Inspire 2 360°QuickSpin review

DJI Inspire 1 has become one of the must-haves for professional aerial photographer. Interchangeable lenses provide many possibilities for various scenarios.

In actual task, pilot and gimbal operator would each have on RC to focus on flight and gimbal respectively. With rotation limit, however, Inspire 1’s gimbal can only rotate ±320°. When gimbal spins too fast or it doesn’t spin along where the aircraft is heading, the camera view moves away before you can finish shooting.

We tested what happens when Inspire 1’s gimbal reaches rotation limit: (with one RC, in Gimbal Free mode)

Tip: You can define C1, C2 to control gimbal rotate/pitch.

You can see clearly: the gimbal stops rotating when it reaches mechanical limitation. If the drone keeps flying, camera also shifts away.

DJI lauched a new feature “360°QuickSpin” with Inspire 2 to tackle this problem, which can be opearated automatically or manually.

Automatic QuickSpin

On the interface of flight controller setting, choose ‘advance’,  then choose ‘automatic QuickSpin’;

The instruction on DJI GO writes:

When the gimbal is about to reach rotation limit, aircraft would go for a 360° QuickSpin. Please notice, this feature is only applicable when the drone is 3m or more above the ground.

The drone would spin clockwise if the gimbal was rotating clockwise.

In other words, QuickSpin doesn’t affect the direction of aircraft’s heading or how gimbal was rotating.

We tried it when Inspire 2 was hovering. Like Inspire 1, Inspire 2’s gimbal can only rotate ±320°. when the gimbal rotates over 270°, the Inspire 2 would automatically spin 360° in the same direction.

A pop-up information saying “When the gimbal reaches movement limit, the aircraft will rotate to release it” will also appear in the app.

We shot QuickSpin on ground:

Shot QuickSpin from above with another drone:

From GIFs above, you can see QuickSpin didn’t always go for a perfect 360° spin. My guess would be: if the pilot pushes the joystick during QuickSpin, the effect would show up when Inspire 2 stops the spinning. So the aircraft shifts and the spin doesn’t seem like 360°.

Manual QuickSpin

You can set C1 or C2 as Quickspin in RC setting interface. When the gimbal is about to reach rotation limit, you can manually order Inspire 2 to spin back. In manual Quickspin, there is no requirement for aircraft’s altitude.

We found: when gimbal rotates more than 120°, you can press C1/C2 to start Quickspin.

Shooting from ground:

Shooting downward:

See? Without pushing joystick, a perfect 360°spin.

When the gimbal reaches rotation limit, recenter the gimbal would ruin your footage. In QuickSpin feature only the aircraft rotates, so what you shoot won’t be affected. But would the spin affect footage fluency? Check two GIFs below:

FPV view shows how the aircraft spins quickly, meanwhile, when you press C1 button, you will see gimbal camera’s view is quite stable.

why？

During QuickSpin, the aircraft’s direction would be locked, ensuring zero shift of direction. In addition, the excellent dampening ability of Inspire’s gimbal helps to keep the video fluent.

Another QuickSpin GIF in twilight:

In conclusion;

1.“360°QuickSpin” is completely different from “recenter gimbal”. In the former, only aircraft rotates without disturbing shooting video, while in the latter gimbal spins.

2.We strongly suggest: shut the slide block of starting QuickSpin when you operate QuickSpin manually. In Automatic Quick Spin, it starts as the gimbal spinned 270°. If you wish to use QuickSpin again after 270°in manual operation, remember to shut down that slide block.

3.Lastly, we hope gimbal cameras can rotate 360°consecutively. Most 360°gimbals use slip ring, like that of zhiyun-tech, or DJI’s early Zenmuse GH4 5D A7R. But slip ring is costly and often needs maintanence. We are looking for new technologies to realize 360° spin!

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