So i received the lens hood i bought from PGYTECH. It-s clearly advertised as compatible with the DJI mini and mini 2. Well, i was happily flying, getting some cool pics of the sky as it was getting dark. Decided to get the drone back as it was already popping the low light warning and as soon as i switched to sports mode and reached top speed, boom! a wild ''gimbal motor overload. check wether gimbal can move freely'' showed up and the camera went crazy. Check it for yourselves.

-- EPILEPSY WARNING! THE FOLLOWING VIDEO CONTAINS RAPIDLY CHANGING AND MOVING LIGHTS AND MAY ACTUALLY CAUSE A SEIZURE IN SUSCEPTIBLE INDIVIDUALS *I-M A PHYSICIAN, SO TRUST ME. IF YOU SUFFER OF ANY SORT OF SEIZURES DISORDER, AVOID PLAYING THIS VIDEO --




As soon as i got the drone back, i went and checked if the gimbal was working. Well, it was. But something caught my attention



Without the lens hood, the camera can move freely even a bit under the edge of the drones body



But when the hood is installed, the hood actually occupies some of the space right above the camera and causes it to hit the part that hooks into the drone-s body.

Thanks for the tip.   

Thanks for the heads up! Have had the "gimbal motor overload" warning once and it wasn't much fun with it freely moving about.

Maybe the hood is designed for the Mini 1, because of the front flashlight now.

Robert20 Posted at 1-24 03:38
Maybe the hood is designed for the Mini 1, because of the front flashlight now.

Well, it is advertised as compatible with the mini 2. Also, if I am not wrong, there are few changes between the mini and mini w body designs, mostly in the battery compartment and the motors, not at the front. don't quote me on that though. I believe I read that when I was researching the mini 2 before purchasing it

I want to ask a stupid question, what is the purpose of the “hood”?

Thanks

I ordered it and it should arrive soon. I mainly wants it because I need to prevent  light flairs from hitting the lens. There is a purple tint in the entire frame when that happens.

Could you cut it a little to make more room for the camera to move ?

I would trim the plastic down.  

Moshe.mmm Posted at 1-24 13:47
I ordered it and it should arrive soon. I mainly wants it because I need to prevent  light flairs from hitting the lens. There is a purple tint in the entire frame when that happens.

Could you cut it a little to make more room for the camera to move ?

I believe it isn't possible. The part you need to trim is both ends of that little tab numbered as 1, and that's exactly what grabs into the drones case.

Hello there BORRERO.MD. I am sorry for the trouble this has caused and thank you for sharing these information with us. Just a friendly, reminder that DJI does not recommend you to your 3rd party accessories on your DJI Drones. These 3rd party accessories might affect the said DJI drone when in use. There is a possibility that these 3rd party accessories will be able work but however, since it's not yet optimized and tested by DJI we cannot guaranteed the stability of the said 3rd party accessory if it will work all the time with no issues and might void the warranty of the said DJI product. Thank you and have a safe flight always.

Thanks for the warning!

This vibration occurs when the drone is flying straight and level, it's not banking when you would see camera gimbal tilt to compensate for the bank and hit the lens hood clip ?
If you try to simulate the bank for it hit the lens hood it's about 46 degrees of more, on my mini once you go past this gimbal locks in place back in the horizontal positon


When I hold my mini with the nose point down at 80 degrees (to simulate the angle sport mode and have sport mode turned on) and the camera angle at 0 degrees, there is no contact at all. The gimbal movement stop limits any contact when the drone is powered up.

Also the flight log says at 9m 02s that it changed back to P-gps mode before all the gimbal errors.

Maybe the hood is introducing some other sort of aerodynamic buffering by channelling the air like an air intake ?

lannes Posted at 1-25 02:41
This vibration occurs when the drone is flying straight and level, it's not banking when you would see camera gimbal tilt to compensate for the bank and hit the lens hood clip ?
If you try to simulate the bank for it hit the lens hood it's about 46 degrees of more, on my mini once you go past this gimbal locks in place back in the horizontal positon

Good point. It's hard to tell. I tested the hood yesterday, in better environmental conditions (basically, lighting) and the gimbal did make a weird jerky movement while the hood was on, but only once and for a short period. However, I didn't take the wind into consideration nor any aerodynamic effects. The problem never occurred after I took the hood off though. Total disclaimer here, I was using my Freewell ND/PL filters the first time the problem happened, but I basically don't fly without one on and haven't had issues when using only the filters, without the hood, both before and after the first incident. Maybe it's a combination of both some aerodynamic effects + an extra weigh on the gimbal due to the ND/PL filters? I do calibrate the gimbal everytime I swap the filters. I bet that helps preventing such issues caused by the minute, yet not null, weight of the filters.

Did you calibrate gimbal with installed filter befor fly? I've seen same trouble and calibration helps to solve it

AlxErv RU Posted at 1-25 10:52
Did you calibrate gimbal with installed filter befor fly? I've seen same trouble and calibration helps to solve it

Hi. no, i always calibrate the gimbal after installing or swapping a filter.

Another reason I don't use anything not stock.

lannes Posted at 1-25 02:41
This vibration occurs when the drone is flying straight and level, it's not banking when you would see camera gimbal tilt to compensate for the bank and hit the lens hood clip ?
If you try to simulate the bank for it hit the lens hood it's about 46 degrees of more, on my mini once you go past this gimbal locks in place back in the horizontal positon

UPDATE:

So i decided to test what you said. I put the Freeweel ND/PL filter on, calibrated the drone and then put the hood on, without calibrating it again: when the drone was still one, i lifted it and tilted it in different angles.

Pardon my lack of technical terms on the matter, but when i lifted the drone from the rear side at about 30-40° i noticed a slight vibration comming from the front side of the drone and saw that the top part of the ND/Filter was right against the plastic tab that keeps the hood attached to the drone's body. No issues on video feed though. I then lifted the drone from the front side at 30-40° without noticing any issues and even went all the way to 90° and all was OK. Rotating it side to side without any vertical inclination resulted i no issues. Adding some vertical tilt as weell did cause the vibrations againand it seems like the filter was again rubbing against the hood.

After all this, i tried the same thing after calibrating the gimbal with both the filter and hood still on, and nothing changed. Same vibrations at about the same positions. Then, i removed the filter but left the hood on. Suprise surprise, the vibrations never happend again, even at steeper angles of inclination.

It seems like the PGYTECH hood on its own is ok to be used alone, but addint the filt is bound to cause issues. At least with my Freewel filters that is. I can't say for sure it will happen with other brands

BORRERO.MD Posted at 1-28 04:48
UPDATE:

So i decided to test what you said. I put the Freeweel ND/PL filter on, calibrated the drone and then put the hood on, without calibrating it again: when the drone was still one, i lifted it and tilted it in different angles.

Phew glad you got it sorted buddy. I was panicking as just ordered the lens hood and then came across your post

djiuser_OcSoBOps2q9a Posted at 12-28 16:00
Phew glad you got it sorted buddy. I was panicking as just ordered the lens hood and then came across your post

Hi.

Well, as i tried to say in the update (which only now i realize was super badly written), it seems the actual issue was the filters getting stuck on the small tab that attaches the hood to the drones body. However, i found out i care much more about the effects i get from the filters than those form the lens hood, so i  never used that hood again (i am being literal) and can't say for sure there's no issue related to it.
With that said, try to really test it in a safe environment first, and test it thoroughly. If something happens and you experience any gimbal issues, don't panic, fly your drone until you can land it or activate the return to home function and have it safely fly back to were you can see it and land it safely. good luck

BORRERO.MD Posted at 12-29 03:42
Hi.

Well, as i tried to say in the update (which only now i realize was super badly written), it seems the actual issue was the filters getting stuck on the small tab that attaches the hood to the drones body. However, i found out i care much more about the effects i get from the filters than those form the lens hood, so i  never used that hood again (i am being literal) and can't say for sure there's no issue related to it.

So its either filters or hood but not both, maybe send an email to Pgytech to let them know.

MiniManiac Posted at 12-29 04:54
So its either filters or hood but not both, maybe send an email to Pgytech to let them know.

I did. They never replied and i never bothered to try again. I've been using the filters all the time and without any issues. I think the filters just got stuck in the frame of that hood. My filter are ND-CPL filters so they have this low profile, but still existing, ring that might have been what caused it to touch the hood and all problems arouse from there. That's my theory.

I bought one, last week, but promptly returned it, because was 95% ineffective.
I tried outdoors with a sunset and also indoors with a flash light aiming at different angles with and without the hood.
Unfortunately, that hood is not large enough to be as effective as it is the case with regular lenses.
My conclusion was that this hood cover almost the angles as the Mini2 own recessed "hood".
It would have to be much larger which is physically impossible and would add too much wind resistance for a drone like the Mini2.

The gimbles are so sensitive that I nixed getting a sun hood after a fragment of a grass blade stuck to the bottom of gimble caused an error.  

I have the same hood and haven't had this issue.

I have it attached on every flight.