New Flying Platform for GoPro 3 cam

[Ray Bell]

I have no affiliation with these guys but they do share the passion of flying with the GoPro 3 and attempting good stable footage as the rest of us....

QAV540G with integrated brushless gimbal goes on Pre-Order — fpvmanuals

Notice, the extra camera on the top... this is for FVP flying with goggles...

I do have one of the earlier versions and they are easy to put together and fly.

This new unit has a stabalized gimbal for the GoPro

[Bruce Dempsey]

Now that's a mean machine
When all the not included parts are assembled does it come in at a bit less that the Phantom?

[Giroud Francois]

the problem is there are dozen of copters on the market, and most of them can fly at least a go pro.
DJI has been clever enough to hide all the gory details (frames , wires, electronics) into a nice plastic casing, and make it small enough.
This new model is probably the another attempt of a long serie to come.
For the RC amateurs this will never beats an DIY machine and for the video amateur , it still look like a complicated thing.
The good thing in this story, it is that electronic gimbal will become a common and cheap thing and you are not oblige to mount it only on a flying machine.

[Chuck Spaulding]

This is sort of an unpopular opinion but the Phantom is more of a toy, hobby grade. If you own a Phantom and haven't had to deal with DJI support your lucky and if you have, you're out of luck.

Having said that if people don't want to learn how to build higher end hobby grade or more professional multirotor then dropping the money on a Phantom to get an education in flying multirotors isn't a bad place to start. But people should adjust their aerial photography expectation accordingly.

There are a lot of frame suppliers out there and the most expensive aren't necessarily the best. Here's another supplier in the same category. Unfortunately neither of these will fly anything much bigger than a GoPro: Quaternium

Here's some videos of it flying:

The intersting thing about this video is that they mounted the camera on the gimbal backwards so you can see how well stabilized it is:

https://vimeo.com/64377110#

One of the biggest impediments to good AP from multirotors is wind, check out how stable the camera is in these very windy conditions:

Spidex Quad with Brushless Gimbal First Flight Test - YouTube!

Other things you need to consider are the gimbal controller, the flight controller, gimbal, weight, etc.. This last one I believe Paul uses a HoverFly Pro controller and I think the controller comes with the frame and the gimbal. It all works quite well.