I finally was able to get the nerve up and try to tackle my fear of water flying.  Here's my Memorial Weekend Lake video:

I have a few questions.  I was concentrating on flying (manual mode), so I put the camera in Auto with a Sunny white balance.  Better to have footage, than garbage? Should I have locked the exposure?  The sun was in and out of the clouds, and I was sometimes facing the sun, sometimes not. What do you all recommend?

Also, I never really had the time to stop and try out the Auto Tracking modes.  Do you think it would have kept up better with the wave runner?  I'm still trying to practice manually flying before I start using the automation stuff.

My near drone drowning experience:

Wow, that was close (on screen at least)

Wow. wow wow.

Montfrooij Posted at 2018-5-30 22:15
Wow, that was close (on screen at least)

Yeah, it was inches away from being a disaster.... it took a while to get the nerve to fly over water again.  But how about the second video?  Any feedback for my questions on what you recommend?

Too close! Well nearly

gcomfx Posted at 2018-5-31 05:45
Yeah, it was inches away from being a disaster.... it took a while to get the nerve to fly over water again.  But how about the second video?  Any feedback for my questions on what you recommend?

The WB was perfect I would say.
(fixed)
And the tracking (manual) was ok, apart from some noncontinuous yaw motion. But even active track gets that 'wrong' and it is super hard to do.
I have had zero luck on so far and my subject was only a moving train (straight line, same speed)

If your going to be flying close to surface of water and close to watercraft like boats and jet skis (not over top of them by next to them and around them) at speed always I mean always have a spotter.  

Also never pull the aircraft down over water like you did in the first video.  Instead keep eye on the telemetry and note the VPS.. water can and has had a history of tricking the downfacing sensors on drones. On my Mavic Pro I usually don’t go below 5 feet above surface.  My Mavic Pro is rock solid at 5 feet over the surface of water.     


As for flying over water like you did in the second video, you did great! You could defiantly get closer and done some sideways fly by shots too but you handled your aircraft and camera settings well!

Thanks for the feedback Montfrooij. The video was shot in two days. Day one was much more “robotic” in motion for sure. I was concentrating on breathing as I was so nervous. I held the drone at 50 ft the first day. Then 35 the next. I was losing signal on one end of the runs as they went out into the bigger part of the lake. Trees, buildings, etc in the way.

Is there a way to rebalance the horizon? The intro and ending seem a little off kilter.

Edit:  I'm not sure why only the first part of the my post was made and it missed the rest.  lol
Hereforthebeer - thanks for the feedback. I can use all I can get. Sideways pan shots are noted. I’ll add that to my list.  I had a good spotter for some of the footage, but some I did not other than untrained eyes making comments like "wow... look how fast that thing is!"  lol

One thing I should have called out in the video or left out was the part where the subject matter leaves the screen.  At the 37s mark I put it in sport mode and passed them back.  Which some people will think it was just a mistake, I left it in for my own entertainment.  Sport mode makes a huge difference in that situation.

More questions for everyone:  Should I have used Cinematic mode to help smooth out the turns and direction changes of the drone or will that feature even work in sport mode?