When I read 3 axis gimbal that means the camera can not turn left and right, just up and down via the gimbal control on the top left shoulder right? For me to circle an item and keep it focused on the item the only way is turn the phantom right? It is really glitchy when I try to circle

Rmh, flying a circle while remaining focused on something in the middle is challenging, but absolutely  NOT  impossible. You can practice by circling yourself and keeping the camera pointed at you, or even better, get a chair, traffic cone, or something else, and fly it FPV. It takes a combination of both sticks pointed opposite directions. If you are in the middle, and want to fly to your right, move the right stick to the left, and the left stick to the right. It's a balancing act, to be sure, to do it smoothly, and keep the Phantom at the same distance and altitude.

A young girl arrives in New York City, dragging her  cello in its case behind her, and is worried about being late to her first big audition. She sees an NYPD officer, and asks him "Excuse me, officer, how do you get to Carnegie Hall?". Seeing her cello case, he replies "Practice, practice, practice"

dmwierz Posted at 2015-5-17 20:09
Rmh, flying a circle while remaining focused on something in the middle is challenging, but absolute ...

I started to contradict you, but you're right on.

There's a video floating around about learning to make a circle around an object. Many are hoping DJI will eventually create a "POI" mode, which will allow a given flight path and auto-turn of the craft to keep the POI in sight. Until then, you'll have to roll your own.

The video floating around involves using a small piece of light-weight cardboard on the left stick - the YAW control. Cut a very small hole in the cardboard/card stock (the author of the video used a cereal box top) and place it over the left joystick (the YAW control). Shove the cardboard strip very, very gently to the right, so the craft starts to rotate to the right. How far you move the YAW control and how fast you turn is determined mostly by how far your theoretical center of axis will be.

Once you get the craft yawing, pinch down on the cardboard, holding it in exactly the same place - which should be significantly easier than just doing so with your thumb or fingers.

Then, with the right stick, push gently to the left. The craft will be trying to move to the left, but the YAW control will be making it keep changing its direction, resulting in a curved path around the object at your theoretical center of motion.

The closer the object you're circling will dictate a slower speed. As you make the circle larger and larger, the movement of possibly both controls will have to increase.

It doesn't look like the kind of thing you can master in one try. Like the poster said above - "...practice, practice, practice..."

You can probably easily get the idea of it by just waggling the controls appropriately. There might well be some people out there with sufficient hand-eye coordination to accomplish this without the cardboard strip. Personally, I think the cardboard strip is a phenomenal aid.

A slight correction, beside up and down which you can control, the camera has limited left and right movement to stabilize the picture, but you can't control this movement.  The third axis tilts the camera to keep the camera horizontal, again you can't control this axis either.

aburkefl@gmail. Posted at 2015-5-17 21:37
I started to contradict you, but you're right on.

There's a video floating around about learning  ...

The user manual, in the chapter about the IOC system clearly says that a Point of Interest mode is coming soon with next upgrades of the firmware