My First Lapse

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I like that a lot…

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Which bird did you use to take it?

@rib71 I used a Mavic Air. It was a very simple Litchi mission - leave waypoint 1 at speed to WP2 (50m). Then come back to WP3 (80m )at 2.5km/h.

Same point of interest throughout withgimbal set for interpolate. Then the video was speeded up by 600% in post.

Very good that. I’ve yet to try a timelapse with my M2P…You’ve spurred me on to give it a whirl.

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I keep reading about this asian fruit software and the benefits, might have to invest, although my bird doesn’t have the time-lapse function!:frowning_face:

Litchi is worth the money.

But timelapse isn’t a function of the aircraft. I simply took a normal video and speeded it up 6 times.

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It does take stills at intervals … every 5 secs, and upward IIRC. They can easily be imported into a video editor to create a time-lapse.
Done that often with Hope and other cameras … not tried, as yet, with the Mavic.

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A couple of days later, returning from seeing G-IRTY come home to Goodwood:

Ah ha! of course, something else I’ll have to have a go of!

But don’t you lose the thrill of flying?

You can use Litchi in the same way as DJI Go and fly ^hands on" (FPV). There is little difference between the two in that respect.

Litchi comes into its own in flight planning. You can use it to create a mission in the warmth of your own home or out in the field. The app is available in IOS and Android flavours and the planner runs in your browser on a desktop allowing you to view things in detail. Position, height, speed and direction can be specified along with the direction and angle the camera is pointing.

Once a mission is created it can be “flown” in Google Earth to check everything is ok or just for fun - I’ve “flown” around Gatwick Airport using Litchi.

It’s not the same as flying with hands on the sticks just as flying with GO4 in GPS mode is not the same as flying a non-FPV camera equipped UAV in manual mode.

But it is a valuable tool for enhamcing your photography.

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I (and others here) now only fly using Litchi :+1:t2:

It just works.

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That’s screaming out for longer exposure and light trails :wink:

So do all the same rules apply? So I’ve seen some videos that seem to show long distances between the start and end, do you still need to have the contact with the controller, or because it’s a pre arranged mission the drone just flies off and does it’s thing and comes back?(provided that’s what you’ve asked it to do)

And there’s pretty much no way one’s manual control of a drone will be as smooth as Litchi for something like that. The slightest twitch stands out like the proverbial.

If you go to https://flylitchi.com/ then you have access to the user manual which will give you are fair understanding of what the software does and also the mission hub which allows you to plan missions in Litchi and export the data as a VLM (Virtual Litchi Mission) to fly in Google Earth in 3D. No cost to you.

You can also discover missions others have recorded and, if they have linked to their video double click to watch. If not virtually fly them in GE

As for signal loss:

  • Signal Lost Behavior for Manual Flying : This defines the behaviour of the aircraft if signal is lost while flying manually, choose between “Hover”, “Landing” or “Return To Home”.

So if you are flying hands on rather than sending the aircraft off to perform a mission you have the choices for actions if signal is lost.

  • Exit Waypoint Mission on Signal Loss : When enabled, waypoint missions will end when signal is lost. When that happens, the drone will then execute the failsafe procedure (which can be changed with the “Signal Lost Behavior for Manual Flying” setting).

When the mission is first started all data is uploaded to the aircraft. I take off manually and upload the mission while the craft is in the hover establishing a RTH point. The aircraft is then capable of flying the entire mission without signal from the controller. Having said that I have the RTH if loss of signal option enabled. It has worked for me on the occasion I had signal loss (suspected interference from the army base in LOS)

  • Smart Return to Home : Enables/disables the Smart Return-To-Home (RTH) feature. When it is enabled, aircraft will request to go home when remaining battery is only enough for completing the go-home action.

I spent a long time looking at the Litchi website before paying out twenty quid for the app - having just spent many multiples of that on my aircraft. I was also helped in my decision by the many videos on You Choob.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=litchi

I’ve just looked at the Airdata for the seconf video in this thread. I didn’t realise how windy it was, having been at Goodwood in fairly calm conditions and seeing a windsock barely moving. The wind had got up:

Very little evidence of the gusting wind in the video or in the stills (1 second at f2.8):

Thanks for this, it’s very useful and gives me some light reading on these dark nights. I’m sure it will help others thinking of making the jump too.

<Arnie voice> I'll be back! </Arnie voice>

One second exposure. Would love light trails in video but not sure how to achieve it as slow frame rate will lead to excessive speeding up on playback. So I’ll have to play anytime I’m passing and the weather is half decent :slight_smile: