OK - “Zip Wire mode” may not be an official Litchi setting name … but it’s what I’ve seen it referred to, and now think of it myself, when only the route is defined.
Speed (zero), Tilt and Camera heading (both manual) are all controlled by you.
Ideal for this kind of scenario. You’d have to be clever to know exactly when the train would appear and how fast it would be moving to be able to start the mission and sit back and wait for everything to happen … when you’re 300m from the track, too.
I flew out to near the first waypoint, started the mission, flew “forwards” until just past the first waypoint and was “engaged” onto the path … then hovered and waited a few minutes for the (hourly) train.
This was my 2nd run of the mission I’d set up - and there was also an initial “dummy-run” … totally manual with the path displayed, so I could double check heights of trees, height of the track (I was located quite a bit lower than the track at take off), etc.
Whilst one can set height above the ground … not sure Google data
is accurate to the detail of “an embankment” to rely upon it without checking.
I think something (Litchi?) may have reset my reduced yaw and gimbal pitch sensitivity … I must check … but other than that I’m linking the great repeatability (albeit tweaked a little after the dummy-run.
The first run using the mission (running in reverse) was OK, but the track’s downhill in that direction and the train didn’t chuff enough! LOL!
Straight from the MP … just clipped start and end boring bits. (Yup - I left the LARGE boring bit in the middle! ) Not playing with editing on this … it’s purely Litchi (nerves) training.
Yup - pleased with that. Mind, the shot from side of the cutting, and then 3 (in total - one a test run no footage - concentrating on the mission settings) … and an hourly train (!!!) means I was there 5 hours … including just missing an earlier one and planning.
I’d be giving up on Litchi if I wasn’t getting better! LOL!
Impressive I got litchi recently myself
Do you edit in phone,on tablet, before visiting site or just on site
I’m going down Norfolk for the weekend and hoping to get a lot of the treasure hunt ticked off plus use litchi any help Dave would be appreciated
Still a tad new to it myself.
I usually sketch out my mission on the laptop at home … but it’s difficult to anticipate power-lines and trees. Google’s satellite imagery only goes so far.
Things one can make sure are as you need them are the mission settings.
Then it’s a case of tweaking, as needed, when I get to site.
With this one, you can’t really anticipate how far you need to be from the track to see enough of the train, or as much as you want. My home sketch was twice as far away as I ended up.
It’s annoying, I find, that some web functions are not replicated in the app. The “move mission” is one I could have used today to halve that distance, rather than move one waypoint at a time. (Only three in this one, but the “move” would have been easier.)
The other, bigger, pre-planning conundrum is heights to use. This one was tricky - sloping land between me and track, embankment, trees, etc.
At home I’d set them to 30m ato … where I launched I did a manual flight straight up to 30m and had a look around. It was obvious I was too low.
Back down, change to 50m, then fly manually with the waypoint display to check locations and any trees. I had to move the southwestern waypoint because of the trees. (High enough - but nothing to see if I was any closer - wanted the train emerging from the trees.)
“Trusting Litchi” is really "trusting yourself to get the settings right. The app seems to do exactly as instructed every time.
Really paid off and shows the planning needed to get these type of shots. Really interested in trying Litchi but think I will stay with DJI Go app until I can do more of the camera moves instinctively. Great work @OzoneVibe
I’m beginning to feel a drop in workload even using half the level of automation Litchi can give.
Once the route was checked for height/track, that was then something I could forget about, and (try to) improve pan/tilt.
It’s an interesting migration for full manual.
Do like I did. Find a large sports field and get used to letting it do more and more.
I even had it going alternately over/under rugby post bars in a 40wp mission. LOL! No video/pics to distract. Watch every move and check it’s what you expect. Set the speed slow so you have time to kill the mission (End/Pause/Sport Mode). There was always one or two totally wrong the first few times.
On the course for PfCO I did one of the trainers showed us a video for a private school he did for promotional work using quite a few panning shots with litchi which I would struggle to be able to do in manual
Hence me asking
Another vid I posted today (Challenge - Sandy Beach) was fully automatic … only 3 WPs, 2 POIs …. but SO smooth.
I posted again, sped up 2.5x, in Videos. That version shows just how smooth it can be. If there were my usual manual twitches, they would show up easily.
) Not playing with editing on this … it’s purely Litchi (nerves) training.
