Wonderful video!

Sorry for coming in so late, but wanted to let you know the wife and I really enjoyed your video and choice of music.

As far as $800 mistake/decision....I’d say there are worse ways and heck of a lot uglier spots to do it.

Keep up the good work.
Thanks for sharing your work and “yipes”.

Yep, been there, did that ... Although very rewarding, this kind of scenery is always extremely challenging as well with drones. Three issues are to be considered:

1. Weak and chaotic GPS lock. The drone randomly enters Atti Mode and drifts with the wind unpredictably.
2. Turbulent wind tunnel above white water. Warm summer air around and cold, fast running water always produces strong drafts.
3. Small branches above can be sucked by props vacuum.

During this filming I experienced close call as well. My Phantom 4 Pro mulched few branches, went down like a rock and miraculously recovered inches above white water. Unfortunately the camera was off at this moment ...

Very nice video! Keep flying and posting!
As for some of your questions, many of us have flown under trees, in forests or jungle. Temptations are great, possibilities are endless and risks exists...

One of the greatest dangers when flying with low satellite signal under trees, is a RTH trigger forcing drone to elevate to the set RTH altitude and almost sure collision with branches. Having this said, perhaps the newer models should incorporate an, upward facing camera and obstacle detection too. 5D collision avoidance systems are fine (on P4P), 6D would be perfect...

I flown many times in jungle, P4P gives me more peace of mind in such situations, although MA is more handy to carry...
As drone videographer, you'll have to put in balance risks and shooting opportunities.

The scariest moment for me, happened when, flying quite low level (1-2 m) over a 1 km long field with flowers...To get a close-up experience I had to fly as low as possible, but, when being at around 600m, the drone lost connection, entered RTH and, when lifting... hit the only one aerial electric cable in the whole area. A 2 cm thick cable in 1km (=100,000 cms) is...being lucky...But it happened. And everything went so fast I didn't managed to disconnect RTH before the collision. To my relief, the MA struggled, recovered and self flown back home with only two chopped propellers... Luckily, nothing else harmed and a big scare to learn from it.

awesome video many thanks to share it

awesome video many thanks to share it

The video was amazing to watch. I am also soon to be owner of a dji drone.

Nice movie!

Howdy!  I watched the entire video but wasn't able to find the part where the drone was acting erratic.  Do you have any video that addresses the issue(s), or a data log that could be reviewed to help you answer some of the novice pilot questions from your original post?

I got to admit that was one Amazing video of the  North Carolina Waterfalls.
I am glad you had a good outcome from your Yikes moment.
Fly safe and try not to take chances.

Fantastic video indeed and I am glad that all ended well.

LOVED THE FOOTAGE!   Hopefully I can get some on my upcoming trip.  I'll be happy if I can get within 10% of your quality.

This was really refreshing. Great Job.

nice one !

Lost my Mav over the weekend while flying waterfalls. First waterfall I  almost lost it because of tripod mode. Tripod mode is great for low and slow which I used at a couple waterfalls the week before. The one last weekend I put in tripod mode flew out over the water about 15 feet up and proceeded into the canyon. The wind coming from the falls in the canyon was so strong it blew it back and got about a foot from a tree before I could recover it using sport mode. . IT could not handle the light breeze from the falls. So I clicked it into sport mode and pushed it away from the tree. In tripod I had no control other than up or down. Not even sideways. The wind was moving it right along.  The canyon entrance was about 15 feet wide with 35 foot vertical rock walls.  Once I took it out of spot mode I was able to fly up into the canyon in normal mode and get some video and fly out safely. At one point when I went around the entrance and was flying blind I notices needles from a tree flying in front of the camera. Apparently my props were pruning a tree in there. I saved it and got it back safely. I left the SD card in and went to another waterfall a couple hours away but was only able to fly for 38 seconds before a tree ate it for good.
Lessons learned from waterfall flying:
Don't underestimate the wind coming off the falls
Don't use tripod mode except in really calm areas
Always swap cards between flights
Paint it florescent orange so you can see it when it lands 85 feet up in a tree
Don't assume the area to the left and right of the drone are free from obstructions
pay more attention to the drone than the view on the screen

Here is a low quality view if the falls that almost ate the drone. The other falls were 165 feet high and flowing like crazy into a deep gorge. Sadly I was recording video and do not cache on the ipad and had not taken a pic yet. So no pics from its last flight.

Great video, Thanks for sharing!

AuroraHunter Posted at 2018-6-4 17:49
Lost my Mav over the weekend while flying waterfalls. First waterfall I  almost lost it because of tripod mode. Tripod mode is great for low and slow which I used at a couple waterfalls the week before. The one last weekend I put in tripod mode flew out over the water about 15 feet up and proceeded into the canyon. The wind coming from the falls in the canyon was so strong it blew it back and got about a foot from a tree before I could recover it using sport mode. . IT could not handle the light breeze from the falls. So I clicked it into sport mode and pushed it away from the tree. In tripod I had no control other than up or down. Not even sideways. The wind was moving it right along.  The canyon entrance was about 15 feet wide with 35 foot vertical rock walls.  Once I took it out of spot mode I was able to fly up into the canyon in normal mode and get some video and fly out safely. At one point when I went around the entrance and was flying blind I notices needles from a tree flying in front of the camera. Apparently my props were pruning a tree in there. I saved it and got it back safely. I left the SD card in and went to another waterfall a couple hours away but was only able to fly for 38 seconds before a tree ate it for good.
Lessons learned from waterfall flying:
Don't underestimate the wind coming off the falls

Dang, sorry to hear you lost your Mavic, but glad you shared your experience with me.  I have been starting to experiment with tripod mode and even thought it would be great for flying around in tight quarters like a waterfall area; your experience definitely makes me think twice.  Trees are deadly when there's water below!  I currently have just one good memory card, and when I had my scary minute by the waterfall I was almost as scared of losing my footage as I was of losing the drone, so again, sorry for your loss =(  Anyways, hope you get flying again, and I appreciate you sharing your lessons here.

Thanks for sharing great footage, wow that was close at the end - one of those heart stopping moments but thankfully you were lucky

I really enjoyed this , thank you

wonderful work!

Wow, have seen several NC falls in the Asheville/Smoky Mtn area, but not these. Very nicely done, and without humans in the shots! Keep on shooting (and the editing was very good too. The branch looks like it was too close in the outtake. Glad you didn't lose your bird.

I voted for this, never dared to fly so near to a waterfall expecially im still very new to the drone MA, wish i could have the bravery to do that tbh, also a nice demonstration on what can happen if the GPS signal messed up!!

Wow, you really couldn't have picked a better song for great footage, good job.

I'm so glad there's guys like you making mistakes so guys like me can learn from them!!

Wow that was lucky !! Were all the close-up waterfall shots done with the drone also ?

Atlas_Aus Posted at 2018-8-4 19:40
Wow that was lucky !! Were all the close-up waterfall shots done with the drone also ?

Yeppers, though in hindsight I thought it might have been nice to record with my camera also, at least to get accurate waterfall sounds for each waterfall.  Also, sometimes some still footage is nice.  Flying the MA close to the waterfalls was nerve wracking in ATTI mode!

Beautiful footage ....  

You were very lucky with the overhang at the end ....  I have just had a very similar acident with a tree after almost two years of flying the Mavic and covering 250 miles .....   

Keep pushing the boundaries as it's the only way ....

Looking forward to your next movie.

Loki's Eyes Posted at 2018-8-5 04:56
Yeppers, though in hindsight I thought it might have been nice to record with my camera also, at least to get accurate waterfall sounds for each waterfall.  Also, sometimes some still footage is nice.  Flying the MA close to the waterfalls was nerve wracking in ATTI mode!

Sorry brand new at this, what is ATTI mode ?

Atlas_Aus Posted at 2018-8-5 08:12
Sorry brand new at this, what is ATTI mode ?

ATTI is unassisted by GPS, so the drone "wanders" a bit.  Random directional drift - line of sight is very important when flying like this.

Loki's Eyes Posted at 2018-8-5 11:28
ATTI is unassisted by GPS, so the drone "wanders" a bit.  Random directional drift - line of sight is very important when flying like this.

Ahh ok, thanks for the reply, long way off doing that !

Wow great video! very professional...