The General Drone-Related Thread

Lensflare said:
Errr, sorry to be a cynic, but DJI are a Chinese company. For the Chinese the CE mark stands for 'Chinese Export'. ;)
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Depends on the spacing of the C and the E as well as the age of the product.
 
Just quit the profession after three years working for various estate agents in North Wales. Too much hassle for not much reward, so now it's just for fun. Shot with the Dji Pro 3 using AEB and blended in HDRtist. My favourite shot. Tried hard to avoid the HDR burn. Clwydian range from Buckley.
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We spent a week in Scotland this past week and that gave me the chance to pop the drone up a few times. I'll post the better shots as I go through them, the first good shots are from the Glenfinnan Viaduct

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Thank you, Pete!

I'm pretty sure that I'll jump on the new Mavic 3 if/when announced. Or possibly the Air 2 if they do a CE marked version. Having the Mavic Mini has proved that I will actually use it!
 
The next nice shots were looking directly down (90 degrees) over a tidal water body that came up against a field/bog. It really created some incredible shots, I would have loved a better sensor to capture it!

What you're seeing is the blue water and the green grass. The only tweaks to these shots was 'Auto' on the iPhone.

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wilt said:
Can anyone recommend a good tablet mount for the mavic air 2?
I'm hoping to use my huawei m5 8.4 tablet instead of my phone.
I'm looking for it to pack away quickly and easily.
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I use an 8" Huawei tablet for mine. It fits in the zipped net pocket in the lid of the drone box and fits in the prongs of the controller perfectly - Air 1, not Air 2. I haven't even seen an Air 2 yet.
 
I don't know whether I have sized these pics correctly. When I processed them full size they were 'too large for the server to process' and wouldn't load. I reduced the output to 80% and that seems to have worked, but I don't know what settings you are meant to use for posting pictures here - reduce % or reduce pixels?

Working just down river, I flew the drone from my inflatable - I am the safety boat for the bridge works. Putting up warning signs from the boat before nipping down to get these shots of the Anderton Boat Lift for a feature I am working on for a future issue of a boat magazine. Flying from the boat isn't so difficult, I have made a small 'landing pad' that goes across the bow for take off and hand catch it for recovery.
 

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Lensflare said:
I don't know whether I have sized these pics correctly. When I processed them full size they were 'too large for the server to process' and wouldn't load. I reduced the output to 80% and that seems to have worked, but I don't know what settings you are meant to use for posting pictures here - reduce % or reduce pixels?

Working just down river, I flew the drone from my inflatable - I am the safety boat for the bridge works. Putting up warning signs from the boat before nipping down to get these shots of the Anderton Boat Lift for a feature I am working on for a future issue of a boat magazine. Flying from the boat isn't so difficult, I have made a small 'landing pad' that goes across the bow for take off and hand catch it for recovery.
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In this sort of situation you should either disable the Return to Home feature or take of from the bank. If the drone has to RtN though a loss of signal it will try and land where it took off from, if this was a boat it's unlikely to be in the same position.
 
ah5168 said:
In this sort of situation you should either disable the Return to Home feature or take of from the bank. If the drone has to RtN though a loss of signal it will try and land where it took off from, if this was a boat it's unlikely to be in the same position.
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Depends how the rth was set. You can set it to be at the take off point or the current location of the controller
 
TCR4x4 said:
Depends how the rth was set. You can set it to be at the take off point or the current location of the controller
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As I haven't a clue how to change the RTH it is a feature I don't use. In fact I don't use any of the 'features' because I still haven't understood, from watching probably 200 or 300 hours of You Tube tutorials on JUST THE MAVIC AIR and how to set it up and everything. I want to try to do some videos, but I cannot get it to do any of the auto fly things. It just sits there and does nothing. Again, I have watched the videos every time I come back disappointed, trying to work out what I did wrong... I can't work it out.

Tonight I burned through 4 batteries trying to get it to a 'follow me' in the active track, on the motorbike. It just watched me drive off again, but didn't try to follow and didn't even try to keep me in the frame by lifting the gimble. I think I need someone to actually show me how how to do it in real life, because I cannot learn from just watching tutorial videos. I can't remember where the settings live. It took me one battery to find out how to change the shutter speed tonight, first in camera to take a picture of the motorbike against the pinky sky (it has come out awefully grainy) and then to change it to video so it wasn't washed out. I couldn't find out where the shutter speed lived until the battery was beeping to say it was low, and the drone was only 20 yards from where it had taken off from.

All these different settings, it is an aweful lot to try to remember.
 
One picture I did manage to get tonight... not brilliant, despite trying to put it through Lightroom 6. It is still very muddy.web-0275.jpg
 
It's a GS, it's supposed to be even muddier!!! :P
 
That shot would have benefitted from exposure bracketing, but low light is still a problem areas with these small sensors.
 
4wd said:
That shot would have benefitted from exposure bracketing, but low light is still a problem areas with these small sensors.
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I didn't think of that! I must explore these other features, I am still thinking like shooting with film. I need to learn how to edit properly in Lightroom 6 that I have got too. I did this one it, but I don't understand all the editing options yet. I shall have a look for a video on how to do exposure stacks - I see the fabulous picture of Brentor, near Tavistock on aboyt page 43 or 44 here and TCR has done some 3 and 4 exposure shots. I need to learn how to do that.
 
On the drone You should have an AEB option where you select photo or video or panorama etc it will then Shoot 3 or 5 shots at once at different exposures. Once you have the photos in Lightroom, select them all and in the photo menu at the top select photo merge and then hdr. Or the shortcut is control H or ^H on a Mac.
 
It's wonderfully easy to do a HDR merge in lightroom, and it usually looks pretty good and unfreaky.
 
TCR4x4 said:
On the drone You should have an AEB option where you select photo or video or panorama etc it will then Shoot 3 or 5 shots at once at different exposures. Once you have the photos in Lightroom, select them all and in the photo menu at the top select photo merge and then hdr. Or the shortcut is control H or ^H on a Mac.
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THANK YOU.

I went out this afternoon, and set the stopwatch going on my watch while I flew to see realistically how long I have on a battery. My reserve is set at 30% (old habits die hard, 30% is standard fuel reserve on a boat trip). I got 14 minutes and it flew to about 700 yards away and I even got high enough to get the yellow warning for maximum altitude reached, I have mine set at 395ft, to give a little margin for error. I hadn't seen your replies, so didn't see the exposure bracket replies until it was too late. I will go out again tomorrow and have another flight. Flying smoothly for video isn't as easy, with the pauses between angles. I think I might take up a documentary type approach whereby you think of an angle and shoot it, then move and do another one, rather than trying to do it all in one flight in one go.
 
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For video, I very much shoot a scene, then move to the next. Sometimes I’ll keep recording, but often not. Makes it easier to edit too.
If you have 20 minutes of footage to search through for all the good bits, it gets a bit tedious, so shorter clips is a much easier workflow.

I also keep it at 30% reserve. No need to use a stopwatch though, the app tells you how much time each flight has taken in your profile. Also shows you a full map with the track, altitude, speed etc.

I can’t remember what drone you have, but I think it was the air 2? If so, you should get 25-27 minutes on a battery generally of course depends on flight conditions and distance. I only get about 15 on my 2 pro, which is a bit of a bummer, but that’s just how it is.
 
Mavic Air (original one). I only set the timer to give me an idea of actual time lapsed during the flight for future planning. I do get the fuel meter across the top but I had no idea in actual time how long I was getting. I didn't know it gave you an elapsed time as well. I have been so engrossed in keeping my eye on the drone it is only when the green bar starts getting about half way I start to think about getting back on the ground. Until now, I had no idea how long that actually was. The time I got doesn't seem too far off what DJI claim for a battery. There was a little bit of breeze, but not enough for the motors to be straining.

Some of my results. I am sure someone who knows how to edit could make them better.

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First thing. Getting the hang of it a bit, but not the video aspect. Editing is too computer hungry, mine isn't powerful enough, it keeps falling off a cliff and freezing trying to do any video.

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Doug said:
We spent a week in Scotland this past week and that gave me the chance to pop the drone up a few times. I'll post the better shots as I go through them, the first good shots are from the Glenfinnan Viaduct

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Really like these - what drone are you using?
 
The drone was hovering at about seat height, maybe a little below. I like using shadows in my bike shoots, it is a technique I use fairly frequently.

Not a special bike, just my gadabout that gets me to work and back. Gear goes in the panniers and if needed, strapped on the seat too.

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Just finished my A2CofC online classroom which then unlocked a new section on the website including a mock test..

You get an hour and a half to complete it, I just got 30 out of 30 questions correct in 15 minutes!

Just booked the real test for the 23rd, here’s hoping it’s as easy as the mock one!
 
TCR4x4 said:
Just finished my A2CofC online classroom which then unlocked a new section on the website including a mock test..

You get an hour and a half to complete it, I just got 30 out of 30 questions correct in 15 minutes!

Just booked the real test for the 23rd, here’s hoping it’s as easy as the mock one!
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I started my A2 C of C today, I'm over half way through the online part. And A nice new Mavic Air 2 arrived!
 
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