Hi folks,

I recently got a spark and so far I love it. However, I was out practicing today and felt that the footage was more unsteady than usual (usually I find it great). I am wondering if there might be an issue with the gimbal or maybe if it was an issue with my own piloting? I've linked a video below of a forest track I was taking footage of.

Also, I have received no Gimbal overload warnings that I know of. There was some wind but I did not have a high wind warning when this was occuring (usually I either bring my drone to lower altitude or land altogether if I receive such a warning).

Any help or advice would be appreciated.

I don't know what might be causing this, but see if it helps to set the gimbal movement setting to a lower rate.  I have mine set to 9. That might smooth out and decrease the amount of camera jerkiness.  It could also be gusts of wind at the higher altitude causing that sporadic jerk.

I guess this was tripod mode? Probably wind gusts above the tree tops. At low speed the aircraft has to lean more to compensate a strong wind gust. Try indoors or with low wind in a free area. If the problem persists contact Dji support.
Edit: After watching the footage again I am pretty sure the spark tried to compensate winds blowing a good as it can, but still it can not fly in a straight line. I am pretty sure wind is the reason.

Thanks for the answers guys.

Lee I had the gimbal speed set low (to around 5 I think) at the time.

Spookster it wasn't in tripod mode at the time. Maybe it is the gusts above the trees though. I tried it later in the day in a different location but had a similar problem. Wind was probably gustier though than earlier in the day.

Did you move your roll stick to the right while flying?
Please note that Spark has only two axis gimbal and when camera is pointing down it effectively changes which axis is missing stabilization.
That means that when you go right a bit, spark will roll itself in a way left propellers are higher than right ones and camera is pointing leftward.
Seems like DJI GO 4 software (or maybe AC firmware) is not able to electronically stabilize that movement.

It is wind gust. I guess it was heigher than 50 kph.

Check your gimbal setting in DJI GO 4. Factory default is "FPV". Change it to "Follow" and all should be good again. Otherwise nice footage by the way :-)

Wachtberger Posted at 2018-1-6 13:31
Check your gimbal setting in DJI GO 4. Factory default is "FPV". Change it to "Follow" and all should be good again. Otherwise nice footage by the way :-)

thanks for the advice and the complement Still getting used to it and trying to learn really what it's capable of, hopefully will post some stuff for people to check out when I get a bit better.

Thanks to everyone else too. I was initially worried that the gimbal wasn't working properly but based on feedback here I'm less sure. Going to take it out again tomorrow and see how I get on. Less wind forecast so it should be a better day for the spark.

So I took the drone out again today and things worked much better. Changed gimbal setting to follow and the wind was far less today.

Here's some of the footage from the day:


Thanks again for all of the help and advice folks!

eoin Posted at 2018-1-7 15:19
So I took the drone out again today and things worked much better. Changed gimbal setting to follow and the wind was far less today.

Here's some of the footage from the day:

This is truly fantastic footage now! You should re-post it in a new thread with the "Video" tag to get many to enjoy it. Thank you very much!