I don't know if this falls into the category of "practical" photography or not, but I am getting ready to pull the trigger on this -

DJI Phantom 2+

Besides the fun factor, I want to use it for land survey, game management, and promotional videos.

Anyone else with experience?

The device that you show in the picture is probably over 1000 bucks with the camera. When I went to the boat show last week there was a guy in a seminar that had those and was advocating such things as photographing boats, checking anchorages before entering, and numerous other interesting applications. I personally was absolutely enthralled by the idea, until…

I actually tried to fly one! I am here to tell you that it isn't easy. When I went to the hobby shop look at them they had them literally the size of your thumb to monster ones that could carry a professional video camera with stabilized camera platform. Now the guys that work in hobby shops where they sell them have the technique down and make it look easy. They also sell the little ones for about $40. A simulator with an actual control radio that runs on your PC is sold for about $250. I would get one of these to start with.


On the positive side while the things are limited to maximum altitude of 400 feet (light aircraft are limited to a minimum of 500 feet) and visual range for distance it might be interesting once you became confident at flying one of these units use them for camera safaris, etc. In General, the skills involved and other technical knowledge is not easily acquired because there are no references such as books or other to help you. You seem to be going back to the hobby shop to discuss questions with the local expert. You also tend to break or lose propellers and end up buying those four or five sets at a time.

DMCI - I had the opportunity to fly the DJI Phantom + a few weeks ago and it is surprisingly easy to fly. It is GPS driven so after getting it airborne the quad becomes quite stable and holds its position without any controller inputs.

The cool part is the Ground Station app makes the quad fully autonomous. All you have to do is set the waypoints, height, and speed you want to fly and the cellphone app does everything. It frees up the pilot to just working the camera. It also has a Return To Home feature should you lose contact with it or really get into trouble.

From what I understand, flying them above 400 feet is a simple programming issue. Of course flying them anywhere near an airport is pure stupidity. I would imagine we will see more problems with this as quads become more popular.

Pretty amazing technology. We will see how robust they are in a week or so.

Opus:

The one I have is very simple, about the size of your thumb. Cost about 40 bucks.

However, when I get confident enough I will buy one of the larger ones. Keep us informed about your experience (or at least me). 400 feet is the published FAA maximum so as to stay below the minimum altitude for light aircraft. (500 feet)

The subject becomes particularly interesting if you want to apply one of those biggies professionally. Amateurs are not allowed to make money doing it. Similar in that way to amateur radio.

Well, I survived the first flight with the Phantom 2+. Fortunately, I ordered last Wednesday and got another 15% off (midweek discount) I ordered two extra batteries, charger, blades and blade guards. I also received the newest radio with built in gimbal control (big plus), new motors, and better blades. Flight time and range is supposed to be improved, but I was just concerned about not crashing today.

Tested the return to home function and it worked perfectly. That is a huge confidence builder right there. Tested a few waypoints and the quad followed the path without deviation. Also shot some video and will play with that later this evening.

With all the experience of three whopping hours of flight, I must say the Phantom 2+ is ridiculously easy to fly. Preflight calibration was a snap and flight controls through the cell wifi is straightforward. I really never experienced an ohshit moment.

Next step is to get this thing to Namibia where I can really stretch its legs in the Big Empty.

Opus1,

Sounds like you’ve done your homework. I would appreciate it very much if you could possibly PM me or post a list of the technical names or models of each of the items you purchased. Sounds like exactly what I need and that would help me in getting the right equipment.

Thank you in advance for your help in this matter.

I'm sure you know to be very careful where you fly these. I have a place in southern Missouri and the law enforcement is not fond of them. Two weeks ago when I was there I was talking to the neighbor. It seemed there was a young man down the road that thought it would be cool to look around my neighbor's property. My neighbor shot it down as it made a quick stop over his house. You have to understand that where we live, there is me and the neighbor and a half mile in every direction to anyone else.

The young man called the sheriff and the conversation went something like this:

YM: This old bastard shot down my drone.
Neighbor: Yup, it was over my house.
YM: it was not there long, just passing through really.
Neighbor: I have two teen age daughters. Ain't you or anyone else taking pictures of them.
YM: I wasn't. I was just passing over and hovered for a minute.
Officer: Young man, you have two choices. You can take your wreckage and go back down the road, or I can have you put your hands behind your back as a peeping Tom.

The YM went about his business. Bad thing is I thought I heard something when I was deer hunting, but could never see it. Since I am hard of hearing, I just passed it off. Never did see a deer though.

Technically you do not own the airspace over your property. Therefore there are going to be a lot of challenges associated with drones and especially with drones flying cameras.

In the incident you described, the drone owner could sue for damages and probably win in a small claims court. The homeowner would have to prove the flyer's intent and that would be very difficult unless the landowner had video showing the flyer was indeed snooping in windows.

All this is going to open a massive can of legal worms for sure.

So far, no one has shot me down... yet...

quote:

Originally posted by DMCI*:
Opus1,

Sounds like you’ve done your homework. I would appreciate it very much if you could possibly PM me or post a list of the technical names or models of each of the items you purchased. Sounds like exactly what I need and that would help me in getting the right equipment.

Thank you in advance for your help in this matter.

multiple sellers on ebay have package deals that include the base unit plus extra batteries, props, guards, etc.just be sure you buy the Version 2.0 model for the upgraded motors, gymbal, etc.

The new radio, motors and props make a significant improvement. Nice thing about DJI is they are constantly upgrading their software and hardware. With the Phantom 2+, new camera upgrades are plug and play. The rest is software.

Amazing thing is, this technology is still in the buggy whip phase.

quote:

Originally posted by Opus1:

Amazing thing is, this technology is still in the buggy whip phase.

Opie,
I actually have Mark I I mod three or whatever they choose to call it. And I have to tell you this thing is no slouch technically. In terms of technology is only a few notches down from a modern attack helicopter. It misses electronic warfare, offensive weapons, and massive jet turbines but with respect to navigation, vehicle control, apparent accuracy, etc. this thing is no slouch.

I am in the process catching some of the extra features that I bought for the thing and should be mission capable by tomorrow afternoon. I bought exactly what you recommended and two extra batteries and updated software for added. First mission, if everything works out well will be photographing club boats from the air.) The technical manager at the store where I bought it personally gave me instructions on the device. The fact that it did a good job for me was a function of the fact that I bought the drone simulator. First job tomorrow is get the thing set up and impresseing the neighbor kids.

DMCI - Not sure what the Mark II mod is??? Is that the new gimbal control or an upgraded antenna?

One other thing that I did not put in my PM to you - be careful when calibrating the compass. Do not do it on a concrete patio because of rebar in the concrete can influence the antenna. Make sure you calibrate it on grass away from the controller and cell phone. You can tell there is a problem if it wanders at all during a hover.

Also read about the flyaway problem some have had. Most agree it is an operator error and not a software issue.

Otherwise, you will be happy with the video quality - at least I am. Make sure you set White Balance to Cloudy and not to auto - (but you should do that on most any DSLR or video camera in my opinion.)

The next fun step is doing video editing. I am using (and learning) Corel Video Studio Ultimate X7. Very straightforward to use but with a lot of extra editing power that requires a learning curve.

Specifically, what I have is DJI Phantom 2 Vision + version 3.0

In addition, I purchased three batteries and the blade guard, extra blade sets and a carrying case. It turns out that the carrying case does not accept the Phantom with the blade guards on it.

I went back to the dealer and got a one hour instruction on the operation and calibration of the unit. They also went over the beginners’ instruction course and demonstrated it to me. He then handed me the unit and since I had experience with a flight simulator I was easily able to fly the unit which was primarily controlled by GPS and the onboard flux compass. To show my appreciation I purchased the third battery which is about $150 as a show my appreciation. Now that I’ve installed the blade guards, the unit is sitting on my laser printer while I build up courage to fly it. Why do I feel like the guy just invited to shoot one of Saeed’s super rifles? :-)

If you have not done so already, you should go fly after sunset. Amazing video and night flying is a blast as well.

I burned through 4 batteries today without any problems. Learning how to coordinate Ground Control with the video. Took some really amazing video over a baseball field and flew at 300 feet so no one even looked up. It is a little disconcerting to take it past 400 feet. It basically becomes invisible from the ground at that altitude but you can get some incredible shots.

Go out and fly. You will build confidence in no time. I am off to Namibia next week with mine for the first time and I am already am contemplating when I am going to upgrade to the Inspire.

Have fun flying.

I'm rapidly coming to the opinion that anybody that doesn't have one of these soon will. I took three batteries all fully charged with me and when I completed the first one unit automatically flew back and landed within 3 m of me. Even though I had just under 20 minutes of flight time I totally lost track of how long I had been flying. So the automatic return to base kicked in and it was no problem.

I also visited the local distributor to get the accessories I needed, and he shipped out while I was there four pallets full of the units. WOW!

Yesterday, Saturday and today Sunday I went out with recharged batteries each day and ended up burning through them. A lot of time testing features after having read the manual. Didn’t get everything to work but primarily because I have to go back now and study the manuals some more.

I visited several friends and photographed their environs while practicing flying, etc. One guy said that he’s thinking about redoing the roof on his house and would I get detailed photos of it for him. I opened the throttle and within one second I was at 200 feet with a complete view of his house on the wide-angle. Everybody was impressed that I showed it to and I took some pictures which I printed on the color laser and presented them to the various individuals today. Interestingly, while doing all this line nobody came around to complain or whatever. I think with the thing at around 200 feet they can’t hear or see it in any event.

There are a lot of questions to be answered about these rigs, and I think the government is waiting for people to abuse them so they can pass laws against it. A good example to me is that while photographer needs to establish the shots, would it be considered abuse for a hunter to the same thing (use the thing for scouting.) Or how about flying over a wood to drive a game animal out into the open? You could send your professional in there to make the lion or Buffalo come out, but I bet he would rather given the choice take a less dangerous approach.

quote:

Originally posted by Opus1:
I am already am contemplating when I am going to upgrade to the Inspire.

That is a plan for me as well! I think the biggest thing would be the increase in range and the retractable gear. The inspire is massively more capable, but that leaves the Phantom for high risk applications.

As for now, I am working on the two little switches at the top of the control.

Features like course lock, unlock and attitude are very interesting, and I just printed labels to remind me of the function of each of the switch locations.

Home lock function allows you to change the flight back to point when you tell it to come home. Course lock allows you to change the flat plane orientation for the X, Y ordinates (Z being the vertical or altitude axis). Now that I'm trying to explain functions I realize I don't totally understand them. I need to make better notes. This whole exercise comes under the general heading of wringing out the details of drone operation.

Here is a good resource for the Phantom owners.

DJI Talk Forums

It alerted me to things I never even knew I needed to be worried about!

FYI "Square Trade Warranty" will sell you a warranty on these. It will likely be worth every penny. I cant remember what I paid for mine, but after 100 horror stories of Phantoms crashing into the sea for no apparent reason, accidents, and this and that, and my propensity to fly fast and low and skim trees and water in mine, I decided it is worth it.

DMCI - Sounds like you are mastering the Phantom 2+. I have now shot about 2 hours of video in Namibia. You would not believe the reaction I am getting from folks interested in anti-poaching and for game survey.

Now thinking very hard about thermal imaging and night flying. I have a few NGOs very, very interested in this. Could be an amazing tool in rhino protection.

Question - Now, how much does a Maverick missile weigh anyhow? The tables are about to be turned...

Opus,

depending on various configurations weight to 675 pounds, of that about 150 is the nasty stuff.

OK thanks. Guess I'm going to have to change propellers then.

New Phantom 3 introduced. Improved camera and better downlink.

Hummmm

quote:

Originally posted by Opus1:
New Phantom 3 introduced. Improved camera and better downlink.

Hummmm

Yes, reviewed the Phantom 3 specifications it appears that will be a better way to go than the Inspire, especially at the Pro level. Chief advantages of the ground scanning capability and other features including The high resolution camera. The 2+ will suffice until after the bloom is off the Phantom 3. It also appears that they have a tendency to introduce a more advanced model every six months or so. I think the 2+ will provide all the capability I need while they work their way through the 3 machine.

It certainly has me rethinking the Inspire. So will probably go with the better camera and downlink of the Phantom 3 Pro. Will save some bucks too.

Already have someone in SA that wants my 2+ for what I paid for it. So I'm out clean.