Not a thing I’d considered until the evening before last when I was getting some footage down at Cardiff Bay. Landed on a gravelly bit of ground and kicked up some dust, cinematically cool but not what I wanted anywhere near my lens or gimbal. The gimbal is something I am in awe of, an amazingly delicate and complex 3-axis arrangement of rods, bearings, cams, shafts & gubbins that looks as if it could be destroyed by looking too hard at it. When I got home, I gave the area a bit of a suck with a usb vacuum cleaner actually designed for my computer keyboard, but I though it would be good for removing any particles from the gimbal area. I wiped the lens over with a soft cloth and gave the louvres in the bottom of the drone’s body a suck as well.
There is a fair bit of particulate matter in the atmosphere; dust, pollen, bits of wind-blown plant debris, seeds, small flying insects, bird feather debris and such, oil and rubber particulate over motorways, brake block dust near railways, cement dust around building sites, never mind industrial pollution.
Probably not a good idea to let it accumulate around your delicate gimbal where it’ll gum up movable bits, or inside the drone body where, if it gets damp, it will potentially play havoc with circuit boards and connections. An occasional sucking should prevent any of this, or after flying through a dust cloud or swarm of gnats.
Lenses are easy to clean, and if you are worried about them, put a UV or polarising filter on; this can be taken off and cleaned a bit more vigorously.
I bought one of these little puffy blower things off Amazon to puff out any dust or debri should I see any, especially if I’m going to wipe the lense I give it a good puff first just incase anything that might scratch it, failing that or in & around the gimbal I also have a can of air for any stubborn bits but I wouldn’t or don’t use it on the lense.
I have a few of those.
Every time I need to buy lens and sensor wipes / cleaners it’s nearly as cheap to buy a full kit which comes with brushes, puffers etc etc etc ( in the accent of Yule Brinner )
If kicking up dust and debris is an issue a mat is a good accessory.
As regards lens cleaning.
Lens pen
And a camera cleaning kit from wex, or amazon etc
Crikey, Ikopta! Used to watch his interesting YouTube posts from 2017 after I bought the original Mavic Pro. But as for him being a “shit actor” as “Iceman” claimed I don’t agree. I always thought his posts polished & watchable and always wondered why he suddenly disappeared from YouTube. If the likes of Vinnie Jones could make it, why not Dylan Baldwin?
I bought one when I started drone flying 3 yrs ago. I used it twice since! Pain in the proverbial for me so I learnt to hand launch and catch pretty quick (not hard TBH). No terrain is an issue anymore!
I also never launch my drones without an ND filter even at night. I have a full set and 90% of the time switch between ND16 and 32. Lowest one is ND8 and I’ve used the ND1000 a couple of times for waterfalls.
They stop the crap from getting at the lens in the 1st place… in my experience anyway.
I’ve a polariser on order, which will serve the same purpose; clearly it is easier to protect your lens with something that can be removed for the sort of vigorous cleaning that is not possible for a main lens mounted on a complex and fragile gimbal, and there are photographic benefits as well.
I still think the usb vacuum is a good idea to remove crud from the gimbal area and inside the drone body generally, though. It is becoming part of my post-flight routine, needed or not, that way the crud doesn’t get a chance to build up and enables you to make a close visual inspection of the drone at the same time, also good airmamlike practice. Close sucking around the gimbal but don’t touch anything, and then the vents and inside the battery compartment should keep the gubbins pristine!
I’ve also leared to hand launch and retrieve. A good general principle with all aircraft is to keep them away from the ground as much as possible, ground is bad, m’kay…
