The General Drone-Related Thread

Just received my new phantom 4 pro today so ill be back to playing with drones again, this is my 4th phantom after having an original and 2x 4s, much happier with the 4 pros camera.
 
I am just awaiting delivery of my new Mavic Air 2 drone with Fly More package. I have done my Flyer and operator ID already, and have started the A2 COC course too. I am hoping to have some fun with this, and also capture some fun footage of out working cocker puppy we will be picking up in 6 weeks I jumped in with the drone without fully researching things, and am a bit disappointed that these are going to be legacy drones and falling into A3 category unless the CAA allow retrospective compliance into the C2 category. Hopefully I will be able to add some footage here in the coming weeks.
 
It's a cracking drone. Very confident in its ability. I also done the A2CofC, very worthwhile.

Thanks for that, I am excited...

I think it is worth me doing the A2 COC regardless of whether I need it or not, I always like to know as much as I can, and as I am a manager at an airport I don't want to do anything which could get me in any bother :)
 
I am just awaiting delivery of my new Mavic Air 2 drone with Fly More package. I have done my Flyer and operator ID already, and have started the A2 COC course too. I am hoping to have some fun with this, and also capture some fun footage of out working cocker puppy we will be picking up in 6 weeks I jumped in with the drone without fully researching things, and am a bit disappointed that these are going to be legacy drones and falling into A3 category unless the CAA allow retrospective compliance into the C2 category. Hopefully I will be able to add some footage here in the coming weeks.

You currently Can’t buy anything but legacy drones, so I wouldn’t worry about it. Nothing new that will comply looks to be on the horizon for a good while yet.
 
There's a bit to get used too. Plenty of photo and video modes as well as settings.
I don't see any benefit of the 48mp mode, as it doesn't seem to give any more detail.
I ran around the field like an eejit to test out the tracking modes when I first got it, they work pretty well.
Like anything, practice is key. I hand land it but it took me a fair few attempts to build the confidence for that, but I always take my landing pad for windy days.
 
I only use 48Mp if I think that I may wish to crop the photo(s) later.....
 
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There's a bit to get used too. Plenty of photo and video modes as well as settings.
I don't see any benefit of the 48mp mode, as it doesn't seem to give any more detail.
I ran around the field like an eejit to test out the tracking modes when I first got it, they work pretty well.
Like anything, practice is key. I hand land it but it took me a fair few attempts to build the confidence for that, but I always take my landing pad for windy days.
I've not bothered with the 48mp mode. I am going to give the manual settings a go next weekend if I get a good day to fly. I am hoping to get some good shots / videos of the Humber Bridge. :)
 
I've not bothered with the 48mp mode. I am going to give the manual settings a go next weekend if I get a good day to fly. I am hoping to get some good shots / videos of the Humber Bridge. :)

Look forward to seeing them, if you manage to get out :)

Here's a pano of the site that my caravan is on, taken in around October last year (last time I was able to go :().

panorama2.jpg
 
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Lovely natural colours and what an interesting subject.

Try to avoid obvious 'drone-like' moves, plan simple, smooth steady movements like rising slowly up or tracking forwards/sideways *slowly*
Gently arcing around is always a good move, and it will do that for you most likely - but it's nice to master manually.
A minimal number of very controlled shots with no jerks is much more effective even if the total run time is halved.
 
Lovely natural colours and what an interesting subject.

Try to avoid obvious 'drone-like' moves, plan simple, smooth steady movements like rising slowly up or tracking forwards/sideways *slowly*
Gently arcing around is always a good move, and it will do that for you most likely - but it's nice to master manually.
A minimal number of very controlled shots with no jerks is much more effective even if the total run time is halved.

I am looking to improve that side of things for sure. I could get it to do all of that automatically, but I want to master it myself. I am only 32 minutes into flying so far so have a long way to go before I am anywhere near the quality I want. Thanks for the advice :)

Some more info here if anyone is interested...
 
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Lots of practice which just happens to be fun ;)
They are great for stills too, I increasingly think a well composed aerial photo has more wide appeal than 'drone video' now, unless you seamlessly integrate two or three drone shots in a more general video with material from other cameras.
 
Been at Thornton Abbey along time ago when I lived down there, Ming refinery in the back ground. Might have to have a look again with my mavic air next time I'm down. Thanks for that.
 
Here's a video of my third outing (filming). Trying to fly and turn more smoothly.

Hoping to get to use it again soon... testing the batteries this weekend.

Abandoned brick works.

A pleasant video with much smoother movement.
Please ditch the music though it wasn't in keeping with the environment or film.
Porth Wen is a lovely spot for photography and using a quadcopter makes for views of the incline base and crusher that you can't get from the ground. As you went up that way I'd hoped the flight would continue along the tramway incline. Perhaps add some pull back type zoom into the repetoire (the three Cornish boilers would be a good shot to practice it on).

Good progress and I look forward to seeing the results of your ongoing learning.
 
Early on I thought how good it would be to go out over cliffs e.g. At Staithes - I found it seriously worrying, when in reality there is less to be concerned about than over land.
Mind dozens of seagulls trying to intimidate it didn't help.
 
Not great, but just thought I'd share so you can hopefully see improvements as I go.



 
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One from this morning. This is taken on my old AIR. It is a 180-degree panoramic that I have cropped to lose the ends a bit, and trimmed the edges to sort of maintain the ratio. Obviously the size is reduced for loading here - that is something I still cannot get right. How you reduce it and maintain sharpness I can't work out.Hildene 15pano.web.jpg
 
Try a standard 4:3 ratio, see how that fares. 975kb and still too large??? What on earth does the system require? I really don't understand this resizing lark - why do we buy cameras with the capability of producing 50MB file size images, filling up massive hard drives, renting massive amounts of space on some server in the sky and then throw 90% of the picture away so it can be seen on here? Crazy!
 
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Try a standard 4:3 ratio, see how that fares. 975kb and still too large??? What on earth does the system require? I really don't understand this resizing lark - why do we buy cameras with the capability of producing 50MB file size images, filling up massive hard drives, renting massive amounts of space on some server in the sky and then throw 90% of the picture away so it can be seen on here? Crazy!


Don’t upload it here, upload it to somewhere else and link it to here. Try Flickr, or imgr.
Hosting images costs a lot of money, for the forum to be able to host hundreds of thousands of full res images, we’d all be paying a huge subscription fee to keep the forum running.
 
I don't have anywhere else to 'host it'. All this techy stuff, it is beyond me.
 
Persevered with sizing (thanks to plenty of helpful suggestions) and managed to get this one accepted on here. It is the Uttoxeter town mascot. Up early before the traffic started.

Uttoxeter.bw.web-0793.jpg
 
Having played with the AIR for a year now I took the opportunity to get a Pro2 on Saturday. I flew it for the first time today, having studied the various features and found my settings - it was only 25 minutes old, came with tablet holder, tablet and a whole host of extras.... at a price I jumped at. The guy selling had crashed his first one into a tree, this was the replacement, but basically he had lost his nerve. All I can say is WOW. I use a compact camera for some jobs and the D4s for others. I can compare the AIR to the compact and the Pro2 is the D4s, the difference is that stark. I shot one frame as standard 35mm format, and then shot a panorama, just of my town as something to practice with. The panorama is 830MB - it produced a 66.5MB jpeg! Even the internally stitched panorama is 18MB jpeg. I am stunned by the capability of this thing and it flies so stable and assured. The problem now is, how do I size anything for on here, I don't think the system will like pictures of that kind of size. The detail is incredible though.
 
Having played with the AIR for a year now I took the opportunity to get a Pro2 on Saturday. I flew it for the first time today, having studied the various features and found my settings - it was only 25 minutes old, came with tablet holder, tablet and a whole host of extras.... at a price I jumped at. The guy selling had crashed his first one into a tree, this was the replacement, but basically he had lost his nerve. All I can say is WOW. I use a compact camera for some jobs and the D4s for others. I can compare the AIR to the compact and the Pro2 is the D4s, the difference is that stark. I shot one frame as standard 35mm format, and then shot a panorama, just of my town as something to practice with. The panorama is 830MB - it produced a 66.5MB jpeg! Even the internally stitched panorama is 18MB jpeg. I am stunned by the capability of this thing and it flies so stable and assured. The problem now is, how do I size anything for on here, I don't think the system will like pictures of that kind of size. The detail is incredible though.
I think the only way you will be able to get things on here is to upload them to a hosting service. You can get a free Flickr account which is limited to a number of uploads. There are probably others out there for free, but I now pay for Flickr just for the ease of uploading things without the worry of being restricted.

I have the Air 2 and it is great, I am doing my A2 CofC at the moment, and will be upgrading once the legacy drone rules come into place. By then I think the upgrade will be worthwhile, I am not bothered about the Air 2S model, especially as I don't think it is CE marked, so will still be affected by the legacy drone restrictions.
 
@Lensflare should have gotten the new air2s. Same camera as the 2pro but in a smaller package and higher resolution video, longer range, better battery life.
Dji have really screwed us 2pro owners up, they are pretty much redundant now unless you desperately need a variable aperture.

Can't believe the air2s isn't CE marked though. Surely dji have made a huge mistake there. Everyone with A2CofC would have bought it if it was.
 
@Lensflare should have gotten the new air2s. Same camera as the 2pro but in a smaller package and higher resolution video, longer range, better battery life.
Dji have really screwed us 2pro owners up, they are pretty much redundant now unless you desperately need a variable aperture.

Can't believe the air2s isn't CE marked though. Surely dji have made a huge mistake there. Everyone with A2CofC would have bought it if it was.
Definitely. I’m new to drones and didn’t realise DJI were like Apple!
 
@Lensflare should have gotten the new air2s. Same camera as the 2pro but in a smaller package and higher resolution video, longer range, better battery life.
Dji have really screwed us 2pro owners up, they are pretty much redundant now unless you desperately need a variable aperture.

Can't believe the air2s isn't CE marked though. Surely dji have made a huge mistake there. Everyone with A2CofC would have bought it if it was.

Definitely not. I considered it but ruled it out because of the lack of variable aperture. I am much happier I got the bigger version. 27 minutes in the air is plenty good enough for me. 3 good jobs and it is paid for!
 
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