New Skill: Aerial Photography with Timelapse

Today, we’re going to share a new skill — motion timelapse.

“Timelapse” has always been popular with most photographers. For ground photography, it used to take a long time to choose a perfect spot, fix the camera on a tripod and take the timelapse. Thanks to the OSMO+, now it’s getting more and more convenient to shoot motion timelapse.

So it is with aerial photography. At first, photographers have to take motion timelapse through full manual control, constantly cracking the shutter while the drone is hovering. But now DJI’s Phantom 4, Mavic and Inspire Series have greatly increased the users’ accessibility to aerial motion timelapse. Look at the photo below:

It is quite common to take timelapse by staying the aircraft in the air overlooking roads and bridges. In fact, you can also take motion timelapse in the air, such as the dazzling lights and crowded streets.

Or weave through the buildings, trees and cars on a sunny day.

Or record the moving timelapse at sunset.

Here are the steps:

• Click “Intelligent Flight” in DJI GO APP and choose “Tapfly”
• The flying speed bar will pop out on the right, let’s choose the slowest speed of 1m/s. Tap the target direction and choose 5s in Timelapse.
• After you finish the composition, click the Go icon and the aircraft will straight fly in the target direction.
• Upload the photos into the AE to create your moving timelapses

Notes:

• Check the Attitude ball in DJI GO APP to decide whether the wind condition is suitable for aerial photography;
• Under the JPEG mode, you can choose 5s and 10s; while under the JPG+RAW mode, you can only choose 10s timelapses.
• Remember that the drone’s battery can only allow you to fly for 20 minutes or so.

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GoPro Karma vs DJI Mavic Pro:Which one is for you?

Now the GoPro Karma drone is back. It is once again listed on the GoPro website but disappointingly with no accompanying editorial to provide explanation for the recall and relaunch story, nor detail of any enhancements. What we know is that GoPro has improved the battery latch of the device to avoid it from slipping out of place which leads to a loss of power. This design reportedly keeps the battery intact and in place even when there are strong vibrations of the drone. And it maintains its portability compared to other drones available to the public. It was reported that the drone also has the removable gimbal stabilizer.

If the re-released GoPro Karma remains the same as on its initial launch except the improvements mentioned above, then we could make a comparison between the relaunched GoPro Karma and the Mavic Pro.

Design

The Mavic Pro is about the size of a water bottle when folded, and if you’ve had any one-liter beverages lately, that’s not far off. Folded up, the Mavic Pro has dimensions of 83x83x198mm. By comparison, the folded up Karma measures 89.9×224.3×356.2mm. It’s not that small when folded up. The Karma is still a drone that you would need a specially made case for when transporting it. The Mavic is a completely different story. You can fit the Mavic into almost any backpack or bag.

The Mavic Pro weighs in 734g while the Karma weighs 1006g.

Remote Control and Operating Range 

The Mavic Pro remote controller features an LCD screen with essential flight info and can be paired with your smartphone for powerful auto-flight features and a live 1080p video feed from the drone.  It’s small—smaller than an Xbox controller when folded—and flying a drone with joysticks offers more control. Since you can use various phones, the specs of your touch display are up to you. The Karma controller has a built-in 5-inch, 720p touch-screen display, making for a flying experience that feels a bit like a video game.

The Mavic Pro can be flown at a distance of 4.3 miles (7 km) away from its controller, flight time is 27 minutes (in best conditions), max speed is 40mph while in Sport mode.As for the GoPro Karma,the max controlling range is 1.86 miles (3 km), flight time is 20 minutes (in best conditions), max speed is 35mph.

Flight Modes

Just like the Phantom 4 the Mavic Pro has front facing obstacle avoidance, and it has all of the same flight modes like tap fly and active track. It also uses the DJI Go app, which means that it should work with third party apps for additional functionality in the future. On the other hand, GoPro says you should be able to fly the Karma with little to no experience with drones, and capture amazing shots with some of it’s preprogramed flight modes. Unfortunately there’s no follow features on the Karma. You get a 2 point cable cam mode, dronie mode, reveal mode, and orbit mode. These are the same features that other drone manufacture has had for the past year. Upon its initial launch, the Karma was criticized for a lack of functionality, even the basic ‘Follow Me’ was missing.

There are no sensors on the bottom of the GoPro Karma. Sensors like cameras and ultrasonics are what make drones more stable when hovering or when GPS isn’t available and the Karma doesn’t have any of these things. This means that the Karma is not going to be a good choice if you ever want to fly it indoors.As for the Mavic, it has two cameras for 3D vision positioning and ultrasonic sensors for accurate hight holding. Not only that, it also has dual gyros, accelerometers and compasses for more accurate data and redundancy. all of these features work together in the background, so you don’t have to worry about setting any of this up.

Video Quality 

Mavic Pro comes with a built-in camera that can shoot footage in 4K at up to 30fps and 1080p resolution at 96fps. It’s also capable of snapping 12-megapixel stills. The minimum focusing distance is 0.5m and the sensor itself is a 1/2.3-inch unit. Those are some pretty impressive specs that match DJI’s Phantom 4 drone.

When it comes to GoPro Karma, it has opted to make its drone compatible with its latest action cam, the Hero 5 Black. But the Karma’s Stabiliser, which holds the camera, will also work with the more affordable Hero 5 Session and even the 5’s predecessor – the Hero 4 Black and Silver.

If you’re using the latest Hero 5 Black, you can expect to get similar specs to the Mavic Pro. That’s 4K footage at 30fps, 1080p footage at 120fps – a higher frame rate than the Mavic’s 96 – and 12-megapixel stills.

Making the camera detachable in this way has several benefits, and chief among these is the attachment mechanism itself, which comes in the form of the Karma Grip.

The grip comes with the drone, and features a professional-quality stabiliser that should make for fluid footage. But most impressive is the fact that the grip can be removed from the drone and used as a grip to shoot freehand – with the added stabilisation feature – or mounted on other gear such as the Karma Case or Seeker sportpack. It’s also got built-in controls so you can operate the attached camera without having to touch it.

Price

The DJI Mavic Pro costs $999 for the drone or $1299 for the bundle. As for the GoPro Karma, it is basically available in the two options. One is Karma without a GoPro camera which costs $799.99 and the other is Karma bundled with GoPro Hero5 Black which will cost $1099.99.

So which drone should you really buy?You must have an answer now.

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Yuneec Breeze Review: Everything you should know-Part I

The Chinese company Yuneec calls its small quad-copter “Selfie drone” or “flying camera”. It is called Breeze 4K and is to be particularly suitable for simple video recordings and photos, which the pilot himself can make.

The Yuneec Breeze 4K is compact, it fits into a plastic case, which is only 215 x 205 x 73 mm. The drone itself measures 196 x 196 x 65 mm, with attached propeller protection 327 x 327 x 65 mm. The propellers themselves are not rigid, which is why they can be folded inwards to save space. At 385 grams, the copter is relatively light.

Yuneec Breeze 4K is easy to carry

Due to the compact packaging, the Yuneec Breeze can be carried along very easily and comfortably on the road, which is not only practical when traveling: in many large cities in America it is not permissible to fly a drone in the city center. This is far more convenient with such a small drone, especially if you are not driving.

The Yuneec Breeze is ready for use: We just have to fold out the four feet, insert the battery and press the power button. The copter then waits to connect to a smartphone that acts as a remote control.

We need to install the free Breeze cam app, which is available for both Android and iOS. Using this application, we can not only control the drone, but also make settings, view, edit, and edit the captured video, and track the live image of the camera during the flight. The connection between drone and smartphone or tablet is via WLAN, so the range is limited to a few hundred meters.

Speed limits for quiet shots

The maximum flying height is set to 80 meters from home – this restriction makes sense in the sense that users are supposed to film themselves with the drone. Its maximum flight speed is at 18 km/h and the maximum ascent rate is even at 3.6 km / h. This makes the Yuneec Breeze much slower than many competitors, such as Parrot Bebop or DJI Mavic. However, it is also possible to record extremely quiet camshafts and camera movements.

The Breeze Cam app is designed to allow users with little flying experience to get the drone up and take good pictures with it. In addition to the so-called pilot mode, in which we control the drone completely manually via two virtual control buttons on the screen of our smartphone or tablet, there are different flight modes, in which the user is able to release a part of the control and automate it.

The drone as a self-contained stick

The Selfie mode is used to photograph and film yourself without having to pay too much attention to the control of the drone. Correspondingly, this mode should be executed in a range where interference in the trajectory can not occur. The Yuneec Breeze camera will show the user in this mode. The Selfie mode focuses more on the camera image and sets the control of the drone into the background. Accordingly, we do not control the copter with virtual control sticks on the screen as in pilot mode.

These are also as documented as with other copters: The left stick regulates the yaw and the ascent or the speed of the drone, the right is responsible for the direction. This division can also be reversed in the settings. Alternatively, a tilt control is also available: the yaw and the height / speed are still controlled by the virtual stick, while the direction is controlled by the smartphone. To do this, press and hold a corresponding button on the display with our thumb.

Simplified operation

In the Selfie mode, however, we adjust the distance and height simply by means of sliders in the standard setting, also the camera is adjusted in this way in height. This control makes it much easier to focus on the image, but it is also more difficult to react to suddenly appearing objects in the trajectory. Before activating the mode, the user is explicitly advised to pay attention to surrounding structures. The Yuneec Breeze does not have built-in sensors that warn of collisions or even objects.

After a brief familiarization, the selfie mode allows us to take good photos and videos, especially when we are shooting in Full HD. Then, the image is electronically stabilized, as opposed to images in 4K. These are better from the resolution and the details, but by the constant corrections, which the Yuneec Breeze in the flight independently makes, noticeably more jerky.

In orbit mode, the copter circle flies

Beware of surrounding objects, especially in orbit mode where the Yuneec Breeze flies in circles. Again, the control is reduced, we adjust the altitude and the distance by means of the slider. At the push of a button, the drone begins to cir- culate with or counter-clockwise at the set distance. This can take place around the user himself or around an object. The circuit is interrupted at the touch of a button.

In our tests, we found that the chosen circle should not be too tight, because the camera of the drone then has problems to really fly around a center point – this is not determined by tracking. Correspondingly, we were sometimes on the edge of the video recording rather than in the middle. If the circle is big enough, the centering will work better. But then users have to pay attention to other buildings, trees, and especially people.

In Journey mode, the Yuneec Breeze flies away from us and then returns to us. There is no way to determine the coordinates that are being flown here – the Breeze 4K simply flies away and returns. Accordingly, we found the mode of all least useful.

In the follow-me mode the copter follows only conditionally

This is different with the follow-me mode: As the name suggests, the copter follows us in this mode – or the mobile device connected to it. Yuneec does not use a high-resolution object recognition, but follows us exclusively via the smartphone or tablet, with which we control the drone. This means that other objects such as vehicles, other humans or animals can not be tracked.

The tracking works fine in our attempts, sometimes less good. The drone loses sight of us, but the result is satisfactory at normal walking speed. For the Yuneec Breeze to fly us, we have to switch a switch in the preview screen of our smartphone.

We’ll continue to review in the next post,please stay tuned to us.

 

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Hover Camera could recognize and follow you

The Startup Zero Zero Robotics has introduced its concept of an autonomous quad flying, but the drone rather than “flying camera”. Hover Camera could recognize people and follow these independently – without needing GPS.

With Hover Camera, the Chinese Startup Zero Zero Robotics wants to launch a quad-copter on the market, which the company itself rather than flying camera designates. Hover Camera has a built-in 13 megapixel camera with image stabilization and thanks to built-in algorithms can recognize faces and keep them apart.

The user can then select a face, which Hover Camera subsequently follows independently. In doing so, the aircraft does not orient itself with the help of GPS like other flight cameras, such as the Lily Camera, but via the built-in camera. A second camera is for support: it is directed downwards.

Hover Camera is particularly easy to use: In a video the inventors of the flying camera show how the device is simply released in the air. Then it floats on the spot. To ensure that the user does not damage the rotors, they are housed in a carbon fiber housing.

The rotors can be folded away together with their protective cage. Hover Camera is then only as big as a pocket book. The control of the drone, or the selection of the object to be tracked, is done via a smartphone. Inside the flying camera, a Snapdragon-801 processor, which is responsible for the implementation of the sequence algorithms.

In a conversation with IEEE Spectrum, the hover-camera makers have stated that there are already 1,000 functioning units. 200 of them are to be given to Betatester, on the website interested parties can apply. Zero-Zero founder Meng Qui Wang has further plans for his flying camera: he can also imagine the flying machine as a flying eye for other household robots. Then Hover Camera should warn the other devices, for example, of obstacles.

Hover Camera is priced at 600 US dollars with 8 flight time.

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Yuneec introduces new professional Hexacopter

With the Yuneec H520 and the Yuneec Tornado H920 Plus, Yuneec is expanding its multicopter range with two models for professional applications. The H520 drone is equipped with a 50mm lens or a thermal imaging camera for inspection, the H920 Plus is designed with a zoom camera for camera shots.

The H520 and Tornado H920 Plus both have six rotors and are designed for professional use. The Tornado H920 Plus is designed for users who are interested in filming; The H520 is designed with a possible payload of half a kilo for the commercial or industrial market.

The Yuneec drone H520 is striking orange lacquered and allows a flight time of 30 minutes. The systems, including the control system, are largely redundant, and the drone has a new precision compass. It is also equipped with a real-sense camera from Intel for environmental detection.

Three available camera models for the H520

The Yuneec H520 can be equipped with a total of three different cameras: the first model corresponds to a classic copter camera with a lens with a wide angle of view of 95 degrees. The CGO 3+ can record videos in 4K quality at 30 fps, in full-HD the picture rate is up to 120 fps. The camera sits in a three-way gimbal and can be rotated endlessly by 360 degrees.

The CGO-CI is also equipped with a second camera that uses a 50mm focal length lens. This leads to a less wide-angle recording angle, which is intended to facilitate close-up shots. According to Yuneec, the camera model is particularly suitable for inspection flights. Also the CGO-CI can record in 4K at 30 fps.

The third available camera model is the CGO-ET, a residual light and thermal imaging camera. The RGB and thermal image signals can be combined or displayed individually. In RGB mode, the CGO-ET can record video to a maximum of full-HD. The H520 is controlled by Yuneec’s well-known control unit ST16, which runs on Android and has a large 7-inch display. The drone weighs 1.890 grams including camera and battery and flies at a maximum speed of 72 km / h.

Tornado H920 Plus for film makers

 

The Yuneec Hexacopter Tornado H920 Plus has a shorter flight time of 20 minutes, but also a far higher maximum of 4,000 meters – the H520 is only 122 meters. The Tornado H920 Plus is designed for videofilms. As a camera, a new model, developed together with Panasonic is used.

The CGO-4 has a triple optical zoom, 16 megapixels and can record videos with a maximum of 4K and 30 fps. It hangs in a three-way gimbal, which can be rotated 360 degrees as in the case of the H520.

Like the H520, the Tornado H920 Plus can be easily used for camera shots thanks to the Curve Cable Cam mode. In this mode, the pilot flies the desired distance before recording, including the desired camera setting. Then the drone controls this route fully automatically and records the video material. The points between the waypoints are interpolated and linked. In addition, there are numerous other flight modes, such as a follow-me function.

Prices not yet known

Also the Tornado H920 Plus comes with the ground station ST16, the maximum airspeed is 70 km / h. The two new Yuneec drones are expected to hit the market in the second quarter of 2017, according to Yuneec.

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