DJI PHANTOM SERIES/SMALL DRONES
The Phantom series which is on its 4th revision is perfect for web based projects, and lower end productions. There’s also the Mavic, FPV Racers and Cinewhoops.
(PART 4)
5 Essential questions a producer should ask a drone pilot
(before hiring them)
Does the drone operator have the drone your production needs?
Welcome to part 4 of 5: 5 Essential questions a producer should ask a drone pilot. This is the most crucial part of the process, and the part that is the most confusion. And while the latest-greatest drone does not a pilot make, a good pilot can only do so much with his available technology. This is an industry that changes every 6 months to a year, so grab hold of something and read on!
Productions often only know that they want a drone and lump all UAV’s into one category.
What you should be looking for is, a skilled and licensed pilot or crew that has thecorrect camera/drone combination for your production.
Please read this entire blog(s) and hopefully my eight years of being a professional drone pilot will help narrow down your questions. Or if you’re in Southern California, you can contact Dronewrx and we can help you get your production the right drone/pilot for the right price. Our direct number: 323-899-8400 We travel, and have valid passports! Don’t forget that we provide various types of specialty camera, from car-to-car, rail cam, cable cam and regular ‘ol shooting on sticks and editing.
While there are many drones on the market there’s really only 5 or 6 that are commonly used in our industry, and DJI makes most of them. This is one of the most overlooked aspects of the process. So many people just ask for ‘a drone”. That’s like walking into a camera rental house and saying “I want a camera” of course there aren’t THAT many viable choices as there are for cameras, but here are the drones you should consider.
The DJI Phantom Series
The DJI Phantom is the star of the show as its shape has become ubiquitous to drones in general. Everyone has seen a Phantom as it’s practically the official emoji for drones. The Phantom 1 is the drone that started the whole revolution and got many people in the air, including yours truly. For the first time you could buy a drone that you didn’t have to assemble from parts, and it came with it’s own inexpensive controller. This is the era of GoPro’s on Phantoms. There’s a whole back story with GoPro and DJI which ended poorly, and IMHO is partially why GoPro was barely hanging on for a long time. Back then you had to buy a separate gimbal and video transmission system and know how to trouble shoot and work on them. They’ve progressed thru 3 subsequent updates, now up to the Phantom 4 Pro which for many productions is all they need/have a budget for. Now there’s obstacle avoidance (which has caused me more problems then it has solved and most experienced pilots I know don’t use it), a much better camera which is totally controllable from the app, and a higher quality video transmitter that connects to a touch screen tablet or phone. Perhaps the most valuable of all DJI features is being able to adjust all camera settings from the ground. Something to note is, the Phantom 4 Pro is no longer available for new purchase. Apparently they employ a banned chip, and with the trade war they’ve been MIA from the professional market. Including being sued for using another companies obstacle avoidance tech. But I think it goes further than that. DJI’s professional market plateaued a year or two ago, and is now in decline, so now they focus on a multitude of consumer drones and the very popular Ronins. I’ve met many “pilots” who got into the market after Part 107 was introduced who thought just by obtaining a certificate they’d have lots of employers knocking on their door. That of course was a pipedream sold by schools providing Part 107 training. But I digress, the Phantom 4 Pro is a great platform for lower budgeted/web projects. The camera is decent, and it shoots in Log so it’s pretty easy to match with other cameras. A lot of other companies don’t mess with it because it’s a small ticket item, but we embrace that technology. “The right tool for the job, regardless of budget”
FPV-Racers/Cinewhoops
FPV (First Person View) Drones were the new big thing a couple of years ago. Enthusiasts usually dawn goggles so they can see a live video feed through a camera on the drone, and race through a course. The drones are aviailable a range of sizes from something that can fit in your palm to a foot wide and a new one or innovation happens every 5 minutes. Small drones like this can fly between tiny spaces and some go as fast as 100 mph creating exciting shots.
There’s been a newly developed, and very popular niche in this category known as a “CineWhoop” which is specifically for getting extremely up-close and dynamic shots, or flying thru tight spots. These drones are on the smaller size and the propellors have ducts around them making them extremely safe to fly around people. Because of the small size you’re stuck with a GoPro or and there’s no available gimbals so all stabilization happens in post, the most popular software called Reel Steady. We do know of a few operators who are putting larger cameras on custom built racers to get these kinds of shots with more resolution. There’s a very famous CineWhoop video in Venice beach called “Rise and Shine” which was shot on a 250mm quad with a GoPro 4, then reversed and stabilized to give a dramatic effect.
DJI MAVIC
I’m going to give the DJI Mavic honorable mention here. Tho it’s not in the Phantom series, it doesn’t warrant its own category because it’s in the sub 5lb category. There’s only been 2 of them released so far so it’s a sidebar. I consider a Mavic more of a toy that has a couple of cool features that make it useful in a drone operators tool box. It’s whole purpose is to be compact, which is really great for travel, and If this was 3 years ago, the camera would be state of the art. But it isn’t, and things have come a long way. Tho with the Mavic 2 pro they incorporated the Hasselblad camera which is rather respectable and there are a lot of people out there who fly the Mavic as their sole platform. And while DJI advertises that it’s got a 1″ sensor, it only uses 1/2 of that because of heat issues so it line skips to circumvent that. it does shoot in 422 color space if you’ve got the right card. One of the most significant feature of the Mavic 2 Pro is how quiet it is. If being stealth, or not disturbing someone is an issue, this is a great choice. One night we capitalized on this aspect because we were shooting a line outside a club. As is always peoples first impulse is to wave at a drone. The other super cool feature is the built in Hyper-lapse function. I bring The Mavic 2 Pro along on shoots, as both a back up for the Phantom and to grab a hyperlapse. I also bring it on vacation.
The bottom line with all of DJI’s products: The latest releases are state of the art, so if your pilot is trying to sell you their services using outdated equipment it’s a clear indication of an underfunded hobbiest. Know what you need before you start talking.
The DJI Inspire series.
DJI revolutionized the industry with its DJI Inspire thatwas introduced in November of 2014. The way the center of gravity sits lower when it’s in flight mode helps physically stabilize the camera, get it away from the propellors and angles the props in a *dihedral angle” which helps to stabilize. This has been the work horse of the industry since it’s introduction, and what 70-80% of all big productions are shot on. It has the capability to move the camera independently of the drone making follow shots much better, and makes more dynamic shots via a second operator achievable.
There is the original Inspire 1 with X3 camera, which is now actually not even as good as the Phantom 4 Pro, The X5 camera, a micro 4/3 camera that was equivalent to the GH4, the X5R, which shoots a higher bit rate and raw files,
The X5S camera that is available on the Inspire 2 which shoots directly to ProRes – HQ422 & 4444 XQ), DNG and Cinema DNG and has more available frame rates and resolution up to 5.2gb. This was the first camera releases on the I2, and the only time it’s used is for night shots. because of the faster Micro four thirds lenses its a decent night camera. The Inspire 2 has two batteries, two ESC’s (motor speed controllers) and two flight controllers. This all adds up to a much safer bird as almost anything could fail has a back-up.
Since the introduction of the X7 camera in October of 2017 it’s even more the industry standard. The X7 has a super 35 sensor, shoots Pro-Res and DWG fils up to 6.2K and custom carbon fiber lenses. It is known for matching up with the Alexa and Red Cameras very well. It hasn’t made heavy lift drones totally extinct, but the heavy lifters take hours to set-up, they’re cumbersome and in some cases you have to land to change settings. That alone is a huge pain in the ass and time gobbler. The bottom line is they cost 2-3 times more to operate.
Heavy lift drones.
This has always been the big leagues. Lifting a cinema sized camera is no joke and can produce some amazing results, but the cost of failure can be devastating. Crashing a $30K drone with a $100K camera can ruin your whole day! Bare in mind we’re only talking about the most common drones in the article with a couple of notable esoteric heavy lifters for flavor.
DJI Heavy Lift drones
The DJI S900 and S1000 were mainstays for a couple years. The S1000 (which is an Octocopter – 8 arms and motors) could lift heavier cameras somewhat respectably, and was relatively inexpensive. The S900 (a hexacopter 6 arms…) was the replacement for the S800 which perfect for the GH4 and was pretty much considered a camera specific drone. The S900 had great flight characteristics compared to everything else at he time because the arms had a *dihedral angle enabling it to decent faster.
*Here’s your vocabulary lesson for the day, and a way to look like you know what you’re talking about: DIHEDRAL ANGLE where it relates to multirotors: Arms angled slightly upward, angling the motors outward to allow the drone to slip downward thru it’s own column of wind, with less resistance or interference.
Now there’s the Matrice 600 which is a bit enigmatic. It a large frame, needs 6 batteries (which is problematic in of itself as DJI batteries have proprietary chargers which take an hour+ to charge), but isn’t really designed to carry large cameras. DJI shows pictures with it with X4 & X5 cameras on it (which are small) so it doesn’t make sense over an Inspire unless you need 45 minute flight times. The gimbal that it comes with will comfortably carry a Canon 5D, but above that you have to modify it and use a different gimbal. I had an experience with an impatient operator from an Aerial company from Beverly Hills who called me a “Debbie Downer” for pointing out how over-weighted the drone was and the flex of the gimbal and told me “that’s what insurance is for”. IMHO Good piloting requires proper planning, not insurance.
*An interesting side-note Just recently the US government has banned all DJI products on military bases because DJI instituted a policy of having to connect with DJI directly and all flight records are uploaded to DJI’s website so it poses a security risk because it could potentially give the Chinese access to classified information. There’s also been some rumbling in the industry about homeland security banning DJI products if they don’t stop transmitting their data back to China. My hopes are that this will pave the way for an American company to develop something viable as I think healthy competition is good for any industry. But DJI has been the industry leader for years and unless they choose to thumb their nose, at homeland security, or pay us back for the recently imposed tariffs, I’m betting they will make the adjustments to keep the US’s large chunk of their 2.7 BILLION dollar annual revenue.
The DJI Storm is the largest drone, that is built by the largest drone company, and only five exist on the planet.
There’s a drone built by DJI called the Storm, (photo left) which is a monster of a drone! It’s much heavier than the legal limit in country which is 55lbs. There’s only 5 of them ever built and it’s rumored two of them are for sale for $80k each. These bad boys are built to incorporate the Ronin 2 which weighs 12.1 lbs, and have a payload of 40 lbs.
The newest release from Freefly, The Alta X is the world’s toughest drone. It carries huge payloads for impressive flight times while being portable – folds to half its normal size, and easy to use – goes from case to flying in under two minutes.
Freefly Alta family of drones
There’s all the other heavy lift drones, then there’s the FreeFly, the Seattle based outlier in the industry. Currently they offer the Freefly Alta 6 & 8 and the recently released Alta X. Freefly was a pioneer in the heavy lift arena with the Cinestar (that’s our Cinestar from 2013 as the 1st gallery image), and anyone reading this is probably familiar with the Movi electronic stabilizers. Freefly has a soft spot in my heart because they’re the only real American company that makes drones anyone cares about. We also own a MoVI XL and are a boutique Freefly dealer.
The Alta 6 is good for DSLR’s, up to a stripped down RED. But putting anything large on that drone is a bad decision. Last year I on a shoot with a certain “Octocopter-company” that took a “I think it’ll work?” approach and flew an Alta 6 over the ocean. We ended up flying the Inspire because of the Alta’s short flight times and the amount of dust the Alta it kicked up. The wedding that was taking place nearby appreciated the choice the producer made.
But the Alta 8 which has a 2 pound higher carrying capacity sort of made the Alta 6 obsolete. While two pounds doesn’t seem like much, it’s a lot when you’re talking a larger lens or focus control AKA Fizz Control.
The recently release Alta X gives the flight crew the option of flying up to 40 lbs, Of course the more weight you pile on it, the less time it will fly, but Freefly builds a hearty bird that is reliable and has some pretty useful built in features.
Then there’s a handful of smaller companies that have heavy lift drones. Gryphon Dynamics, or Shotover U1, or custom builds by for lifting a Phantom 4K, a 360 ball, or 3D dual-camera rig. But chances are if you’re looking in this category, you probably don’t need to read this article. If you do need this sort of power, we’d be happy to help!
Please don’t hesitate to contact us. We will be happy to help you with all your aerial and dynamic camera shots.
To continue to the final post PART 5 “Do they speak camera?” click here
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