I WANT THIS!!! <copter>

[Aaron]

www.dji.com

awesome quadcopter!!

 

[Ronnie]

Yeah, I have one (P2V that is, not the +) they are cool. The +is $100 more but I'd recommend it since an after market gimbal usually costs a lot more. I also recommend getting the extra battery for $69 more. A stand along battery runs $160 I think. The + has a 3 axis gimbal to keep the camera level. I'm about to buy one for my P2V but putting another $400 at risk, especially over water, is not something to do lightly. Here a few of videos I shot with it since I got it in late December (mostly an Xmas gift to myself, expensive but I'm worth every penny IMHO + it's my money, well technically my wife's and mine, lol)

 

[maboat]

@Ronnie that is awesome and thanks so much for taking the time to make and share these videos.

One small suggestion....turn off the radio when you are talking to the camera.
It was hard to hear some of the dialog over the background music

 

[Ronnie]

Thanks Maboat for the compliment and suggestion. That was the first video I narrated and realized afterwards that I need to turn the radio off not just down. I still feel a little awkward narrating, especially when I'm alone since essentially I'm talking to myself.

FYI - in the last video I just put the quad copter in a hover, let the GPS assist function do its thing (keep it in a four foot square area) while I tried to drive the boat and keep it in the cameras view as much as possible. I also tried tracking the boat in a turn (I.e., manually rotate the copter while I drove the boat but it was hard to do smoothly), this is in another video shot on the copters vision camera (I sometimes mount a gopro as well so one camera takes stills and the other video).

There are other systems out there but I think the dji phantom 2 vision is the way to go right now mostly because it comes ready to fly with the camera, big battery first person view and lots of on screen telemetry as well as the ability to control the vision camera functions even tilt it.

 

[maboat]

I hear ya. Narrating when you are alone takes a little while to get used to it. But if I left music on, then I'd have to dance and that would be even more embarrassing. So I quickly learned how to talk to myself instead.

 

[dutchman]

I just got the DJI Phantom Vision + from B&H photo this Tuesday. Got extra battery pack and microSD card as well.

It.is.awesome!

Unbelievable easy to fly and picture and video quality are amazing. So cool to see my home and neighborhood from the air.

This weekend I will bring it up to the 1000 islands. Not to worried about flying above the water. The GPS fly mode is awesome, it just stays almost at the same position even if you try to push it away it resist and comes back to its original location. I mounted an Ipad Mini on the transmitter so it is very easy to see what you are filming. The camera has a 0..90° tilt.

So much fun...

 

[Julian]

These really do look like they'd be fun! @dutchman what was the B&H photo price for that package?

 

[dutchman]

These really do look like they'd be fun! @dutchman what was the B&H photo price for that package?

Julian,

I paid $1369 for the DJI Phantom Vision + package incl. the extra battery pack and free shipping and no sales tax. I also bought a hardcase with wheels for protection and traveling and precise cut interior for this quadcopter for $248, lot of money but def. worth it.

Hey...it's a lot of money for a toy...but so much fun to fly and see the world from a total different perspective.....

 

[Ronnie]

@dutchman, co gets on the purchase here are a couple words of wisdom:

If you are new to flying rc helicopters get used to hovering tail in/ nose out and performing simple manuvers (sp?) before jumping into fast forward flights. The primary goal being to understand how your stick inputs will cause the helicopter to react when its orientation changes. For instance, and you have probably already noticed this, when you fly nose in / tail out, the pitch, role and yaw controls are reversed, they also change when the heli is flying side ways in relation to you. This is easy to remember when typing about it, not so easy when the heli is a few hundred feet up and or out or when it's about to crash into something or someone.

The GPS assist is a crutch that doesn't work well when it's cloudy out or at all when it is flown indoors (out of the line of the satellites sight).

Unless you add some upgrades / for instance pool noodles, these things do not float, in fact they sink quickly.

If you have any liability concerns see if your homeowners policy covers accidents / personal and or property damage related to this. If not look into buying insurance from the AMA (aeronautics model association I think) it's less than $100 per year for $1m in coverage.

Congrats again , have fun.

 

[Ronnie]

This just occurred to me, you are the, "Flying Dutchmam" now, cool, right?

 

[dutchman]

Thanks for all the tips Ronnie. I watched a boatload of videos before I ever bought the machine, so I was pretty good prepared.

I'm mainly struggling with getting a nice smooth sweeping shot....

Any simple video editing software you can recommend? And I mean simple......as simple to use?

Just took the phantom out to the 1000 islands last weekend. It was awesome to see the view high above the islands and water...

 

[Ronnie]

I hear you on the videos and hope that you have a better experience than I but from what I've seen it's not a matter if you crash just a matter of when. flying over water just makes it more likely that the crash will be a total loss. Fortunately, these are "less expensive" than their predessessors. To protect against Murphy's law I've decide to have the dslr pros coat the heli with a water proofing spray afte I add a 2 or 3 axis gimbal as well as add pool noodle floats to taller wider landing gear.

If you are having a problem getting a smooth sweeping shot see if you can turn the gain on the GPS assist function down that way it won't fight you to keep the heli in a set position/ location. Alternatively you could turn gps a assist off altogether which will allow the copter to continue to drift in the last direction it was headed when you released the control stick. However, I would not recommend that you do that just yet. Check out runryder.com if you have questions about quad copters or rc copters in general.

I'm still only using gopros and you tubes free ware both are easy to use but gopros only works with gopro footage. OCMD recommended adobe but a friend told me it is now licensed on a subscription basis (eg $10 per month) which I'm not down with. Giddyupjoe endorsed some other consumer software on another thread. I want to check it out since it's taking me way to long to edit currently, about 1 hour per minute of video. I'd also love it if I could do it all on location from my iPad mini.

Good luck with future videography, I'm looking forward to see inf your footage.

 

[Glassman]

You guys are really pissing me off!

I woke up this morning thinking about buying one of these....now how the eff did that happen? I'll tell ya how that happened, you go posting shit like this and subliminally it takes over my tiny brain and the next thing you know the credit card is in my hand and I've done gone and spent my butter and egg money!

 

[Julian]

I downloaded Windows Movie Maker.....nothing fancy....but free....I have to assume that DJI's software is as good at it is....

 

[BoaterGuy]

@dutchman, co gets on the purchase here are a couple words of wisdom:

If you are new to flying rc helicopters get used to hovering tail in/ nose out and performing simple manuvers (sp?) before jumping into fast forward flights. The primary goal being to understand how your stick inputs will cause the helicopter to react when its orientation changes. For instance, and you have probably already noticed this, when you fly nose in / tail out, the pitch, role and yaw controls are reversed, they also change when the heli is flying side ways in relation to you. This is easy to remember when typing about it, not so easy when the heli is a few hundred feet up and or out or when it's about to crash into something or someone.

The GPS assist is a crutch that doesn't work well when it's cloudy out or at all when it is flown indoors (out of the line of the satellites sight).

Unless you add some upgrades / for instance pool noodles, these things do not float, in fact they sink quickly.

If you have any liability concerns see if your homeowners policy covers accidents / personal and or property damage related to this. If not look into buying insurance from the AMA (aeronautics model association I think) it's less than $100 per year for $1m in coverage.

Congrats again , have fun.

Might want to check on the AMA coverage... when I purchased it years ago for my helis and planes, they would only insure claims that happened at an AMA sanctioned club field... Just an FYI..

 

[Ronnie]

@dutchman , another alternative to shaky footage maybe to program a flight into dji's ground station application. Basically use the heli as a drone which will take off, fly the predesignated route and land once you hit the start button.

@Glassman, sorry to plant the seed I your head. Just last year a member of YJB bought a 1st gen phantom and posted some cool videos. I swore I wouldn't get back into rc helis especially a a buy in cost of $600 (at that time). Fast forward to now and I've since bought a used 1st gen that I quickly outgrew and gave to my son and now I'm about to upgrade my 2nd gen phantom. The heli system as about $1,200 before tax, the gimbal is another $400 and I sometimes put a go pro on for stills as well as video from the dji camera so there is another $200 to $400 in the air/at risk. I'm not sure what the water proofing will cost yet but am hoping it is less than $100 including shipping both ways.

If you want to get into this or are on the fence and don't want to spend a lot of money consider the fc-40 by dji. It is a gen 1 phantom with its own camera that may also have wifi ability for first person viewing and control purposes. Oh, it's also "only" $500 or less (see heliworld or heli-world.com).

@Julian , I'll will check out movie maker as well as so either software. I don't mind buying it but I only want to buy one and only want to buy it once (I.e., no software subscriptions for me). By the way, dji does not offer any of ots own video editing software that I know of.

@RobA , the AMA keeps sending me emails asking me to revive and renew my old policy , all with "fly anywhere" in the subject line.

 

[BoaterGuy]

@Ronnie good to know thanks! I have my heli sitting upstairs and it stares at me every time I iron my shirt in the morning... just begging me to fly it again. I havent flown in 5 years. Back then I would have been all over the quad's, now I can hardly find time to clean the boat after I use it. Life is crazy...

BTW I'm a member of Runryder also.... since:

Date Registered: 02-25-2005 3379 days ago

 

[Glassman]

@Ronnie, that's OK. The seed was planted a long time ago. You just watered it!

So, for a cheapskate like me, what do you think of the Parrot ? I read somewhere that they just came out with a new one, don't think it's available yet. But I've looked at the 2.0 GPS model, it runs around $350.
Then I looked at the DJI FC40 w/FPV camera @ $499

The Parrot certainly won't hurt as much when I crash it or it just flies away, but will it leave me wanting bigger, better, faster?

Right now I have one of those tiny remote helicopters I fly around the house (high ceilings) and I've become fairly good at hovering and chasing the grandkids with it.

 

[Julian]

I keep reading this thread and thinking how cool it would be to have one of these too! Then I think....what the heck are you thinking....$1200 for the + version (which is of course the cadillac)....but it does look like fun.

I too have a little helicopter that I fly around the yard....thanks for reminding me of that @Glassman ... as I rarely fly it....but then again...it is probably MUCH harder to fly than this quad??? And it doesn't have a camera....which would be so much more interesting.....

 

[Raphael]

AWESOME!!