| Author | Message | ||
     Biffdotorg |
As brought up in another thread, there are a few of us Hobby HD Video hounds out there that have made the leap into a Quadcopter, Octocopter or other multi-rotor drone for shooting photos and video. I personally have a Buell related question as I would like to carry my DJI Phantom 2 with me on my Uly. It just so happens that the eggcrate material that it shipped with is nearly exactly the same size as the interior of my Hepco trunk bag on the Uly! So I would not mind getting some closed cell foam, or some of these packing blocks and learn how to cut and shape it to fit my copter. I thought about wrapping the copter and accessories in a garbage bag and shooting spray foam in there to fit perfect. But that may be a messy idea. The other option is to buy one of these expensive backpacks with the pre cut foam inserts and just strap it to my triple tail. I may do that anyway. Going out on Copter shoots with my Uly sounds like a good way to spend many a weekend! Watch for videos to come soon as I get the nerve to fly this animal with almost exactly one pound of expensive gear bolted to it's belly. Please feel free to share tips and tricks here as I think there are more of us on here!   (Message edited by biffdotorg on April 16, 2015) | ||
| 99buellx1 |
I have an order in for the Phantom 3 Pro. Having a hard time waiting for it to release. | ||
| Ourdee |
Set garbage bag in bottom of tail bag. Partially fill bag with foam. NOT A LOT! Set copter on top of bag and push down. Let foam set. Glue camera case foam to the inside of the lid to keep copter from bouncing. | ||
| Pwnzor |
I lost my quad copter about 1/4 mile into the woods one afternoon, as the sun was starting to go down. I learned that I can still climb trees! | ||
| Rparnel1 |
I have a Blade QX3 with a GoPro Hero 4 silver. Dont have a motorized gimbal or a FPV setup, yet! Had a few crashes before I realized that the GoPro was interfering with the radio controls. A little copper tape sorted that out and this past weekend, she flew without a hitch. | ||
| Patches |
You could always build your own. | ||
| Ferris_von_bueller |
Pelican case? You can ride over those things with a truck plus they are usually waterproof and dustproof. | ||
| Akbuell |
Yeah, some quality time learning to fly. Then add 1 lb of 'dumb' weight, and try flying again. Liable to be different than when unloaded. Excellent point about possible random frequency interference from the running camera. Hadn't thought about that. Some careful shielding may be in order. | ||
| Rparnel1 |
For the Blade QX3 with a GoPro Hero 4, spurious noise from the camera writing to the memory card generated enough RFI that the radio controls started glitching. Noticable enough that copper tape was provided in the manufacturers kit. The DGI Vision model does not have this problem. | ||
| Biffdotorg |
I like the idea of the foam as there is no reason to buy a new Pelican case just for the bike since the Hepco will work fine. Spray foam insulation in a can? May be fun. To get things started, here is my very first flight with camera attached! | ||
| Froggy |
Meh.com has the DJI Phantom 1 for $300 today https://meh.com/ | ||
| 99buellx1 |
Along with practice, you can also effectively slow down the Yaw by extending out the controller stick, btw. It just unscrews. | ||
| Biffdotorg |
I did see that I can adjust the sensitivity of those sticks in the DJI Assistant software as well. Good tip though. I will learn to adjust my speed as I go too. I have been shooting at a minimum of 60fps so that slow motion is not out of the question when needed. Here in Fargo, we have gone from 80 degree days last week, to freezing rain and snow with 35mph gusting wind. So there has been no flying this week. Just shopping for additional batteries and long range antennae. My wife did cut me some nice reflective blue graphics with her vinyl cutter though. I like it better than the stock stickers from DJI. I was sure to use the label maker and put my phone number on the bottom of the quad in case it decided to fly off!  | ||
| Biffdotorg |
Ok, my turn to post an actual "Boating" GoPro Short. It's about 6 minutes, so hang in there. Don't miss the fly-by at the 4min mark. Last night was way too nice in Fargo to sit inside. We have had near freezing temps at night and it got as warm as 81 yesterday. So the boat had to go in the river for happy hour with friends. Sorry to say, no fishing was done, but I will have to do that this weekend! The Red River of the North is a border water between ND and MN. So everyone comes out this time of year as the fishing season does not close. With the warmer water, the Walleyes and Catfish start to bite. This fly-over was just one of the mid-town dams. Enjoy! | ||
| Reepicheep |
Cool! | ||
| 99buellx1 |
Got my Phantom 3 last week. This was the first picture I took with it.  And I did a little first day flying. And this past weekend, I took it with me while we were planting. The picture has an auto-levels applied to it. And the videos have zero editing done, just the music overlay by YouTube. | ||
| Reepicheep |
What a cool new form of photography! | ||
| Biffdotorg |
For those of us that live in farm country, but have never done any planting, that is so cool to see! Great work! That stadium photo is awesome! Good to see some Phantom 3 video and photos as well. Glad it's working out for you so far. I will look forward to more coming soon. As soon as this boat season kicks off, I will have some better footage. | ||
| Biffdotorg |
I had a buddy run the Glympse application this weekend on his iPhone while running in the Fargo Marathon. This way I could track his progress at any one time. I got in my truck and tried to stay 6-10 blocks ahead of him. That gave me just enough time to launch my Phantom and catch some cool video. Be sure to pop it up to 1080p and go full screen. I think it turned out pretty good. It took me three edits to get audio tracks that would play. Copyright can be tricky with video like this. Enjoy! | ||
| 99buellx1 |
Looking down into a silo.  | ||
| 86129squids |
Very cool stuff! I've had an idea, in terms of practical use of these things: I have three cherry trees, and each year about this time they are starting to produce fruit- of course, the birds promptly show up to start stripping them bare.  I tried using the tree netting/mesh that they sell at the Co-Op, but I never could get the stuff over the trees, as the mesh would hang up each time. I tried several methods to get it over, no dice. I wonder- if I had a couple of guys, each running a drone, it should be a cinch to drape the netting over about any size tree! Without spending the $$$ to buy two drones, are there any hobbyist clubs around that I might recruit some help from? I'm sure a couple of fellas would help me for a 12 pack or a share of the cherries... Each of my three trees ripens at a different time for some reason- my first one has already been stripped, and the second one is getting stripped as I type this. The birds are bad this year! My biggest one is a couple to 3 weeks away from producing... maybe I can work something out. | ||
| Biffdotorg |
That silo photo is awesome! Most of these small quadcopters have a load capacity of 1lb. So not enough for what you have in mind with the cherry tree. I would think long extension poles on either side working the net over is an option. The question is, what do you use to harvest the crop? (cherry picker, is so pun filled) but whatever gets you up to pick, could be used to cover it up | ||
| Reepicheep |
A 12 year old and a good pellet gun could be fun for all! (err, relative to the cherry tree, not the quad copter). | ||
| Biffdotorg |
So the girls went out and got some riding in on my restored 1984 Yamaha Moto-4. Yup the death machine is 30 years old and running like a champ! Is chasing them with the drone, "close adult supervision" as riding the streets in our town is legal, just maybe not at their age! | ||
| 99buellx1 |
Very short, was just out playing around. | ||
| Elsinore74 |
Here's a thought for making some extra coin, maybe a summer job opportunity for someone's kid: Provide imaging services with a GoPro-equipped Quadcopter. We're getting estimates for a new roof, and one of the contractors said they'll include photos of our existing roof in the quote. They're not using an R/C drone, but buying commercial overhead imagery instead. Not sure what the cost comparison would be, but the turnaround time for a camera-equipped drone would be instantaneous. Lots of places not accessible to commercial overhead imaging platforms could be easily reached with a drone. Just a thought. | ||
| Jonny5 |
Check this out! https://www.lily.camera I'm surprised that Apple or GoPro haven't tried to buy this startup yet... Seems like the future of action cams. | ||
| Reepicheep |
That's a flashy new marketing brochure for a concept that has existed for a while. Execution is everything. It's super cool, and it will be super cool, but it is in the "make it look easier than it really is" phase right now. More power if to them if they can do the technology leap to make this really work. But right now these drones have motor life measured in hours, and they require a lot of technical and operator judgement to use them successfully. You can even see they are kind of gaming things in the video (didn't watch it again, but recall thinking this when I first saw it a few weeks ago). In the snow / ski picture, they toss the thing out and all is good. It flies away. In the bridge picture they toss it out, and it drops below "ground" level before it gains control and rises again. It didn't know it was on a bridge... it didn't know there wasn't ground there. Had that toss been the snow toss it would have bonked. I think GoPro is actually preparing a range of drone cams already. Cool stuff, I wish I had the money to play with it. It is just now getting to the "sanely expensive hobby" threshold. But just for perspective, I suspect I have put about half as much $$ into the 78 KZ-400 cafe conversion I have in the garage than the posters above put out to get those cool videos... | ||
| 99buellx1 |
Commercial use of the quadcopter requires permits. It's not just a show up and profit type of thing. The Lily, while neat....is a prototype, and has some major flaws. Will be interesting to see it come to market and how it all works out. (be sure to note this from their FAQ: "Currently, Lily does not have any obstacle avoidance capabilities....there are no guarantees that Lily will not hit anything while it is following you.") We are at a very fast moving point in consumer quadcopter space. Features, functionality, price and upcoming regulation are all moving at an amazing pace. My main fear is with the prices dropping, it's all going to get ruined by people being dumb. Places are all going to knee jerk react and just ban the use, and I can understand it, they are dangerous and can cause damage and injury. The list of places banning use is growing by the day. If you want to take advantage of these devices, might be better do it soon. Current safety guidelines from the FAA: https://www.faa.gov/uas/model_aircraft/ And in regards to all national parks (cites some complaint reasons as to the ban): http://home.nps.gov/news/release.htm?id=1601 | ||
| Biffdotorg |
I agree 100% on Lily. As I posted on other forums, they used an animator, and probably not a prototype for that marketing video. They are taking pre-orders on a product they hope to ship next February! And I doubt the pre-orders save the consumer much at all. I truly think these are good marketers hoping that DJI or GoPro may come in and buy up their technology. Heck DJI will have something our sooner than that thing will be available. It's cool, but not tangible at this point. I saw a prototype of the Lily on another Youtube video in central park. This Lily had an antenna on it and they were having trouble keeping the cam focused on the object. Even though it seemed to follow it quite well. There are just too many cool things to play with for the next year to justify sending off $500 on something that may or may not materialize. |
