Little wobble

Hi all!

Just noticed with my mavic air, when playing back crane shots I get a little horizontal movement. I’m guessing it might be wind buffering but I would have thought the gimbal would have sorted that - you can see it on the crane shots here -

Is this normal or do I need to calibrate something? (Maybe my thumbs?)

I’m not using any filters other that the supplied UV one, and I wasn’t shooting in slow mo, I was just moving the drone very slowly.

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Firstly - nice video, well shot, nice simple edit, perfect music selection!

OK - been thru it three times ….
As to the horizontal movement? I’ve not spotted it. At about what time-mark is it?

I can’t see any wobbles.

Cheers guys it’s as I crane down looking at the lock watch the flag pole

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OK - I see it - just.

Almost impossible to determine what the cause was - but possibly a slow descent into your own prop-wash cause a brief resonance.

That’s all I can think.

I read that originally, looked at the vid, and thought “Wind? Where?” on an obviously dead calm day. :wink:

Yes. I’m always mindful of bringing the drone straight down . I try to add some horizontal movement on descents.

There was a little wind that day,. I have noticed it on accents too so I’m wondering if the craft is being buffered by the wind me and the gimbal is in fact doing it’s best to counteract that, or my thumb is moving so very slightly left and right without me noticing at the time. I could try slo mo but I can’t do that in 4k, or is there a way to program a crane shot so im not touching the sticks?

I was thinking using Litchi might work … but I’m not certain it does in the vertical plane. There’s no setting for climb/descent rates - so probably not - and a quick virtual test seemed to confirm that.

I’ll contact them and let you know what they reply.
Funnily - this might be what went wrong with one of mine some months back and could never see why.

I think you’re being unduly harsh on yourself there. Virtually nobody else can see it until you point it out.

It’s a gorgeous video. Well shot, and the reflections of those autumn colours in the river are beautiful.

Music choice is good. You made me laugh though - I used that track for a bike ride over the Golden Gate Bridge, but I think it works better for your video.

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Ah thanks mate I really appreciate that. It’s only my second attempt at editing something together. I just wanted to get to the bottom of the wobble - if it’s a technical fault I’ll get it fixed - but if it’s a pilot error I’ll get more practice! :rofl:

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Hi @trstudio - Whilst I’ve not tested myself - it would appear that Litchi does indeed perform exactly what you need via a waypoint mission.

I’m interested to get out and double check this myself, and will let you know (and perhaps post proof) when I have.

Really a great video – and great music with it! Nice work -

Cheers mate!

Brilliant! I’ll have a look at that thanks. I did try yesterday with 120fps which although looked really smooth, the lower bandwidth really showed with the subject matter. I think you have to choose carefully where you use that frame rate so it doesn’t show.

Hi Rob,

To give you an idea - here’s a very simple visualisation you can open in Google Earth.

Litchi Mission.zip (1.3 KB)

When you open it in GE … double click on the video-camera icon to play the visualisation.

Capture


Initially you’ll see a couple of POI @ 1m and 35m above the ground. Imagine these are the bottom and top of your flagpole.

When you double click on the video camera, it will go to a starting point 5m above the deck, focused on the lower POI.
It then moves forwards staying @ 5m - but adjusting the “gimbal” to maintain focus on the lower POI.
When it reaches a waypoint closer to the POI, it starts to rise to a point immediately above @ 50m, and as it does so it gradually adjusts the gimbal to be focusing on the top POI when it reaches 50m … and then it flies off to the right whilst maintaining focus on the top POI.

Weather permitting, I’ll get out and actually fly this and post the video… although forgive me if I don’t erect a 35m high flagpole. :wink: (I may try and use the rugby posts that are in that field. Google Earth can’t be trusted for them. :rofl:)

I also set the speed pretty low when you play it (you can speed up in GE), and I need to get used to thinking vertical speeds to set it in the mission … but it is all adjustable.

Edit: Here’s an impression of the waypoints, path and POI.

(The points at which it changes directions can be curves to smooth it out.)

Hiya!

Looks good - so I can do this in Litchi? I’ve been looking into it and it does seem the biz and it’s compatible with the Air. Is it as reliable as DJI Go 4 in everyday use?

Thanks for your help with this - really appreciated :smiley:

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So far, it’s never let me down, and always carried out my instructions to the letter.

Getting them instructions spot-on is probably the tricky learning curve part.

If you’re on Windows, there’s an app to create those visualisations and check out it’s doing what you want.
(There’s a Chrome plugin version that works on Mac, but it wasn’t liking vertical movement.)

Setting up the missions CAN be done on a phone/tablet … but there are useful extra tools in the web UI (moving missions, re-sizing, rotating, etc) that I find invaluable … as in set up a mission somewhere, create a copy by moving it to that field, resizing/rotating to fit, and then run it there to check it’s doing the right moves … before driving 50 miles to find there’s a problem.
For that, I do tend to take my laptop with me for something more complicated, since I can hook that up to the internet and use it to tweak if needed.
Editing, and even creating, can be done on the tablet/phone … but the larger screen (and warmer environment often) make the laptop easier to use.

On location, you can fly to points, set up headings. gimbal angles, and create waypoints as you fly, and then use these as your mission. That works well, if you have enough time/batteries/etc.

There are quite a few “How to” vids in YT, too.

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The video in the linked post was created in a couple of minutes … 2 POIs and 3 Waypioints.
The MP was off over the water doing it’s own thing (and came back!).

The video is actually sped up, too … when changes of heading/gimbal would usually get accentuated … and everything is smooth … even though it was pretty windy!

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Nice! :smiley:
Are the waypoint instructions sent in real-time from the remote requiring a good signal or are they stored on the drone itself?