Looking thru the lens in flight at DVinfo.net

Bruce Dempsey · May 25th, 2013, 09:53 AM

The DJI Phantom is halfway here since it was shipped Thursday. The RX100 is sitting on my desk getting fiddled with (complicated little sucker), a VGE shockmount and black balanced propellers are on the way as well.
Time to consider a system to see what I'll be shooting. At first I thought I'd instinctively know what the shot was but of course that's a dream . Framing the shot is one of the distinguishing factors between good-enough and that's a take.
I've just commenced research on this but hopefully someone will shorten the learning curve for me.
I'd like to look through the lense and would use hdmi out on the rx100... then what?

Chuck Spaulding · May 25th, 2013, 01:11 PM

It appears that you've never flown a multirotor, if that's the case here's some advice.

First of all no one can shorten your learning curve for you, its really not about knowing how to fly its just practice. Conceptually its very easy, if the acft is tail in then left goes left, right - right, increase throttle-up, decrease it goes down. Putting it altogether just takes patience and practice.

Here's what I would suggest, after you get your phantom, go to a wide open area draw/create a 10' box on the ground with string or chalk and see if you can hover it at about 5' while keeping it in the box. After you've accomplished that make the box smaller and if that goes well make another box about 10' away from the first and takeoff from one and land in the other. Do all of that without mounting the camera.

Once you gain some confidence flying LOS, which if your like most new people to flying RC's will take you a couple of weeks. then I'd suggest mounting the camera for a couple of flights so you can get a sense of how difficult it really is to get good aerial shots.

When I say difficult. it is but it is easily overcome with practice, how expensive it gets will be determined by how much you crash. Crashing is a part of learning. If you crash because you realize you made a stupid mistake with a control input that's one thing, if you crash because your totally out of control is a very different thing. If the latter you might want to find someone who is local to you that can help you learn.

Bruce Dempsey · May 25th, 2013, 06:41 PM

the learning curve to which I was referring had to do with the implementation of an HD thru the lense fpv system
but thanks for the advice nontheless

Chuck Spaulding · May 25th, 2013, 10:37 PM

Sorry.

Have you checked this out? FPV GB Combo [FPV GB Combo] - $658.59 : FOXTECH FPV SYSTEM

I use a dedicated FPV camera but this kit uses the GoPro.

Bruce Dempsey · May 26th, 2013, 03:48 AM

Nothing to be sorry about at all. I mean it, thanks for the good advice. Your comments have been greatly appreciated and I've taken the advice to heart. Please continue to provide your experienced point of view on the subject.
I'm the one who should apologize for my snippy remark

I'm going to install a system diy for near range thru the lens monitoring of the recording camera's point of view. as I've found a newish hdmi tx rx which might just do the trick and I'm Ordering a unit.
Existing analog systems are....well analog and dismal composite video.
Mine will be HD and provide a live view hdmi wireless transmission 5ghz to a 7" monitor on the ground with the contents of the viewfinder on the camera.
Range might only be 30m which for my purposes might be sufficient for obtaining accurate framing of the shot.

Chuck Spaulding · May 26th, 2013, 10:47 AM

Let us know how it goes and also let us know the model of the HD video Tx.

The good and bad of AP is that a lot of the development for it is very recent, just when you think you know how it all works someone comes up with a new way of doing things. Kind of humbling but its amazing to see how far FPV and multirotor AP have come in just the past year.

Good luck.

Bruce Dempsey · May 28th, 2013, 06:12 PM

I'm sure the goggles and FPV would be fun but at this point all I'm interested in accomplishing is good framing of whatever I'm filming and shooting stills of so glances at the monitor will hopefully accomplish that objective and when the camera gets out of the 30m video link range I'll be in a better position to predict the framing for the nex 30 seconds or so.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/121097467729...84.m1497.l2649 EP-3207 Transmitter receiving a live view by hdmi from the Sony RX100 aboard the quadcopter
to the EDUP receiving unit hdmi feeding a 7" ips (outdoor bright ) 1280x800 monitor

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=200918902415 attached to the flight control unit

Bruce Dempsey · July 6th, 2013, 12:30 PM

Here's what the Phantom / rx100 / HDMIout thru the lens is looking like today
http://www.bigaro.ca/misc/phantomRX100.jpg
http://www.bigaro.ca/misc/phantomrx100a.jpg
http://www.bigaro.ca/misc/phantomrx1...ransmitter.jpg hdmi out of the cam to batterypowerwd transmitter 5ghz sending to ground reciever and displayed on a 1280 7" screen.
So I can see thru the lense giving me the data usually seen on the camera's lcd and more importantly I'll see what I'm shooting exactly.
Now if I was only practiced enough to send it aloft !
edit After flight tests (without the rx100)
Well Unfortunately the aftermarket landing gear seems to have changed the the flight characteristics a bit and it's acting skitterish and flying erraticlly so I'll revert to stock skids and see if maybe not exposing the prop wash to all those sharp carbon fibre un-aerodynamic angular surfaces will be d'rigeur

Bruce Dempsey · July 8th, 2013, 03:20 AM

Don't buy the skids shown in my pictures.
They are a disaster - causing extreme and violent movement no doubt due to the prop wash effect

Giroud Francois · July 9th, 2013, 01:05 AM

i am not sure you can properly fly a RX100 on a DJI phantom.
the paylod for the phantome is about 200g, 350 being the maximum acceptable.
Since the RX100 is about 250g, you are technically already overloaded.
add the accessories to fix the camera, the transmitter, and you are at the limit where your flight becomes drastically shortened and unstable.

Trond Saetre · July 9th, 2013, 04:14 AM

It appears as if the compass is 90 degrees off compared to the original position with the stock landing gear.

Bruce Dempsey · July 9th, 2013, 06:10 AM

Thank you Trond You are observant and correct. I did not notice that
After installing the landing gear I did a compass orientation routine in the field and not sure I got the correct series of lights.
The landing gear also snags on the slightest bit of hay or even grass.
I held the phantom real close to the ground when testing but it accelerated seemingily on its own so I forced it down and the longer skid is now a much more powerful lever which managed to pull out a brass screw insert on the casing.
I will stay with the stock landing gear perhaps with the addition of foam tubing
Bruce

Giroud You also may be correct about the weight, Although there is plenty of footage online from the rx100 carried by a phantom,
I've ordered a Nokia 808 which should arrive tomorrow and it weighs around 90g less than an rx100 and might be a bit more robust. As well it can be "phoned" in the event of a bush landing to help locate the phantom. From what I've read the nokia808 will produce footage and stills equal to the rx100.

Has any one positioned a cross-member on the lowest (foot) of the landing gear on a phantom to which a camera could be attached tripod style?

Trond Saetre · July 9th, 2013, 03:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bruce Dempsey

Thank you Trond You are observant and correct. I did not notice that
After installing the landing gear I did a compass orientation routine in the field and not sure I got the correct series of lights.
The landing gear also snags on the slightest bit of hay or even grass.
I held the phantom real close to the ground when testing but it accelerated seemingily on its own so I forced it down and the longer skid is now a much more powerful lever which managed to pull out a brass screw insert on the casing.
I will stay with the stock landing gear perhaps with the addition of foam tubing

The wrong compass orientation will give the Naza controller two different headings at the same time. (From the compass and from the gps unit.
It has been speculated in the phantom thread in the rcgroups.com forum that this might have caused "fly aways", or kinda the same behavior you noticed.

I am using the stock landing gear myself and always calibrate the compass when I fly in a new location.
I have also noticed that doing the advanced IMU calibration every 4-6 flights or so, improves the position hold when hovering in gps mode.

Bruce Dempsey · July 10th, 2013, 03:40 AM

The aftermarket landing gear seller in TW wrote back to me this morning regarding the compass issue you observed.

"The compass module can face to 90 degrees off as long as it is installed vertically with connector/cable up. Just be reminded it is required to calibrate the compass again before the first flight if you ever change the Phantom with any upgrade parts/accessories or when flying in a different area. Hope this answers your question"

This brings up the issue of little manufacturers rushing products for the Phantom to market to cash in
They did give me a refund in the form of a store credit which is more than I expected

Good to know about the periodic advanced IMU recalibration mode.
Have you enabled IOC?

Trond Saetre · July 10th, 2013, 03:49 AM

Good morning,
Yes, I have enabled IOC, and the "Home Lock" is a great friend.
Also make sure the "Return to Home" failsafe mode is enabled. When I bought my Phantom a couple months ago, this was turned off as default in the naza assistant software.

Good to hear you got a refund. That's the kind of customer service we want to see.

May 25th, 2013, 09:53 AM	#1
Bruce Dempsey Major Player Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Atlantic Coast Canada Posts: 599	Looking thru the lens in flight The DJI Phantom is halfway here since it was shipped Thursday. The RX100 is sitting on my desk getting fiddled with (complicated little sucker), a VGE shockmount and black balanced propellers are on the way as well. Time to consider a system to see what I'll be shooting. At first I thought I'd instinctively know what the shot was but of course that's a dream . Framing the shot is one of the distinguishing factors between good-enough and that's a take. I've just commenced research on this but hopefully someone will shorten the learning curve for me. I'd like to look through the lense and would use hdmi out on the rx100... then what?

May 25th, 2013, 01:11 PM	#2
Chuck Spaulding Trustee Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Thousand Oaks Posts: 1,099	Re: Looking thru the lens in flight It appears that you've never flown a multirotor, if that's the case here's some advice. First of all no one can shorten your learning curve for you, its really not about knowing how to fly its just practice. Conceptually its very easy, if the acft is tail in then left goes left, right - right, increase throttle-up, decrease it goes down. Putting it altogether just takes patience and practice. Here's what I would suggest, after you get your phantom, go to a wide open area draw/create a 10' box on the ground with string or chalk and see if you can hover it at about 5' while keeping it in the box. After you've accomplished that make the box smaller and if that goes well make another box about 10' away from the first and takeoff from one and land in the other. Do all of that without mounting the camera. Once you gain some confidence flying LOS, which if your like most new people to flying RC's will take you a couple of weeks. then I'd suggest mounting the camera for a couple of flights so you can get a sense of how difficult it really is to get good aerial shots. When I say difficult. it is but it is easily overcome with practice, how expensive it gets will be determined by how much you crash. Crashing is a part of learning. If you crash because you realize you made a stupid mistake with a control input that's one thing, if you crash because your totally out of control is a very different thing. If the latter you might want to find someone who is local to you that can help you learn.

May 25th, 2013, 06:41 PM	#3
Bruce Dempsey Major Player Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Atlantic Coast Canada Posts: 599	Re: Looking thru the lens in flight the learning curve to which I was referring had to do with the implementation of an HD thru the lense fpv system but thanks for the advice nontheless

May 25th, 2013, 10:37 PM	#4
Chuck Spaulding Trustee Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Thousand Oaks Posts: 1,099	Re: Looking thru the lens in flight Sorry. Have you checked this out? FPV GB Combo [FPV GB Combo] - $658.59 : FOXTECH FPV SYSTEM I use a dedicated FPV camera but this kit uses the GoPro.

May 26th, 2013, 03:48 AM	#5
Bruce Dempsey Major Player Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Atlantic Coast Canada Posts: 599	Re: Looking thru the lens in flight Nothing to be sorry about at all. I mean it, thanks for the good advice. Your comments have been greatly appreciated and I've taken the advice to heart. Please continue to provide your experienced point of view on the subject. I'm the one who should apologize for my snippy remark I'm going to install a system diy for near range thru the lens monitoring of the recording camera's point of view. as I've found a newish hdmi tx rx which might just do the trick and I'm Ordering a unit. Existing analog systems are....well analog and dismal composite video. Mine will be HD and provide a live view hdmi wireless transmission 5ghz to a 7" monitor on the ground with the contents of the viewfinder on the camera. Range might only be 30m which for my purposes might be sufficient for obtaining accurate framing of the shot.

May 26th, 2013, 10:47 AM	#6
Chuck Spaulding Trustee Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Thousand Oaks Posts: 1,099	Re: Looking thru the lens in flight Let us know how it goes and also let us know the model of the HD video Tx. The good and bad of AP is that a lot of the development for it is very recent, just when you think you know how it all works someone comes up with a new way of doing things. Kind of humbling but its amazing to see how far FPV and multirotor AP have come in just the past year. Good luck.

May 28th, 2013, 06:12 PM	#7
Bruce Dempsey Major Player Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Atlantic Coast Canada Posts: 599	Re: Looking thru the lens in flight I'm sure the goggles and FPV would be fun but at this point all I'm interested in accomplishing is good framing of whatever I'm filming and shooting stills of so glances at the monitor will hopefully accomplish that objective and when the camera gets out of the 30m video link range I'll be in a better position to predict the framing for the nex 30 seconds or so. http://www.ebay.com/itm/121097467729...84.m1497.l2649 EP-3207 Transmitter receiving a live view by hdmi from the Sony RX100 aboard the quadcopter to the EDUP receiving unit hdmi feeding a 7" ips (outdoor bright ) 1280x800 monitor http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=200918902415 attached to the flight control unit

July 6th, 2013, 12:30 PM	#8
Bruce Dempsey Major Player Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Atlantic Coast Canada Posts: 599	Re: Looking thru the lens in flight Here's what the Phantom / rx100 / HDMIout thru the lens is looking like today http://www.bigaro.ca/misc/phantomRX100.jpg http://www.bigaro.ca/misc/phantomrx100a.jpg http://www.bigaro.ca/misc/phantomrx1...ransmitter.jpg hdmi out of the cam to batterypowerwd transmitter 5ghz sending to ground reciever and displayed on a 1280 7" screen. So I can see thru the lense giving me the data usually seen on the camera's lcd and more importantly I'll see what I'm shooting exactly. Now if I was only practiced enough to send it aloft ! edit After flight tests (without the rx100) Well Unfortunately the aftermarket landing gear seems to have changed the the flight characteristics a bit and it's acting skitterish and flying erraticlly so I'll revert to stock skids and see if maybe not exposing the prop wash to all those sharp carbon fibre un-aerodynamic angular surfaces will be d'rigeur Last edited by Bruce Dempsey; July 7th, 2013 at 05:02 AM.

July 8th, 2013, 03:20 AM	#9
Bruce Dempsey Major Player Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Atlantic Coast Canada Posts: 599	Re: Looking thru the lens in flight Don't buy the skids shown in my pictures. They are a disaster - causing extreme and violent movement no doubt due to the prop wash effect

July 9th, 2013, 01:05 AM	#10
Giroud Francois Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: switzerland Posts: 2,133	Re: Looking thru the lens in flight i am not sure you can properly fly a RX100 on a DJI phantom. the paylod for the phantome is about 200g, 350 being the maximum acceptable. Since the RX100 is about 250g, you are technically already overloaded. add the accessories to fix the camera, the transmitter, and you are at the limit where your flight becomes drastically shortened and unstable.

July 9th, 2013, 04:14 AM	#11
Trond Saetre Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Bergen, Norway Posts: 3,375	Re: Looking thru the lens in flight It appears as if the compass is 90 degrees off compared to the original position with the stock landing gear.

July 9th, 2013, 06:10 AM	#12
Bruce Dempsey Major Player Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Atlantic Coast Canada Posts: 599	Re: Looking thru the lens in flight Thank you Trond You are observant and correct. I did not notice that After installing the landing gear I did a compass orientation routine in the field and not sure I got the correct series of lights. The landing gear also snags on the slightest bit of hay or even grass. I held the phantom real close to the ground when testing but it accelerated seemingily on its own so I forced it down and the longer skid is now a much more powerful lever which managed to pull out a brass screw insert on the casing. I will stay with the stock landing gear perhaps with the addition of foam tubing Bruce Giroud You also may be correct about the weight, Although there is plenty of footage online from the rx100 carried by a phantom, I've ordered a Nokia 808 which should arrive tomorrow and it weighs around 90g less than an rx100 and might be a bit more robust. As well it can be "phoned" in the event of a bush landing to help locate the phantom. From what I've read the nokia808 will produce footage and stills equal to the rx100. Has any one positioned a cross-member on the lowest (foot) of the landing gear on a phantom to which a camera could be attached tripod style? Last edited by Bruce Dempsey; July 9th, 2013 at 10:06 AM.

July 10th, 2013, 03:40 AM	#14
Bruce Dempsey Major Player Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Atlantic Coast Canada Posts: 599	Re: Looking thru the lens in flight The aftermarket landing gear seller in TW wrote back to me this morning regarding the compass issue you observed. "The compass module can face to 90 degrees off as long as it is installed vertically with connector/cable up. Just be reminded it is required to calibrate the compass again before the first flight if you ever change the Phantom with any upgrade parts/accessories or when flying in a different area. Hope this answers your question" This brings up the issue of little manufacturers rushing products for the Phantom to market to cash in They did give me a refund in the form of a store credit which is more than I expected Good to know about the periodic advanced IMU recalibration mode. Have you enabled IOC?

July 10th, 2013, 03:49 AM	#15
Trond Saetre Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Bergen, Norway Posts: 3,375	Re: Looking thru the lens in flight Good morning, Yes, I have enabled IOC, and the "Home Lock" is a great friend. Also make sure the "Return to Home" failsafe mode is enabled. When I bought my Phantom a couple months ago, this was turned off as default in the naza assistant software. Good to hear you got a refund. That's the kind of customer service we want to see.