Quite often when people have seen some of the videos we’ve been making the first question is often “What drone do you use?” So here’s a post to answer that very question.
We own a DJI Phantom 3 Advanced, his name is Brian and we love him very dearly. You can purchase the same model at Amazon.uk and Amazon.com, although quite likely the Phantom 4 represents a better purchase these days.
As you can imagine much deliberation went into Brian’s purchase – mostly deciding whether or not to purchase the ‘Standard’ version or ‘Advanced,’ which differ a fair bit in cost. In the end the Advanced won out due to the superior range (5km) and support for GLONASS, the Russian version of GPS. So far, the furthest away I’ve flown him is 1.6km, which was terrifying enough!
We currently have 1 battery, which limits flight times to about 20 minutes before having to faff with recharging. Mostly I find I can get the footage I want at a location in less than 10 minutes. Speaking of recharging, we’re able to charge on the move using our 300W inverter in about an hour.
The one ‘accessory’ I remembered to buy was a set of PolarPro filters. I pretty much keep the ND8 permanently fitted to Brian’s lens which usually gets me semi-close to the ‘ideal’ 180º shutter speed for nice filmic footage. Ideally I’d also be packing an ND16 for sunny days.
To view the real-time video feed and do all the configuration I use my iPhone 5S. The screen is a little bit small and hard to see in sunlight but it does the job.
So that’s everything I’m using drone-wise!
Here’s our video from Mongolia to end with…
Mark, does camera stabilisation come as standard or an extra? What do you use?
Mr Betts! That’s what I like to see – a tech question 🙂
The camera and the 3-axis gimbal are part of the package you buy – they can’t be removed or swapped out (although I’m sure there’s probably people online who have!) As long as the wind isn’t too strong the footage is amazingly stable. So far I haven’t felt the need to add any software stabilisation in ‘post.’
On our drone, you can adjust the pitch of the camera independently of the aircraft, but to perform camera pans you have to use the drone’s yaw control to rotate the ‘craft itself. More expensive models let you control all axes of the camera.
The one thing I’m starting to see recently, now that I’m feeling more and more confident to fly faster, is that the props will sometimes appear in the field of view of the camera. The solution, of course, is to fly slower 🙂 Or crop the video!
Thanks, and love your drone work! Good travels