Anyone have experience filming crew race with spark?  Friend asked me to get some footage of his daughters race this weekend and wanted to see if anyone had some suggestions/recomendations?  Still a pretty new drone operator, so I anticipate a little anxiety flying over water...haha  Before anyone chimes in, saftey 1st, no flying over the boats or people! Plan to follow/lead (active track), side view (depending on the lane they are in).  Thanks

Flying over water shouldn’t be a problem , we all know that if something goes wrong it’s end of drone. But you need to forget about this.
Remember flying over water is usually open space away from obstacles and signal interference should be minimal.

You should try plan your shoot put it on paper what you intend to do.

How would you like to see end product , yes before you start have a vision in your head of what you would like finished product to look like.

How much footage you would like your end product to have. 1 hour filming will probably give you 3/4 minutes good video and it’s enough to get proper attention.

If you can do a 15 minute recon of what you would like to do this will give you a much better idea of how you intend to approach and make it much easier when doing it for real.

Look forward to seeing the video. Good luck.

I would recommend you choose a place with good GPS signal and you can follow the user manual to do a preflight check before taking off.
Also, you should pay attention to the message from the app. Do not fly too close to the water. Thanks for your support.

hallmark007 Posted at 2017-10-12 13:34
Flying over water shouldn’t be a problem , we all know that if something goes wrong it’s end of drone. But you need to forget about this.
Remember flying over water is usually open space away from obstacles and signal interference should be minimal.

Thanks for the tips!  I will be down a few hours before the race, which will be more than enough time to scout things out.  My only concern is having enough battery to get what i want since I don't know if there will be time to get footage, bring spark in to swap battery, and get back out for more footage.

I have flown over water a few times w/o issue, but it still gives me a little anxiety haha  Not sure how much footage I will get cause i have no clue how long  the race is, plus it was suggested to only record between a certain area, although the area, nor the race, have any drone restrictions.  The boat house row area of Philadelphia is pretty cool, so i plan to get some b roll footage with drone and iphone to go with race footage.  

End of the day I am doing this as a favor for a friend, and have told him i have zero experience in videography, it's just a hobby that I enjoy and treating it as a learning experience.  Will def share the vid once i out it together, unless it's completely terrible..haha

DroneHack99 Posted at 2017-10-13 06:08
Thanks for the tips!  I will be down a few hours before the race, which will be more than enough time to scout things out.  My only concern is having enough battery to get what i want since I don't know if there will be time to get footage, bring spark in to swap battery, and get back out for more footage.

I have flown over water a few times w/o issue, but it still gives me a little anxiety haha  Not sure how much footage I will get cause i have no clue how long  the race is, plus it was suggested to only record between a certain area, although the area, nor the race, have any drone restrictions.  The boat house row area of Philadelphia is pretty cool, so i plan to get some b roll footage with drone and iphone to go with race footage.  

Make sure the GPS is good. I was trying to take some pictures at a park and because of the hills, the GPS signal was not weak BUT the controller exhibited about a 2 second lag (in flight command responsiveness, not video to my iPad). It was very scary to rely on the sensors not to run into anything or anyone.  After second glitch i landed and kept it grounded.
Just not worth the risk.
Have a good time, don't get peer pressured into recklessness...

Something to consider when flying via FPV: Water does not look the same as land, and it is easy to get confused about how high it looks like you are, especially when flying low. You may think you are 1M up, but end up splashing down. If the water is flat and it is an overcast day, you simply won't know you are too low until it is too late.

-pay attention to your altitude reading. Stay well above your take off altitude.
-turn off VPS, as water reflections can confuse the system into bad readings (which may lead to splashdown).

Also:
-ensure your RTH altitude is set to an altitude above the boaters, for safety.

And most importantly on any shoot:
YOU ARE THE PILOT AND YOUR WORD IS GOSPEL. If for any reason you don't think it is safe to fly, beyond your comfort zone, or skills, don't do it, the end. Don't let others pressure you to get a shot, don't think you will let your friend down, don't let some stranger say "well I could do that with my Phantomavinspire Iridium Pro 5" let you think you aren't doing it right. If that guy could do better, let him.

Remember: your friend or that guy won't pay for your crashed drone. nor will they pay for liability caused by hitting a person or thing. Trust your gut, and stick to it.

DroneHack99 Posted at 2017-10-13 06:08
Thanks for the tips!  I will be down a few hours before the race, which will be more than enough time to scout things out.  My only concern is having enough battery to get what i want since I don't know if there will be time to get footage, bring spark in to swap battery, and get back out for more footage.

I have flown over water a few times w/o issue, but it still gives me a little anxiety haha  Not sure how much footage I will get cause i have no clue how long  the race is, plus it was suggested to only record between a certain area, although the area, nor the race, have any drone restrictions.  The boat house row area of Philadelphia is pretty cool, so i plan to get some b roll footage with drone and iphone to go with race footage.  

I’m sure it will work well use the footage of your recon in your finished video it will help tell the story. Good luck.

OneMatt Posted at 2017-10-13 09:40
Something to consider when flying via FPV: Water does not look the same as land, and it is easy to get confused about how high it looks like you are, especially when flying low. You may think you are 1M up, but end up splashing down. If the water is flat and it is an overcast day, you simply won't know you are too low until it is too late.

-pay attention to your altitude reading. Stay well above your take off altitude.

Interesting about turning VPS off, never thought of that, thanks. With that said I don't plan to get that close to the water. Thought is to be a minimum of 10m above in front, behind, or off to the side of the boat, but that could change once I am there and gauge my real-time comfort level.  Good reminder about RTH altitude.  Also thinking I will be walking in the direction the drone is flying so i will need to periodically update RTH to controller location.  I think my biggest worry is the battery, and not knowing how long it is between where I start and end filming.  To be respectful I plan on staying away from the start and finish lines.  I have 3 batteries, which is hopefully enough to get all the footage I have bouncing around in my head..haha

Any and all tips are appreciated!

Thanks

hallmark007 Posted at 2017-10-13 10:12
I’m sure it will work well use the footage of your recon in your finished video it will help tell the story. Good luck.

Thanks, I appreciate the faith!

DroneHack99 Posted at 2017-10-13 10:24
Interesting about turning VPS off, never thought of that, thanks. With that said I don't plan to get that close to the water. Thought is to be a minimum of 10m above in front, behind, or off to the side of the boat, but that could change once I am there and gauge my real-time comfort level.  Good reminder about RTH altitude.  Also thinking I will be walking in the direction the drone is flying so i will need to periodically update RTH to controller location.  I think my biggest worry is the battery, and not knowing how long it is between where I start and end filming.  To be respectful I plan on staying away from the start and finish lines.  I have 3 batteries, which is hopefully enough to get all the footage I have bouncing around in my head..haha

Any and all tips are appreciated!

Is your battery worry whether or not it will get back to you? If so, DJI GO has that info on screen!
In the embedded pic below (let me know if it doesnt work), look at the line under "Safe To Fly". Red, then yellow, then an H, then green, and a dot, then a time. This is estimated battery status, and it is as follows (from right to left).

TIME: Estimated time of battery remaining. This will change depending on your flying style. If you are flying crazy, lots of full throttle, it may jump 1 minute in time in just 30 seconds, for example.

GREEN: safe to keep flying.

DOT: Low battery warning (default 30%). App will notify you of low battery before it is too late.

H and YELLOW: Estimated battery required to actually make it to the home point. The "H" represents how much battery the drone thinks it will need to safely fly back to the home point, whatever distance it is away. This should update when you update your home position after moving. NOTE: If the drone must fly into a strong wind to get home, this may not be enough!

RED: Battery Low RTH. The drone will take control from you and come home or land in place, depending on your setting. For you, note that "land in place" gets it wet, and "return to home" is a best effort. Lots of vids on YouTube of people taking a swim to catch their drone before it dunks....




Note, I got this image from Google. It definitely isnt a Spark, but for the purpose of this explanation it is the same.

DroneHack99 Posted at 2017-10-13 10:24
Interesting about turning VPS off, never thought of that, thanks. With that said I don't plan to get that close to the water. Thought is to be a minimum of 10m above in front, behind, or off to the side of the boat, but that could change once I am there and gauge my real-time comfort level.  Good reminder about RTH altitude.  Also thinking I will be walking in the direction the drone is flying so i will need to periodically update RTH to controller location.  I think my biggest worry is the battery, and not knowing how long it is between where I start and end filming.  To be respectful I plan on staying away from the start and finish lines.  I have 3 batteries, which is hopefully enough to get all the footage I have bouncing around in my head..haha

Any and all tips are appreciated!

If ur worried of running out of juice... bring a portable spare battery and charge by plugging into the back of the spark in downtimes.  make sure it's a 1.0 A and has a solid cable.  U will be surprised how nice it is to have another 12 minutes of flight after an hour of downtime...
and get some more batteries... i got 5 and fly till i'm in need of a nap sometimes....

So I FAILED!  But will try again in a couple of weeks at their next race.  With that said it was not a complete failure as it was a great learning experience.

My test flight went pretty well, but couldn't get active track to work, which was my fault for not tracing the boat, was just clicking on it, which i guess only works when the object is stationary?  So I decided to walk a little closer to the start line from where I ran my test flight, my buddy picks them out with binoculars and I power drone on and put it on the grass, well the grass was a little tooooo long and I got the gimbal overload error!  By the time I got the spark rebooted they were too far past for me to bother getting the drone up and out to film.  Was trying to wait as long as i could to power on so I could maximize battery time.

So a little disappointed, but I'll give it another shot in a couple of weeks.

i can say active track will more than likely not work really great as the camera is trying to recognise the object. it would be different if she had a gps chip the drone would follow. also flying higher in the air you will be able to capture more action. hope some of this was helpful to you
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