

I can imagine. All the best with those duties.

 

[alt]

Excellent pics, nice one K.

And well done to P & S, such great hosts... what forums are always about! I always try to be nice by inviting people for days out if they ever are in my area... but the West coast of Ireland just doesn't have the same appeal

 

[oceanfroggie]

Truly excellent.

Thanks scubaman for such an enjoyable thread. Superb videos and pics. Wonderful scenery. Do you use 2.4 or 5ghz to control the phantom?

 

[jfm]

It's 2.4 - much better for dealing with obstacles than 5.0 The video is streamed from the drone to your iPad in a lower resolution than the camera is recording at, so you rarely run out of bandwidth

 

[oceanfroggie]

It's 2.4 - much better for dealing with obstacles than 5.0 The video is streamed from the drone to your iPad in a lower resolution than the camera is recording at, so you rarely run out of bandwidth

Thanks Jfm. I understand 5ghz is illegal in Europe for drones but able to transmit better live FPV video.

 

[scubaman]

Sorry for the delay. Nothing more to add really but just the notion of how well it worked when shooting the second vid (of Mezzaluna caves). The drone was pretty far away and out of sight, well below the horizon, as I was standing on top of the cliffs. At some point I got a message warning me of reduced image quality and that's when I decided not to head further in the fear of losing it.

I know it has a 'return home' -functionality if the contact is lost but what I haven't looked into yet is how it does the trip back home. In this case anything other than a direct ascend before heading back to base would have resulted in a crash to the side of the cliff.

 

[MapisM]

I haven't looked into yet is how it does the trip back home

In theory, it could memorize the path already followed, and recalculate a safe return path on that basis.
No idea of what it actually does, but the control logic seems very sophisticated, so I wouldn't be surprised if it were capable to handle that.
I wonder how long it will take before they'll incorporate a radar to avoid obstacles and battery recharge through autorotation, when going downhill fast....

 

[oceanfroggie]

Sorry for the delay. Nothing more to add really but just the notion of how well it worked when shooting the second vid (of Mezzaluna caves). The drone was pretty far away and out of sight, well below the horizon, as I was standing on top of the cliffs. At some point I got a message warning me of reduced image quality and that's when I decided not to head further in the fear of losing it.

I know it has a 'return home' -functionality if the contact is lost but what I haven't looked into yet is how it does the trip back home. In this case anything other than a direct ascend before heading back to base would have resulted in a crash to the side of the cliff.

Interesting as the documentation suggests 'return home' flies back at altitude of 20 meters in a straight line. But is that an altitude of 20m above the ground level at the original take off point or the ground level under the drone when it initiates return home mode???

Ps. Some fly aways seem to be caused by folk taking off before a new home GPS fix has been acquired after switch on.

 

[scubaman]

Ok, in that case it should be ok as it's altitude was something like -10 meters, etc. so relative to the take off point. And assuming that it ascends to the 20 meters vertically before heading back home (which it probably does, otherwise it would be silly).

And thank you and everyone for the kind words .

 

[jfm]

I believe the auto return home is a simple algorithm. It goes something like this: it flies to a user defined height, 30m default, then goes home in straight line, then descends in straight line. Height is measured relative to the GPS home position, although the thing does carry a barometer to help with altitude. You can set a new home point anytime you want, which is handy. The default home position is where it took off from but you can -anytime you want - set the home point to where the remote controller (and you) are currently located, THEN tell it to return home (or wait for it to do automatically on low battery) and it will return. I never use auto home on a boat, obviously, so when the battery gets low and it starts the return home automatically I just abort the fly home mission (a pop up screen offers you "cancel mission") and fly it manually

The "fuel gauge" on the ipad app is very good. It shows you available free flying time, return home time (which changes dynamically depending on how far away the drone is), and a reserve which I think is 30% by default but user-definable. If you use the default settings, then you have loads of time to fly the thing home manually as soon as it wants to begin the auto-return-home mission

 

[oceanfroggie]

Thanks Jfm, but "flies to a user defined height" relative to the take off position ground level, or current position based on radio/laser/gps altimeter altitude?

 

[jfm]

Thanks Jfm, but "flies to a user defined height" relative to the take off position ground level, or current position based on radio/laser/gps altimeter altitude?

Read my second sentence :encouragement:

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

Read my second sentence :encouragement:

And then your third sentence, which is where the definition is