Hi All,
New guy herewith my first drone ,the p3 professional. I must be mad. Making an event video one of the guys gave me his footage from a phantom 2. I was astounded how it rendered thousands of pounds worth of pro camera gear obsolete. Have about 90 minutes of flight time up to now, gently practicing tracking and pull away shots in (4K) quality....wow.
I have already flown many fixed wing RC models in the past and have 800 hours flying my own 3 axis microlight, so I'm used to Ariel stuff.
Question is, exactly how long before poi comes out? Will it keep the drone camera pointing ot the subject as I circle it. Have a shoot starting early June and this would be the " money" shot.
Making very careful progress.
RayH.

Keep wishing like the rest of us. ;)  With all the talk around the 3DR  I bet they don't waste time if they know what's good for them. At this stage in the game dji can't afford to fall behind.

Ahh, like that is it? Guess I'll have to be patient. Thanks for the reply.
RayH

You don't need an automated programmable robotical move, in order to make something like a POI shot   You can "just" learn to fly, and do it manually

If you can describe your money shot in more detail, I am sure I can tell you if it is reasonable to assume that you'll be able to do it (will take a lot of training to get right).

I do plenty of circling around an object, keeping the camera pointed at it. You can also use the IOC CL (CourseLock) to put the Phantom on a virtual "cable" where you just push forward it will move forward - and it will keep doing that while using the yaw to softly rotate the quadcopter and camera to point towards your subject.

This guy explains it. I'm sure there is even more on YouTube

POI is available in the APP once enabled. Turn on multiple flight modes in the APP. Then toggle your flight mode switch on the transmitter to F-Mode where the APP will prompt you for the mode your after ie CL - Course Lock, HL Home Lock or POI Point of Interest. In POI mode the P3 should be able to fly around your POI and the nose will always point to the POI.

yogi

Afraid thats not true yogi....you had me excited for a second. Course Lock is the only mode available at present.

Hey FantomDK, funny you mentioned the manual way of doing it.  I started this January with a PH2+GoPro, and no FPV.  Basically, everything was manual flying.  Like rhutty, I wanted that POI money shot.  So I put a tripod with a 6" white ball on top in an empty parking lot, and just practiced circling it for like an hour straight each time (3 batteries drained).  Finally, after 3 months, I went hiking to the top of a mountain with my PH2, and to my surprise, the POI video was actually pretty smooth; no jerkiness - like forward, turn, forward, turn, forward, turn.  

I just sold my PH2 for a new PH3 pro.  I'll admit, I'm really looking forward to all the autonomous flying when it's available.  But I would still agree - the best pilots take the best shots.

Practice ... practice ... practice ...  : )

Thanks all, I agree that practice is needed for all things. I was a pretty good radio control modeller, flying complex 3D aerobatics.. I'm a reasonably skilled pilot and have landed on the Isle of Mull in Scotland with a 90 degree 20 knot crosswind  in my Rans s6 ( if you don't think that's hard, try it) there are nasty consequences when you're sitting in what you're flying, especially if you screw up.
While I risk sounding like I'm just bragging, I'm a fairly, hot rock guitarist. I started playing when I was 10 and I'm now in my mid 60's you could say I practiced that for quite a long time. Then I saw a video on YouTube called ,"Speed Kills "by a guitarist called Micheal Angelo Batio, if I practiced every day for 10 years I could never reach that speed, it's physically impossible for me to move my fingers at that fast.
Point is, I agree practice will make me a reasonable Ph3 pilot, BUT, there are levels of skill that will, forever remain beyond me, (the social skill of modesty, my wife tells me, will always elude me. But what does she know)
If I can get the aircraft to fly a precise 40 foot circle around someone sitting in a field and then pull up and away backwards revealing a completely empty field, that's my "money shot" for this sequence.
If I can get the aircraft to do the POI circle semi automatically, then, call me lazy if you like, I'll take the automatic version rather than my limited drone skills every time

cascadeflyer Posted at 2015-5-10 11:57
Afraid thats not true yogi....you had me excited for a second. Course Lock is the only mode availabl ...

OK ... that was from the manual ... still waiting to get my hands on mine when it arrives. So the features are not there yet even though there documented in the manual ... is this normal for DJI as this is my first DJI quad ?

yogi Posted at 2015-5-11 07:35
OK ... that was from the manual ... still waiting to get my hands on mine when it arrives. So the  ...

Page 56 of the English version of the Phantom 3 Advanced User Manual includes Home Lock and POI but a footnote clearly states: *Home Lock and Point of Interest feature are coming soon.  My guess is DJI has until 3DR Solo manages to actually ship a complete working solution including a gimble before we might see a firmware release with these features.  On the other hand, my "complete" P3 is still making great shots and videos while the others are lagging behind AND I really don't want these features out until they are tested and debugged.  I don't have a spare P3 sitting around.

I've removed the embedded links to the manual that I orginally included in this post as this forum system converts the links into something that takes you to a screen with only Chinese text.  You can download the manual from the DJI Phantom 3 product Downloads page and scroll down to the Phantom 3 Professional User Manual (EN) v1.2.