Hi all, New to the drone business, long time cinematographer, I'm interested in buying the Inspire 1 with dual controllers for my camera man and I. My question is: If we are doing shots that require him to move the camera in different directions how am I going to be able to fly without seeing where I am going? I know most of the time people use LOS but we are expecting to have shots where that is not an option. Is there any way you can add a second forward facing camera just for the pilot? Does the inspire 1 allow extra weight add ons? Any guidance would be much appreciated. Best Justin
Second camera, one set up for your camera man, the other for "FPV" flight.... Also means two video transmitters, one on on frequency and the other on another. As well as a gimble transmitter / receivers, frequency's different as well. While more complex and will require work to reduce the transmitter / receiver interference that may happen it can be done
Flying by FPV can be difficult for many people - especially if you are in an area where there are obstructions (trees, buildings, etc.). It's harder than it seems. To do so requires that you be a real "pilot", able to fully understand the various inputs you are getting from your GPS maps, telemetry and the FPV all at a split second level. Flying outside of LOS also increases the chances of crashes and loss - due mostly to pilot error. If you intend to do this I'd suggest getting in a lot of hours with some lesser machines to hone your skills and see if you can control things the way you want to. DJI has their own forums which are starting to have a lot of Inspire users on them - you may actually find someone there who is doing this or has more input about it. http://forum.dji.com/forum.php?lang=en
You will also want to read up on the latest FAA rules regarding Drones for commercial use, you may not like some of the requirements......see https://www.faa.gov/uas/
Yah... I have a booked video shoot in 2 months and i have to follow a Car while riding in a different car flying the inspire 1, I don't even have the inspire 1 yet. Think this type of shot is doable without FPV? (I have a camera operator who will be using the Gimble) @IceFyre13th Yes but aren't those proposed rules? nothing is law yet from what i've heard.
I bought a UDI U818A 2.4GHz 4 CH 6 Axis Gyro RC Quadcopter with Camera RTF Mode 2 for practice Any suggestions? I need to get good fast, I have an extensive background in RC Cars and video games, so i'm not new to the stick, but flying a quad seems very different.
If you really wanted the feel of a stabilized machines, I'd say to pick up a Phantom 1 and fly the heck out of it. The feel should be somewhat the same and you can practice the feel of following things, etc. You can likely sell it for almost what you paid if you don't want to keep it after a while. Your experience with R/C cars and video games should help translate things. Maybe you can ride in a golf cart behind an R/C car and fly the Phantom..... One thing for sure - the more time you get in, the better you are likely to feel about the whole thing!
Is there a big difference when flying stabilized machines? Is it easier? or just different? Again guys thanks for all the help, life savers...
Easier - but different. They will hold altitude or hold hover (GPS mode). This is vastly easier than flying a toy grade quad or an FPV unit without altitude hold. It operates like it's on invisible rails. The dang things are so stable that you start thinking videos are still pictures until the camera pans.
I'm really thinking about getting the Phantom 1, is there anything less expensive that would help me equally in flight training?
I think when all is said and done you are best with the Phantom. You can pick up a V2 of the Blade 350qx for as little as $300, but you need to get a TX with it. Also, the Phantom is the same company DJI - so it's likely that the flight control programming follows some of the same rules. When you consider your training - and then the resale of the Phantom, it only ends up costing you about $200...which is cheap for the training involved. That's my opinion anyway.
All I can say is the rules are proposed, and they have gone after others already......fly at your own risk............. I do not have the luxury of not following those rules due to some of my build contracts. I also think everyone else should do everything they can to prevent further regulation from being implemented due to not trying to fly safe and responsibly. Its easy to contact your local officials and ask if you can, when you can, and if they have any concerns about what you intend to do.........its hard for the rest of use when you do and end up having an issue with the local officials who then ban or otherwise restrict what we could of done. But your call, but please don't screw it up for the rest of the industry.
Wanted a big drone. Couldn't justify the price. Bought a really small quad. Very difficult to control. Others said I just needed more practice - much more practice. Frankly, I wasn't certain I wanted to dedicate that much time. Certainly there was something out there that was imminently controllable immediately. Bought something a little bigger that had better technology. In about four hours of practice, I could fly it through the house without "losing" it - into the blinds, into the lamp, into a wall, etc. With no camera and way too small to carry one, it quickly became kind of boring. I wanted one for photography, not to do flips. Finally sprung for a bind-n-fly Blade 350 QX3. Awesome right out of the box. *This* was what I was looking for. Eventually got the GoPro shielded and dove into the aerial photography hobby - slowly! There were still things to be learned. A couple of moderately severe crashes, some repairs, some glue and a new motor and I started taking things more slowly. But I knew I was finally on the right track. I sold some amateur radio gear - truly surplus stuff, not stuff I really needed - to finance the next step and ordered a Phantom 3 Professional. If the Blade was stable, like the guy above wrote, the Phantom flies on tracks! I've left it alone for minutes at a time while I futzed with settings on the mobile device. And, as already pointed out above, the built-in FPV saved me all the hassles of adding an antenna, a video transmitter, a separate FPV camera, a video receiver, ground station (or goggles or monitor), etc. With kind of an all-in-one setup, it seemed like $1,300 well spent (bought the pro version with the extra battery). Have gotten capable of flying the thing, now I'm learning to be subtle - learning how to slowly pan without stopping, keeping everything smooth and steady and hoping to gain the proficiency of muscle-memory that looking for the right shot becomes more important than how to fly into it!
