Drone Aerial Footage Vehicles

[Jeremy_Sawatzky]

We had the thread earlier about the kickstarter drone project which then got shut down.

Some of you guys were showing off your machines and I am currently in the research stage for said vehicles.

Did you guys build your machines yourselves? - Matt Johnston had a scarlet under his rig, does it really have enough power to lift a running scarlet?



Ive seen the hobby quadcopters and checked out the 600-700 series helicopters. I still do not see enough power in those machines to carry a 5lb rig underneath.

So the question is, what resources did you guys draw on to build or buy your rigs? Is it possible to build or buy a complete rig to carry a dslr with stabilization and tilt for under 3 grand?

Oh and cause im a geek, show me some pictures of your aerial rigs!

well i guess you can mount an epic or scarlet - although i bet this rig was over (let me edit this again) $20,000

http://mikesenese.com/DOIT/2011/12/r...ing-movie-rig/

Im seeing the professional grade flight controllers going for about $2000. The 8 motor frames going for about $4-5 grand. Thats not including batteries, radio, esc's, or even the camera mount.

[Björn Benckert]

We bought one, about 14k USD total, full package in a flight case RTF (Ready to fly...as they say) it was very ready, the problem is when you get your hands on such a thing it might make you think that you are ready as well... But let me tell you, that you are not ready, not at all. Flying a high grade kopter might seam easy but it's quite a bit of know how involved. It took me 15 minutes to wreck the thing into small little bits and pieces. not kidding. So after a few weeks when all spar parts arrived I figured a pilot would be the next thing to get. That helped out a whole lot, the guy we contacted has won several competitions in RC flying and says he do not practice much, only 5 hours a week or so. But the thing is that he has done so for the last 15 years...

Now he knows how to fly the thing with no problem, but it took him a few weeks to get into all the menus, settings etc and to calibrate it perfectly and get it going.

So in in short. a kopter is nothing you just buy and put next to your tripod and jib arm. It's something a bit more delicate and demands a whole lot of attention.

It's easy to dream away from watching those youtube guys and think that it looks just great... same goes for professional skate borders in the mega jump. But for some reason the RC things are easier to picture as: "I can do that!"

[Aaron McLane]

Here's a turbine starting up with a Epic.... But it's now all about the Cineron Head

[Matt Johnston]

Well, since the thread was started with a pic of my big heli up top, I'll post some info. It can, and does lift a scarlet. I JUST got my touchscreen so I can format my media and set it up. I have flown an Epic on it before no problem though. It is towards the max of weight and if it is something I end up doing more often instead of DSLR's I will probably build a bit bigger one.

DIY under 3k? No not possible. Less than 14K? Yes, way less. But like Bjorn mentioned it isn't something you just do. Same as you wouldn't expect to pick up a full Steadicam rig and get amazing results. It took me a year to learn to fly properly (at about 4 hours a day), and I am always perfecting my skills to get smooth great video. I currently have 816 hours of flight time on my 2 biggest multis, and I am sure I forgot to log some. It's kinda like hearing the t2i and Gh2 guys talk about hacks and calling themselves cinematographers. Nothing against t2i or Gh2 or anything, but you don't become a cinematographer by having a camera with shallow DOF. Takes a while to master it all right?

My platforms are all DIY as well for a number of reasons (and cost isn't one of them), and there is a pretty reasonably learning curve to get going there. Also, could we not call them drones? There is already enough drama with the man. Helicopters is just fine. Or multirotors.

I mostly do documentary, and action sports. Both on the ground, and in the air. Here is the promo for a show I shot for Nat Geo last summer on my last generation copters, has 3 of my aerials in it. Airs March 28th.:






An "off the shelf" frame or setup would not have been suitable for that shoot. It needed to be custom, and you needed to know how to make repairs too :) There is truly very few things I find more fun and rewarding than high end aerials. I love it. To try and put it in perspective though. In a past life I built, and raced rally cars. Even won a national championship in Group2. Building and racing a car from scratch was easy peasy wuss work compared to building a helicopter AND getting good results from it. The Kickstarter thing was a joke, would not have been usable for real results.

Packed up with 3 (you always need a backup) helicopters. One giant, 2 mediums. Full camera kit, lipos, 2 radios (backup) and full set of spares for 2 weeks of back to back international shoots and no excess luggage charges!:

[Michael Jensen]

[Christian Pfeil]

take a look here:
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthr...OCOPTER-ACTION
and ask my friends at OM, they know a lot about optocopters:
www.omstduios.de

cheers.
christian.

[Nick Gardner]

This was something I was interested in 15 years ago, but the cameras were too big and the aircraft not sophisticated enough. I spent a lot of years off and on learning how to fly helicopters and build RC aircraft.. I think I destroyed .....maybe 10 helicopters? Then working with a 500 size electric, i decided helicopters are just too dangerous to use around people. They have a zillion moving parts, and they swing carbon fiber machetes at 1800 rpms. They are basically a flying lawn mower. My multicopter has 8 moving parts, and I fly it around my kids. As long as I get to cover my face the idea of it crashing into me isn't terrifying. I fly an x8 configuration, which is indifferent to motor failures. I've had it happen. A little twitch, then everything continues as normal. All that being said, my t2i is fine to fly on my rig, I'm not putting my epic on there. helifreak and runryder have aerial photography sections which is a good place to start reading up on stuff, and lots of people post videos so you can get a handle on what to expect. In general, people who figurd this out spent years and a big bag of money on it, and they aren't big on saying " here's how to do it 1,2,3". But if you are smart and dedicated, you can figure it out with a couple of years of effort, maybe less if you are independently wealthy and don't have a family ;-)

Nick

[Jeremy_Sawatzky]

I definitely understand the piloting part is not just a go out for a week and learn type of deal. I realize it would take months of practice to get even usable images. For now I am trying to source a multicopter to start with. Although it seems that buying a helicopter is a much cheaper option. - For instance a trex 600 upgraded with a bigger motor and 700 blades is easily capable of lifting a lightweight GH2 setup. Its looking like that is where i need to start. Perhaps move into the multirotor platforms at a later date.

The stock trex can be had for under $2000 ready to fly with plenty of batteries. - Where as i have yet to find any decent multicopter setup that could do that as well for the same price. - I would probably end up building a custom multicopter but i simply dont have the time or resources to go through the trial and error process of building something totally custom.

this is the trex 600



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn6aiQ-0qXQ

[Nick Gardner]

Helicopters are vibration nightmares particularly with cmos chip cameras with rolling shutters. Plus, even a simple crash requires a complete rebuild. You break a ton of shit when you crash. It's a great way to learn all the ins and out of helicopters, vibration isolation, radio programming, and how to fly, but it gets expensive really fast. When you get disoriented with a multicopter, you take a deep breath, let go of the stick and it goes back to level. The helicopter not so much. "hmmm.....fraaaaaaaaappppp! Shit." I would recomend you build an EXI 500 first. Way cheaper to rebuild, nice helicopter and you can use the gyro and some other expensive stuff if you upgrade to a 600 size.

Nick