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LongLensPhotography

LongLensPhotography

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So please tell me all about quad/hexa-copters and all the options.

I believe GoPro is the most popular attachment, but I don't think it would leave me satisfied. I'm used to my high def RAW files, so for the sake of simplicity I want clean A3 and preferably A2 prints and lots of processing latitude. I'd imagine some SONY E mount jobby, or GH4 or even a Fuji would do the job. The system should allow upgrading of bodies and at least different lenses within reason (like 24mm prime vs 17-50 zoom, etc). Video might be also important. I don't know if any can do RAW video / 4K RAW, but that's what upgradeability is for. I don't feel like strapping my 5DIII on one yet!
And it must be easy to use and difficult to crash! :)

Intended use - Scottish highlands and probably sooner or later some areal commercial photography.

So what could I buy myself for Christmas for around £1k (with a bit of flexibility) excluding camera?
 
You should look at the dji phantom series. But be warned, if you're looking to put a dslr or even mirrorless onboard, the costs are going to rise significantly.
 
johnnypanic said:
You should look at the dji phantom series. But be warned, if you're looking to put a dslr or even mirrorless onboard, the costs are going to rise significantly.
Click to expand...

How much of a ballpark figure are we talking to put a DSLR on board? Is it all to do with the weight of the camera or some other factor?
 
Laudrup said:
How much of a ballpark figure are we talking to put a DSLR on board? Is it all to do with the weight of the camera or some other factor?
Click to expand...
Substantially more than your budget of £1k. For a good 3 axis gimbal capable of handling a small DSLR, you are going to spend at least £1800, and if you are thinking of commercial work, you can double or treble that.
Then there is a quadcopter ( or hexacopter or octocopter.. more engines = safety, for you ( and anyone around you) and stability for your camera) It needs to be stable and large enough to lift a M43 or DSLR safely. Cheapest I have seen is a DJI 900 for just under 1K but you need to add most of the expensive stuff to it, like a flight controller gimbal and a radio transmitter.
I think, a starting price of around 4K would get you in at the bottom end.
Then, of course, if you are going to do commercial work, you will need a permission from the CAA. It may be an idea to look at their website and see what you need to do to obtain this.
My thoughts would be to start off with a DJI Phantom 2 with Zenmuse 3d gimbal and a top end GoPro ( thats your £1k spent already) . These are used professionally and their video is broadcast quality. At least you would learn to fly the thing safely, see what you would be able to achieve with the kit then rethink how far you want to go ( and spend) If you crash it, repair costs aren't going to be too high either.........
Anyway, good luck. Its not a cheap hobby.
Allan
 
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At a guess, equipment costs will be relatively low compared to the training and certification you'll need to use it commercially.
 
Edit: Crossed post with above...

For commercial work you need a license - takes time and money. And for a best quality I would guess a Sony A7 might be a good weapon, with a small prime, on a six-rotor jobbie perhaps.

I know next to nothing about these things though I recently did a real estate job with a friend and his hexa-copter and Sony A6000. Cost a few £k. He's now discovering that the photography side of things is not so easy, plus post-processing and video editing.

Lots of people are jumping on this bandwagon now.
 
i think a phantom can haul a nex, just.

cost is in the powered gimbal i guess? and the more pro ones are certainly more pro in price.

and you probably need a video stream from drone so you know what your pointing at :)

sonys qx 1? or whatever the emount sensor u stick on a phone might be a good option
 
http://www.quadcopters.co.uk/dji-s900--a2--z15-gimbal-1512-p.asp

that looks like the one to get from dji. GH4 video footage is by far better than NEX or even stock 5DIII. The only problem is the price. It is probably a total bargain for a media company, but it is eating too far into my budget. Maybe there are cheaper alternatives, I don't know. This sort of thing would be a game-changer for me.
 
daugirdas said:
http://www.quadcopters.co.uk/dji-s900--a2--z15-gimbal-1512-p.asp

that looks like the one to get from dji. GH4 video footage is by far better than NEX or even stock 5DIII. The only problem is the price. It is probably a total bargain for a media company, but it is eating too far into my budget. Maybe there are cheaper alternatives, I don't know. This sort of thing would be a game-changer for me.
Click to expand...
Don't forget to factor in the cost of the radio equipment and a decent charger........
 
Cheapest way is to build your own, these are very good http://www.foxtechfpv.com/tarot-products-tarot-multi-rotor-c-157_158.html
import from china,and a good firm to deal with.
Then you need motors,speed controllers,gps,batteries,radio,
flight controller,first person view so you know what you are filming and the ability to solder
then you have to learn to fly it and most important a license for commercial use.
going on Multi rotor uk forum is a good way to gain a wealth of info on quadcopters we dont call them drones
 
would it be worth getting a super cheap n cheerful one to practise and test it out?
 
pingu666 said:
would it be worth getting a super cheap n cheerful one to practise and test it out?
Click to expand...

I thought I might be interested in a quadracopter, I quite fancied the Phantom but didn't want to shell out right away, so I bought a Hubsan with a built-in video camera, cost about £48. From using it I've decided I don't want to spend the time and effort in learning to fly a bigger machine, so it was quite a good investment, in that I avoided a costly mistake.
 
bt33 said:
Cheapest way is to build your own, these are very good http://www.foxtechfpv.com/tarot-products-tarot-multi-rotor-c-157_158.html
import from china,and a good firm to deal with.
Then you need motors,speed controllers,gps,batteries,radio,
flight controller,first person view so you know what you are filming and the ability to solder
then you have to learn to fly it and most important a license for commercial use.
going on Multi rotor uk forum is a good way to gain a wealth of info on quadcopters we dont call them drones
Click to expand...

Ok, that would be the wings sorted, but what about gimbals as these are the most expensive part? Z15 is both expensive (to me!) and very limiting in what it can take.
 
The thing is it's not as simple as popping up some reasonably good camera.
To frame your shots you need some kind of video feed too.
You can soon spend several thousands and it can all go horribly wrong just as easily as the £500 phantom.

The variations on GoPro gimbals will give you better quality than Vision range, however the Visions have a very neat fully integrated FPV and telemetry i.e. you can see on screen your height, distance and direction, as well as remaining battery.
This is all very good stuff and can be had under £1000
Here is a DNG raw from my Vision Plus to play with.
You usually need to do lens correction and noise reduction but you can get rather pleasing results from this set up.

(right click/save link - 24MB)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/24428212/DJI00535.DNG
 
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4wd said:
The thing is it's not as simple as popping up some reasonably good camera.
To frame your shots you need some kind of video feed too.
You can soon spend several thousands and it can all go horribly wrong just as easily as the £500 phantom.

The variations on GoPro gimbals will give you better quality than Vision range, however the Visions have a very neat fully integrated FPV and telemetry i.e. you can see on screen your height, distance and direction, as well as remaining battery.
This is all very good stuff and can be had under £1000
Here is a DNG raw from my Vision Plus to play with.
You usually need to do lens correction and noise reduction but you can get rather pleasing results from this set up.

(right click/save link - 24MB)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/24428212/DJI00535.DNG
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link. I honestly don't think I'll be going up this route, if at all. I am a lot more keen on the 24-50 range with occasional long tele for my landscapes and really can't see small sensor fisheye fit into my work.

I think the modular designs are sort of attractive because... they are highly upgradeable and customisable. I don't want to be locked in to any particular body or lens combination. 4K video will be standard in 1-2 years and soon we'll see first 8K examples. You just don't want to miss out. Phantom I believe still can't do GOPRO 4.
 
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