I personally prefer my phone over my ipad. Portability is a huge factor. My transmitter clip is only big enough for my phone and I HATE to bring my large tripod anywhere. You only use the screen for references. The 1-3 second delay in transmission makes it impossible to fly by looking at the screen.
I fly line of sight, and I use my phone to line up the shot by looking down every few seconds during important parts, other than that you have to be creative and know what you are shooting - that 3 second delay can mean disaster.
Came a day early. So I went down to the water near Tift and Ship Canal. Was having a hard time calibrating the compass. But eventually got it to work. Did a decent 5 min flight staying semi close as this is my first drone flight ever. Went well. 2nd flight I wanted to do a big loop and about 400 feet away it lost gps signal and was floating around crazy. Got it back eventually and called it a day. The shipway was all metal along with a decent bridge and scrap all over. Have a feeling it was messing it all up. Picked up a 2nd battery and I’ll be back out tomorrow.
Picked up a Mavic Pro the other day. I needed something that could easily fit into a backpack with other gear so this fits the bill very well. I’m blown away by how easy and intuitive it is to operate. Follow me mode and active track are so damn cool and will come in handy for some climbing adventures.
Of course, like the impatient idiot that I am, I tried inside first and nearly killed one of my dogs but after that it’s been really smooth. The main reason I got it was for a trip to Hawaii next week so I’ll post some stuff soon. :tup:
I have an AirDog ADII coming soon and hopefully it’ll be here before we get any big Lake Erie storms. I’m going to mostly use it to chase me on the jetski, but also for shots while traveling :tup:
@LZ1 I saw that and the guy I bought it from mentioned it. Apparently it’s something to do with the sensors misreading? Not sure, but I’m not comfortable getting too low over water anyway. Home position sets every time you take off and gives a prompt to verify. :tup: @Onyx_Z32 That thing looks like it may fit the bill even better if I decide to ‘upgrade’ later on. Being waterproof is key.
So first impressions; holy shit they’ve made it so easy to capture good video. I picked up some filters to drop the f stop a bit and make the video more cinematic. I’m still playing around with the manual camera settings. It’s really annoying when the shutter suddenly adjusts in the middle of a video but that’s on me.
It flew in 20 mph trade winds with ease and kept the camera steady the whole time. I picked up the extended landing legs and sunshade to help protect the camera and gimbal which has certainly paid off. In extreme banking you can see the sunshade get into frame but it’s worth having it there.
Now to the crash I experienced. I was on the south point of Oahu where there are rocky cliffs dropping into the ocean. Flew it around a bit getting some video and brought it back to land. No problems yet. As it’s hovering 2 feet above ground and starts its landing procedure it suddenly becomes sentient and rams itself into the cliff face, spinning itself into sand. Fuck me.
I pick it up to assess damage and two of the motors are jammed. Sand got into them and is stuck between the magnets and stator. I hold myself back from booting it into the ocean and pack it up to hike back out. Stopped on the way back to the house to get IPA, Q-Tips, and canned air. Take it apart as much as I can with proper tools and start cleaning out the sand being careful to only blow air to have it push sand back out instead of further in. I managed to get it mostly cleared and the motors are at least spinning by hand, albeit not as smoothly as I’d like. Whatever, I need this thing to work for this trip. Take it outside for a test flight and it works perfectly fine. Flew it a ton more throughout the trip without issue. :tup:
I’m still nervous it has more severe damage so I’m contacting DJI to see if the can take a look at the flight log to find out why the fuck it did that. I wasn’t pushing anything at all on the remote when it rammed itself into the wall.
I’ve got a lot of video to put together. I’ll try to post some clips later. Anyone have suggestions on decent video editing software?
I got the 30 day trial and put it to good use. :tup:
Go easy on me, I’m a noob with video and this was my first time ever editing. This was how I announced to some family and friends that we got engaged in Hawaii. The unfortunate part was that I fucked up the actual video of the proposal. :banghead: I set up way points for it to run and must have accidentally panned the camera up in between the dry run and actual run. So the ‘reenactment’ was shot in Losson park. I added the botched clip to the end for good measure.
I still don’t have my drone yet. It was supposed to get here in time for me to get some jetski vids before winter, but that’s definitely not happening now. Boooooo…
Took it out for the first time today and holy crap is this thing responsive. No video to post because it was just me going through the mandatory flight training mode, but I can’t wait for the summer to get this thing out over the lake!
Took advantage of the warmer weather today to get some flight time in. Needed to see how well it did in the 26mph wind gusts… and it looked like it was moving around quite a bit BUT the video is BUTTER. Super happy with it :tup:
do you guys all have your FAA certs? and where are you flying? i cannot even take off in my yard/neighborhood at all, most of buffalo is no-fly zone
that being said, i think i’m going to offload my chroma cheap, both batteries have since ballooned and i’d rather fly my heli’s, at least i can do that at my house. that and i’ll stick to my CF framed 200QX for the 3d fun
if anyone knows anyone that is looking, comes with everything(have 2 batteries but who knows how long they will last, they aren’t too bad yet) has two sets of props that are in great condition, and an extra sun shade for the TX. has the 1080p camera and gimbal
