Droning the SC coast - no knife content

HTMD

HTMD

Joined
Feb 15, 2002
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This is for my friends here and anyone who has interest. I do plan to use this set-up for custom knife events where permitted.
Pairing the DJI Phantom quad-coptor with the GoPro Hero 3 camera system makes for a super effective, affordable and way fun aerial video unit. I had never flown a remote control aircraft and heard the learning curve was steep. DJI designed the Phantom to easily fly right out of the box. That's accurate though procedures must be strictly followed for success. DJI offers a great series of teaching videos on line that I found very helpful. Here's my first video with the Phantom GoPro combo and I am pumped to do mo' betta over time. It runs 7+ minutes. Your comments and questions are welcome.
http://youtu.be/ybhIWVDs3x8
 
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Very interesting, Buddy. I assume the aircraft is battery powered X 4, and has VTO and hover capabilities. Neat rig for sure. The quality of the video is outstanding and it is a very stable platform.

Paul
 
That's cool. Somebody posted some video from one of those little things on The Hull Truth forum taken from a moving boat on the way from Miami to Bimini. The shots seemed to be almost as good as the typically helicopter pro vids you see from big fishing tournaments or new boat glamour shots. I commented that it had a little more range and a good live video feed, you could use one for spotting tuna.
 
Very cool Buddy

I just got a Hero 3 and I'm using it for everything

Gonna start doing knife reviews and project introductions

The pic quality is great

Here is one on a head band running a river on a Big Block Airboat with famous German Bow Writer Blacky Schwarz

[video=youtube_share;mhzmVSzcUyQ]http://youtu.be/mhzmVSzcUyQ[/video]
 
sheathmaker said:
...assume the aircraft is battery powered X 4, and has VTO and hover capabilities. The quality of the video is outstanding and it is a very stable platform.
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You nailed it Paul. GPS, when it sees 8 or more sat signals it memorizes (upon your command) that spot. At 10% lithium batt remaining it's firmware takes it to about 60 ft altitude and brings it back to that very spot, and lands. It's that cool. Take it out of GPS mode to manual, and it will (stripped of any payload) flip and roll. I can see it's possible because through it's USB port and from the software now in my laptop all of its controls and parameters can be tweaked, updated firmware etc. - all wirelessly. Flying time with the GoPro Hero 3 and it's xtra backpack battery averaged closely around 16-18 min. I saw that I could accomplish a lot if I had just three charged and ready to go batteries. The Phantom, in GPS mode, remains totally stationary in all mild breezes, which is amazing.:thumbup:

I gotta hand it to the GoPro Hero 3, which is so much better than the Hero 2. That little thing shoots big hi-def files and shoots up to 70fps (which means you can do slo-mo). Unbelievable! . I literally bought it, didn't open it till the first day of vacation down south and by day three I was gettin the hang of it. I think anybody who wanted to could do the same and probably better. I crashed 3 times pretty bad, once in a tree branch. No damage but for slight prop dings, very slight, which I smoothed over with a fine emory board. Camera was fine. I did have to buy a $1 screwdriver from China at the Piggly Wiggly to put the thing together. ;)

Now there was a slight problem. The preferred computer OS is PC based and I have a Macbook Pro. I had to partition my hard drive, purchase and download/install Windows 7 AND THEN I had 137 updates - no lie. But I persisted and now I'm the quad coptor's boss, not the other way around. Not bad for a 1 week vacation. Ha! It's a miracle that such technology can be had by a duffer like me. The rig I used comes to around $1200. A lot, but not a lot if you think about it. ;)

The secret to the GoPro and it's unique wide angle macro lens is that you have to get very close, within 5 feet even, of your subject which fills the middle of the frame and sort of gathers in a panorama of background around the subject. I was clearly afraid to get too close to anything. Which is also to say that the 3 times I wrecked it was because I became disoriented at the controls and just totally lost control. I could hurt somebody bad, including the operator. But I think I can be cautious and still learn to get closer to things. Big fun. What else can I say. :D

JOE - you rock! Love that boat. Talk about big fun. :cool:
 
John White said:
Hand me down the 12 guage...
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Don't I know it, John. You're not the first to suggest that to me. I mean, some people have strong feelings about things. If only everybody who flew one of these would make sure it doesn't become a problem for anybody else on the planet... The boneheads... there will always be boneheads.:(
 
Buddy that looked like the best day at the beach every, very cool and I can see there could be lots of uses for it at the right event Like over head coverage of a cutting competition and so much more.
 
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