DTLA - Down Night - 8K VV Aerial

[Björn Benckert]

yes not so needed with gps targets when flying short distances. Does your drone have a down sensor like the latest inspire2 and mavic air?

The perfect circles and straight lines etc will when it works, and I acctually never had problems with, to me alwas be straighter and more uniformed with gyro accelerometer controllers then just flying with sticks.

But I think soon we will see “land marks” like some sort of lighthouses for drones that let them triangulate ther position down to milimeters within a quite big radius. like three little battery driven things you spread out before flying that give a highly precise position.

this i shot with mavic in pretty high wind and heavy snowfall. not the best picture as its edited from the proxies that goes to the phone wile flying and have some dropouts and such. But that second shot is pretty difficult to pull without accelerometer support in gusty high winds between the trees.

https://www.skypixel.com/videos/loo...quipment-79d026f4-7799-4c6f-aeba-b6249d473d4b

 

[Thai Christen]

yes not so needed with gps targets when flying short distances. Does your drone have a down sensor like the latest inspire2 and mavic air?

I am still on 5 years old Wookong V2 my friend
Only two modes, Attitude Hold and Full Manual. No fancy stuff, no OSD, no FPV camera. I fly by eye and monitor.

But I think soon we will see “land marks” like some sort of lighthouses for drones that let them triangulate ther position down to milimeters within a quite big radius. like three little battery driven things you spread out before flying that give a highly precise position.

I think for smaller projects this is nice. But on set of a commercial and feature shoot it doesn’t work that way. I have worked with all kind of directors. Those who give you more freedom, others who tells you exactly how to fly and constantly gives you inputs. Then some don’t have much ideas and tell you to launch the drone and we’ll see.
Unless drones have voice recognition technology and can react instantly to voice commands, I don‘t bother. At least not for commercial and feature work.

This i shot with mavic in pretty high wind and heavy snowfall. not the best picture as its edited from the proxies that goes to the phone wile flying and have some dropouts and such. But that second shot is pretty difficult to pull without accelerometer support in gusty high winds between the trees.

https://www.skypixel.com/videos/loo...quipment-79d026f4-7799-4c6f-aeba-b6249d473d4b

Agree, this is much harder to pull with sticks.

 

[Homer Dulu]

Wow, looks spectacular! I'm always in DTLA and I'm like "I know those buildings!" and "Oooh there's the 110!" :laugh:

 

[Peter Degerfeldt]

Absolutely, nothing beats 6-axis gyro on a heli for wider aerial coverage.
However, for close up aerials drone is the better choice.

There is some confusions about various gyro stabilized systems.
First, people don't realise the huge difference between a 3 axis gimbal and 5 or 6 axis.
The 6th axis don't give any extra stability. That is to avoid gimbal lock.
GSS ( 5 axis) and Shotover (6 axis) both perform rock solid with any lens and both have the capacity to avoid gimbal lock. They can pan while looking down 90 degrees.
I shot the jetfighter footage with our GSS Cinema Pro Plus (former C520) in over 300 knots, no post stabilisation, sometimes pushing 300mm.
A 3 axis system wouldn't come near this result.

cheers/peter

 

[David J. Buchanan]

Phil, what frame rate was this shot at (DTLA)?

Edited for clarity.

 

[Thai Christen]

There is some confusions about various gyro stabilized systems.
First, people don't realise the huge difference between a 3 axis gimbal and 5 or 6 axis.
The 6th axis don't give any extra stability. That is to avoid gimbal lock.
GSS ( 5 axis) and Shotover (6 axis) both perform rock solid with any lens and both have the capacity to avoid gimbal lock. They can pan while looking down 90 degrees.
I shot the jetfighter footage with our GSS Cinema Pro Plus (former C520) in over 300 knots, no post stabilisation, sometimes pushing 300mm.
A 3 axis system wouldn't come near this result.

cheers/peter

Not ignoring Phil‘s beautiful and meditative night shot over DTLA, your jetfighter shots are incredible, Peter.

And of course, when I say 6-axis I also include 5-axis too.
Speaking of which, Freefly is about to launch the first handheld/drone 5-axis gyro gimbal, Freefly Carbon. Although only fix camera lens system (Sony A7S) for the moment. But I think this will be the next „Thing“ for mass gimbal drone production.

However, there is still a limiting factor due to drone regulation. Even if it is feassible to make drone fly much faster with 5-axis gyro gimbal, according to the law you still have to maintain LOS (line of sight).

 

[Björn Benckert]

I am still on 5 years old Wookong V2 my friend
Only two modes, Attitude Hold and Full Manual. No fancy stuff, no OSD, no FPV camera. I fly by eye and monitor.


I think for smaller projects this is nice. But on set of a commercial and feature shoot it doesn’t work that way. I have worked with all kind of directors. Those who give you more freedom, others who tells you exactly how to fly and constantly gives you inputs. Then some don’t have much ideas and tell you to launch the drone and we’ll see.
Unless drones have voice recognition technology and can react instantly to voice commands, I don‘t bother. At least not for commercial and feature work.


Agree, this is much harder to pull with sticks.

I directed quite a few drone things and I can only tell you how awful it is that the pilot can not get back to exact same start point as for the last take or make the exact same flight but pan a bit slower etc.

It was the prime reason why I bought my first drone like 8 years back. It was a heavy lister Hexa Droid works XL and that thing was shit hard to fly, but todays drones are way different, they pretty much just work.

Then having exact position you can do pretty crazy stuff mapping up your scene and such. I just did this film below with our spark flying a grid around buildings outside the office and building a city from the footage. Also the truck is jus a simple pullouts with ronin in a grey studio as we where not aloud to drive or move it. Then I shot additional spark plates of the truck with a projector grid on it that we run trough a image modeler.

If I could make the drone move in a very exact pattern you basically have a vary scaleable multi axis motion control that can also work as a really good 3D image based scanner.

So yes, if you want to make living flying drones even in the future I think one thing that is very good to practice is advanced flight modes, that stuff will grow into something huge quite shortly. The DJI panoramas is just a small start of it. If making clusters of panomramas you can very quickly have your scene 3D scanned and mapped In ways that was simply not possible before. The new reverse and down looking collision detect sensors is what makes it possible. As it alow you to have the drone basically siffing up the whole area and create a well detailed 3D model out of it. Having "light houses" / exact positions of the cameras while doing that will make things even better.

http://www.syndicate.se/scania-trucks-launch-film-2018/

https://vimeo.com/257497650

Right now we work on a film where we mapped up pretty much the whole amusement park here in stockholm and used that to stitch together a techno take and a drone take going through a tunel and other stuff. Can not show just yet. But for me its been a bit of a eye opener for this kind of captures.

 

[Thai Christen]

I directed quite a few drone things and I can only tell you how awful it is that the pilot can not get back to exact same start point as for the last take or make the exact same flight but pan a bit slower etc.

It was the prime reason why I bought my first drone like 8 years back. It was a heavy lister Hexa Droid works XL and that thing was shit hard to fly, but todays drones are way different, they pretty much just work.

Then having exact position you can do pretty crazy stuff mapping up your scene and such. I just did this film below with our spark flying a grid around buildings outside the office and building a city from the footage. Also the truck is jus a simple pullouts with ronin in a grey studio as we where not aloud to drive or move it. Then I shot additional spark plates of the truck with a projector grid on it that we run trough a image modeler.

If I could make the drone move in a very exact pattern you basically have a vary scaleable multi axis motion control that can also work as a really good 3D image based scanner.

So yes, if you want to make living flying drones even in the future I think one thing that is very good to practice is advanced flight modes, that stuff will grow into something huge quite shortly. The DJI panoramas is just a small start of it. If making clusters of panomramas you can very quickly have your scene 3D scanned and mapped In ways that was simply not possible before. The new reverse and down looking collision detect sensors is what makes it possible. As it alow you to have the drone basically siffing up the whole area and create a well detailed 3D model out of it. Having "light houses" / exact positions of the cameras while doing that will make things even better.

http://www.syndicate.se/scania-trucks-launch-film-2018/

https://vimeo.com/257497650

Right now we work on a film where we mapped up pretty much the whole amusement park here in stockholm and used that to stitch together a techno take and a drone take going through a tunel and other stuff. Can not show just yet. But for me its been a bit of a eye opener for this kind of captures.

3D mapping, like Spectrometry, Agriculture - all specialties that requires the right tools.
If you want to be successful as a drone pilot, you must set your priority, specialize in a field and be really good at it. Cannot do it all.

If I could wish:
5-axis gyro gimbal for drone that can take Red/Mini with cine lens plus FIZ and weight max. 2kg and less in aerial mode.

 

[Ryan Williams]

Oh no, I trust pilots with my life. I just don't like freezing my manbits off on the skids!

Heh, fair enough! It can get pretty cool door open and/or on the skids in the stream.

 

[Peter Strietmann]

I use to hang out the door doing aerials but this is so beautiful. Everything about is is mesmerizing. Next level for sure.

 

[Alexander Nikishin]

Phil, what frame rate was this shot at (DTLA)?

Edited for clarity.

Wondering the same thing, it has the look of 60fps or a low shutter, not the look of a classic, cinematic frame rate or shutter tear. Quite crispy though and very clean!