Something new sparking my interest lately....

Recently two things happened almost simultaneously that got me to thinking about a sort of new interest. The first thing was that GoPro came out with the new Hero4 camcorder, and I've been debating buying one ever since the Hero3+ came out. So I've been looking around trying to get a feel for image quality and see if anyone wasn't adhering to the obvious price fixing that is obviously being imposed on all sellers.

The second thing that happened was that Connie and I were down south Florida visiting with my mom and we stopped in at a Cracker Barrel for lunch. After eating Connie always likes browsing around in the shop area and I just tag along. Well, they had this little toy thing that looked like a helicopter trapped in a mesh ball that you could charge up and fly with a remote controller. Hmm, that might be fun. So Connie talked me into buying it. When we got home, I put batteries in the controller and charged it up. It would only fly for about a minute before the internal battery would go dead and I was just barely getting the hang of the thing with the short amount of time I had available before the battery crapped out. But it was kind of fun during that short minute of time while it was flyable.

Anyway, so I'm browsing through YouTube looking for examples of video from that new GoPro camcorder and I stumbled on some images that were apparently taken from some sort of flying platform. You can't help but be extremely impressed by this sort of video:



So, of course that got the old brain cells sparking. Man, I really like the video stuff, and this sort of platform would open up an entire whole new world of perspective completely unavailable in any other way. But after that short stint with the "flying ball" I got from Cracker Barrel, I knew this wasn't something I could just pick up and use immediately. Besides, I checked prices on what a getup like this would cost, and it's not going to be cheap. Dropped the whole shebang into a lake, the Gulf of Mexico, on hanging it up in the top of some tree somewhere would REALLY ruin my day.

So I looked around to see if there was something a LOT cheaper that I could buy to use as the crash test dummy, yet still give me somewhat of the capabilities and training experience in handling. So yes, there is such a beast. It's a little quadcopter that will fit comfortably in my hand yet carries a fixed camcorder in it and is run by a radio controlled handheld controller just like the big boys. And it cost less than $160. It's called the Hubsan X4 H107D. I got it delivered about a week or so ago, and honestly the first flight was not pretty. I went and ordered new props and extra batteries for it, because I could see this was going to be a long learning experience. A flight on a charged battery takes about 6 minutes, so it's not too bad and I can actually get some real flying time before I have to start thinking about coming in for a soft landing. So far I haven't really cracked it up or even lost any of the original propellers but trying to get stable video is a REAL chore. The bigger units are much better, of course, but I figure if I can get this semi-decent with no damage to the copter, then I won't feel as nervous plunking down ten times+ that amount on a decent unit.

Video from this is just so-so, but heck, for the money I can't expect a whole lot. But it's getting the job done concerning my learning curve, and that's all I really expected from the beginning. Anyway, I took the video from my last run (only done four flights so far) and didn't push the height envelope much at all...



Yeah, this thing is pretty wobbly and pretty difficult to get smooth video from. Honestly this thing is so small that if you get it very high it easily vanishes from sight. The most difficult part of this is making sure of the orientation of the quad when it is barely in sight. I guess I should wear my glasses, as that might help. Anyway, if you are not sure of the orientation, you really don't know where it is going to go if you try to make it go "right". It WILL go right, but only in relation to the way it is pointed. If it is actually pointing towards you and getting close to the tree line to the left (from your perspective), telling the quad to go right will actually put it right into the trees. So I've been trying to keep it close by where I can more easily tell it's orientation. It has colored LEDs on it with blue on the front and red on the back to help, but honestly in bright sunlight you really can't see those lights at all.

Anyway, not sure if I will actually take the step of getting the more expensive set up. I guess it will depend on how well I do with this trainer. I might find out that I've gotten too old and my reflexes too slow for this sort of thing. But the bigger units are supposed to be MUCH easier to fly, as they use GPS and compass calibrations to help keep the unit in place. This little Hubsan is fully manual, and kind of flighty, so it will take off in apparently random directions in a heart beat. And I'm flying it in beginner mode which reduces the controls by 50 percent power.

But darn, the idea of getting good quality video from 100 ft up at Cape San Blas and areas of that nature sure does get me excited.....

Got a newer quadcopter with better video the other day and took some video with it on Thursday.

I basically just wanted to fly in front of my garage to try to get some stable video and use actual targets (like cars sitting in the garage) to try to get video of as best I could manage. I want to practice trying to point the camera at something of interest and see how well I can keep the target centered in the video. Obviously need some trim work to do on the controller to stabilize the quadcopter as well as work on my own neophyte skill level. The quad goes real unstable coming straight down so I need to work on a better method of shedding altitude. This is referred to as "vortex ring state" and means that when the copter drops down into the wash of it's own propellers, the turbulent air causes instability, and even sometimes complete loss of control. If it's too close to the ground when this happens, it's very difficult (for me anyway) to keep the quad from bouncing off of the ground. So I try to keep if from coming down over the concrete.



As you can see, my property is heavily forested, so the clearing around the garage gives me little room for error with this thing. It will be extremely easy to get this thing stuck up in a very tall pine tree if I am not careful. Matter of fact, I'm real surprised that I haven't put the Hubsan I bought earlier up in a tree already as I ran it up pretty high a few times and consider it a minor miracle that I got it back safe and sound.

All in all the picture isn't all that bad considering the whole shebang cost just over $200. Video probably would have been a lot better had it been bright and sunny out, as the camera seems to be sensitive to light levels. I can see quite a bit of graininess in this video, but it's definitely heads and shoulders over the video I can get out of the Hubsan I got earlier.

Man, there is REALLY a learning curve involved in these flying gizmos. They can move really fast, so I can see where you need to get so proficient that reflex takes over instead of thinking about what you need to do. If you have to take time to think about what you need to do, it will already be too late if you aren't REAL careful. And I'm running this thing in EASY mode which limits the power to only 50 percent of the full throttle settings.

Fun is where you find it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL0zLHLMBVw

I had a TV crew come out to where I work and they used a GoPro with a quad-copter to film some of the shots. Very loud.

Originally Posted by E.Shell

Fun is where you find it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL0zLHLMBVw

Actually I was thinking about mounting some lasers.........

Forget lasers, you want a robotic claw and a bag to catch snakes unaware from above. Loud wouldn't matter, they can't hear anyway...

Originally Posted by toddnbecka

Forget lasers, you want a robotic claw and a bag to catch snakes unaware from above. Loud wouldn't matter, they can't hear anyway...

Yeah, but they can SEE. And I'm sure a quadcopter will look just like a hawk to them swooping in for the kill.

Oooh, the squirrels around here could be in for some BIG trouble.....

Video quality from the second camera is much better. The controls seem smoother on the quadcopter as well.

Lasers ... yes!

I heard that GoPro is talking about bringing out their own quadcopter sometime in 2015. That might be something interesting, as I presume they will either have it fully compatible with their Hero line of camcorders, or else have something integrated right into the copter and the controller. I sure do hope they incorporate all the best features of what is already available on the market.

To be honest, a lot of the stuff I have looked at looks to be nothing more than homebrew kludges that some guys whipped together in their basement and decided to start marketing them. Many of these copters obviously have one foot still stuck in the tinker toy door while trying to step up to a more professional tool offering for aerial videography. There are a lot of single point failures that can happen that will just bring the copter down like a rock with little or no warning. And I've read of more than a few of these things suddenly going into a "return to China" mode and just flying away uncontrollably. I sure as heck wouldn't want to buy one of these bigger and more expensive units, capable of carrying a GoPro Hero 4, have a motor failure while I'm flying it over the Gulf of Mexico just to helplessly watch it splash down a quarter mile off of the shore line. That would be at least $1K for the copter and $500 for the camera just flushed down the hopper. Certainly would not be my idea of a "good day".....