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Aerial Photo Q&A

All right so guys in our studio audience simply a question grab mike please here we go question right here over here I was curious so do you put it on infinity mode so that you're getting every shot that you want in focus focus some folks were asking about the question you have to stop what I do how do you do you how do you do that uh what I what idea it is uh this I got this can't I normally shoot nikon uh so I had to buy this camera for the copter because it's the only camera that fits in a gamble so it has a twenty four mil ends on a twenty four millimeter lens and what you do is um if you if you rotate the focus ring all the way to the stop it's really past infinity so it's a little out of focus so you have to find true infinity by experimentation and then once I found the exact point where there's your fully one hundred percent sharpen infinity I just took electrician's tape and tape the focus ring down so it can't move so I'm focused at infinity yeah okay let's go ahead and you d...

o that way have any other other questions here? Oh yeah can't I do what I can if they're not hardware related I know so okay all right wait till he comes back from this get back into our chat room that you can do kind of a rapid fire all right okay I don't know if you you have an answer to this one but uh how often should we update our firm where I've never done it because I was told it was very complicated have you had to do that well yeah I updated it but I think it's good tio it's like anything that you say when their software or anything else it's it's important to not try to be the first one to do it because you know sometimes they released the stuff and it's like oh wait wait wait no there's bugs in it and you're gonna crash um that happens uh that happens from time to time to um I think it's important this again is why I suppress community get him excuse a plugged into community online get into those the chat rooms gettinto some of the social networking sites and ask questions you know people hey has anybody updated I've got x y z has anybody updated this firm where yet are there any known issues and that's the best way to find out yeah no don't do it or yes it'll correct these problems and that's the best way to get those answers because it really depends on what you're trying to update so yeah have you ever used a flight simulator for these and do you know we have people asking about that earlier? There's uh is that advised before you get out there but I only played with one once but I I don't know that that's going to give you the exact same feel on the sticks uh there there may be a better answer out there if there is something that's really amazing and fantastic and very true form uh I think you're better off again like colin mentioned get in an expensive copter getting used one get something that is going to allow you to practise riel hands on sticks control like I said even if the top of the show even that little hobson that's like fifty bucks yeah it's pretty cheaper than buying a sim you know fly that around, you know, in your yard in your house and your garage whatever just do you get a feel for that orientation in all of that? And and similarly a question from helena, how long were you practicing out in an open area like we are now or would you advise before sort of going into areas where you're where you're getting more complicated? I'm always practicing. Yeah, well, I just I I still because I still want to, especially when I trying a new craft out I want to get that out in the open till I really get a feel for it cause they all fly a little different as you've seen yeah, they they all hand a little different if there's wind if there's obstacles uh those are all things you have to manage I wouldn't take a copter that I wasn't really familiar with and try to like flight through the trees here or do anything like that because I wouldn't you know I wouldn't know how it would respond necessarily until I really got a feel for it until I got my skills up to it so I think it's practice practice makes perfect on all of this and question from I am what if you're in sort of like a jungle or like how dense oven area are you comfortable flying in just above the tree line wait well uh colin gwyn would probably be really well to fly in between the science and he's got uh he's got the chops for it so there's there's two levels their comfort level yeah right I'm still a little bit conservative because I am one of those guys with the green blades I have I've done a little tree trimming a little hedge trimming my life my time yet for sure here sure go for conditions way did fly a little bit in the mist is there a problem with rain and then heat you know how hot and then cold I guess you have yeah there was some others battery issues there's also you know electronics because these are electronic devices and them or exposed they are obviously the more susceptible they are toe water damage things like that I do know that uh romeo and mark were just flying out in vegas a couple of weeks ago and they said that the air was just so crazy because of elevation in the heat they had a really hard time with lift it was almost like you know the craft weighed ten pounds more uh so yeah heat heat and air conditions can affect you as well of course wind doesn't matter if the wind is hot or cold uh there there may be you know those issues to battle with moisture is enemy of electronics regardless of where we are yeah maybe for a short flight or something a little more self contained I've got a friend that just built a knock knock helicopter and he's still testing it it's actually one that can land on water and then take back off again and that's pretty pretty amazing I'll probably once he gets it up flying I'll probably share on the facebook channel so that's another reason why next day yeah yeah that's right stay connected to that drone workshop on facebook because I'm gonna give you updates all that cool stuff drone workshop that us that's right well yeah okay. I'm not sure about this question from gustavo em ex uh what's your opinion on audio down lee from the copter affordable okay, let me hurry you hear how loud it is from here right imagine the microphone you know inches away from those props you're not gonna hear anything and that's why even the gopro shots I do the first thing to do is kill the audio track because it's just it's insane awesome way said alright battery trees all right matters changed now your batteries you were showing those twins yesterday as we were setting up there like forex really you want me to grab one way because yeah that's that's really really true is very different than what we stick in argo frozen are yeah I'm curious about the weight lawyer forget if he said the weight load that that this can carry um I'm going to ask him that cause I'm not even really sure with the batteries what is the compatible week capacity this thing will take off ability is phil gramm's or twenty two pounds okay and so bad I don't think of how much of that a couple pounds of pee there at least a couple I mean they're really having you know they truly are bricks you know yeah so they're they're lithium polymer batteries which is what all these things use life owes and even the charging of these things is kind of a really long involved probably yes it's not long they actually charge up pretty quickly less than an hour really to a home it wants killer charger yeah two of them once in about fifty to fifty five minutes wow that's that's really oppressive? Yeah wow, but the charger is you know, there's two pieces to it right? Each one is like, you know this big so yeah ok, well on this second battery, why don't we talk about, um some of the other mechanisms we can use to get really good shots? One of them is, um is course lock which is a little harder to wrap your head around. Let me talk about before we get the copter right here so let's just say and this is a hypothetical but let's just say, for whatever reason way wanted to go along and get a nice continuous video of these palm's okay, okay, well, if you face the copter this direction, then what do you do with the camera? Well, you khun rotated around, right? But you you might if you move your copter a little bit, you might start to waver. Okay, so coarse lock is like setting an imaginary checkerboard grid or chessboard grid on the ground and the orientation of that grid is this direction is for what let's just say we set the checkerboard down so that the orientation of the grids air this direction in this direction, right? So this direction will be forward regardless of which direction the copters facing, regardless of whether it's rotating ten miles an hour, you you push forward on the stick it goes that direction you pushed back it comes back left it goes left right? It goes right regardless of the orientation of the craft all right, so as a result weakened waken set the camera to point that direction set it on course lock and then you let the software basically, um make sure we get a nice straight shot s o another another way to think of this is if you have a commercial operation and you want to survey a rose of crops, stay with an infrared sensor and find anomalies sure. Um so you can just set this on a grid yeah, and just sweep the grid and so it works really well that way so let's see if we can demonstrate that in the air wait question before we go up this from, uh someone in the harem user name of someone way talked about about focus uh but what about your exposure settings aperture shutter speed I can those be compensated live or do you have to have everything set before you take off what happens when you're shifting? Excuse me? It's a great question. Um, right now uh the way it's set up is that you set all those things ahead of time so you set your eyes over, you set your I said it for, um shutter priority I said I said it when I'm doing video, I set it for one sixtieth of a second, which is an even multiple of the thirty frames a second we're expecting teo to get the video back a kid and that that keeps the rolling shutter and things like that to a minimum, um and sixteen and a twenty four millimeter lin, sixty one sixteenth of his second is usually going to stop motion. Now, if I if I'm going up just to do stills and no video, then I'll ahead of time I'll set the shutter speed to a five hundredth of a second, and then I then I simply let the aperture the light meter internal light meter adjust the aperture accordingly because clearly the exposure's air different yeah, different replaces that you're pointing. Thank you. Okay, so, uh, thinking about what we're doing so I've got all my switches in the right place. Usually I notice you labeled yours that's really smart. I've got to start doing that because I've got all these different craft and I've got different trance trance for her that's like okay, now see, I'm on this one, this one, this one, I think it's really smart, yeah, be able teo, label what you're what you got there uh, so we've got this is the fail safe, that mode of the gimbal, the gimbal mode. This is the intelligent orientation control, and then you've got your pan and your tilled control on the left and right sides. And so, yeah, it takes a while to get used to it all because you got a lot. You're juggling. A lot of things in typical thing. I do is actually hit one of these. These little levers that, yeah, hit the pan or the tilt, and then I have to readjust that. That was a little more. You use it, the more I write better fingers.