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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

RED - RC Helicopters

thank you justin and andrew, will definitely look into that.

Justin: i tried a RC simulator software int he shop the other day, unfortunately only available for windows, but it was a good practice....and damn yes those things are hard to fly.
 
How stable are these things? I would have thought vibrations jerky movement would be a problem.
 
Pawel Achtel said:
How stable are these things? I would have thought vibrations jerky movement would be a problem.
Click to expand...

the heavier heli's with an under camera mount are quite a bit easier to get smooth. electric is also the way to go to remove vibrations from, but wont be able to stay in the air as long as a gas one when fully loaded with gear. wind is still the biggest enemy and can quickly ruin a shoot. anything under the 400 size are easily blown around...
 
Is there gyros involved or do you have to stabilize footage in post?

If there is a long range live feed (??) and and stabilizing involved, then I would be V-E-R-Y interested.

Where are they located? If they are by Calgary (based on a quick google of the 780 area code) then they are soooo close to Minnesota. This could turn out to be better than getting a mini-gyro or side mount + Heli for aerials since you'd be less limited by power lines and I could get the road I initially spotted to work... and pls oh pls don't let the rates be astronomical.
 
flying in a room is brave n all but....

flying in a room is brave n all but....

not much wind in a room still uneven horizons and jerky unmotivated sudden movement. I'd love to see this good smooth footage? Jim do you have a copy?

All the model helicopter stuff I've seen including two companies reels and on the web is pretty unusable compared to any mount in an actual helicopter. The better known companies are not that much cheaper than an actual helicopter either. Most of this model helicopter footage is very wide lenses and still doesn't look acceptably stabile. I've seen a couple of cool shots... one tracks a wall up an alley and another is about 1.7 seconds of the pov of a baseball falling toward a player. Otherwise the velocity and horizons and jerkiness look like the first day of Steadicam school. The baseball POV is a bit low rez I believe it was electronically stabilized after also...
 
Indeed, and helicopters can be had at quite the affordable rates if you look hard. It hasn't been as easy to find good rates for a good mount that is compatible with the affordable helis, leaving us to consider using a mini-gyro mount with some "custom bungee" rigging... so the added cost to do it right might be the way to go.

So the benefit I would see would be affordability (I hope) and speed. Somehow I think mounting the camera in an RC heli that is designed with said camera in mind would be better than receiving the mount and grounding the helicopter early to set it up. It seems you could be flying around right away with this puppy.

I put in a request for more info last night.

My shots don't require fancy stops or hovering with changes in trajectory so this might work very well. My only "fancy" shot involves following a car at 5ft off the ground then continuing that forward motion with a slight bank to the right while taking off up to about 200-300ft. The rest of the shots are just high-ish altitude wide shots of the breathtaking surroundings, all probably with smooth forward motion and panned to the side on the head. Possibly one would be a hovering shot, which seems would be easy enough to stabilize myself in AE as needed. All using wide angles.

However a little hardware stabilization might be called for due to vibrations.. ??? Once you have motion blur stabilizing doesn't take it away. However shooting 4k for 1080 might get rid of a lot of it...

But a fully stabilized head of sorts if possible could make this thing a wonder to work with... I just don't think gyros might sit well with the operator... unless he got used to them??? All of the above is one big question... I'd love to hear more.
 
We are currently set up to fly the Red (and other cameras up to 20 lbs.) on our large gasoline powered RC helicams that are extremely smooth and stable. There are many HD examples on our website.

There are a couple of glaring reasons why most footage from the unmanned helis is unstable, first the pilots lack the decades of practice flying in a precise manner and second, they also lack the technical ability to build and maintain the perfectly balanced machine that is required.

You can count the number of companies that can consistently provide a quality product with this technology on one hand and it all boils down to who has the requisite amount of the right kind of experience.
 
robert: one of the biggest advantages i see with an RC helicopter is simply the space where you can use them....ina city between high rise buildings and so on.

I spoke to one of the engineers in germany that make the movie cat. and he told me that with the enw 2.4 GhZ digital remote controllers apparently there is practically no interference.
 
Yes Dom, I agree. Like I said I am also exited about being able to shoot using the road I first scouted but later realized would have been impossible to use due to a power line that follows alongside it. Money too though... I hope.

I hope I hear back from these guys soon. I am itching to find out about rates.
 
Justin Harrison said:
the heavier heli's with an under camera mount are quite a bit easier to get smooth. electric is also the way to go to remove vibrations from, but wont be able to stay in the air as long as a gas one when fully loaded with gear. wind is still the biggest enemy and can quickly ruin a shoot. anything under the 400 size are easily blown around...
Click to expand...

Hey Justin PM me if you are interested in a virtually brand new Maxi Joker 2 TT
We flew it 3 times and now I am "giving" it away. It has the super smooth Plettenberg motor, very stable machine.

Pilot View video is something to be aware of so the pilot is better aware of where is machine is in relation to where the subject is etc, similar to flying a real one, much better results when filming.
 
I was not that impressed with the stability of the Skyreel system. But, I know you can stabilize in post if you have overscan room. Anyone done this?

Also, for a little extra weight, couldn't they have stabilizers extend out with slight weighted balls at the end of rods? Perhaps the camera could be mounted well below the rotors too.

A wider cross section between the rotors could add stability as well.
 
All RC helicams rely on stabilization in post to be professional quality. We use FCP/shake most often. That said, the best only require a very small amount as they have helicopters and camera mounts that are perfectly tuned/balanced/stabilized. In calm conditions with a little work in post our footage looks like it was shot from a cablecam.

Wendell
 
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