In a previous post, I put video up from my attempt at a cheap HD camera quad. I was using a WLtoys v959 quad as the airframe, and an Emerson Action Cam GoPro knock-off as the camera. It worked, but with terrible jello effect on the video. I finally bought an 808 #16 keychain camera with a D wide angle lens from MassiveRC after reading some good reviews, and seeing some great video. However, when it arrived, my quad was down thanks to a crash...argh!
So, I waited for my spare parts, and some better props from GWS. Long story short, all the parts came together this past weekend, but holiday plans, and work obligations over the last several days kept me from flying until today. It was worth the wait! In winds which, honestly, I probably should have not been flying in, the new props allowed the quad to handle beautifully! Some quick balancing of the props before the flight also meant I had relatively jello free video. In fact, a quick flight indoors after my high-wind adventure revealed the breeze to be a major culprit in shakiness of the video, as it was dolly smooth. Not too surprising considering how light this quad is, and given 8mph steady winds, with a recorded gust up to 14mph during the flight. In fact, it was the 14mph gust which drove me back into the house. After a rebuild this last weekend, the last thing I wanted to do was rebuild again this weekend.
Hopefully a better flying day will come around soon, and by then I will have the camera settings and the mounting system tweaked to provide some great cheap HD aerial video!
Comments
it is quite an omnipresent being inst it.
There is nothing wrong with being cautious - it seems all of the worst crashes I have had have been the "nah its fine one more flight" type of thing. Now on my large AV quad I rarely do a consecutive flight without a full preflight of just about everything- but that's what happens when you have a quad with a 600$ camcorder on it. I hate to imagine what people who fly 1000$ plus cameras around must go through.
On the funny unrelated car stories note one of my friends has an old passat we call "nemo" because its right mirror is horribly undersized.
The right rear door also doesnt open and he swears it wasnt in an accident...
Funny story, unrelated...A coworker with a 2005 BMW Z3 came back from his lunch break once and apologized for parking to close to my car and scratching it when he opened his door. I laughed and asked which scratch would that be, out of the three or four on the same door.
Neil, the Tube is so ubiquitous, it is hard not to put stuff up there though. You should see how it botched many of my 60fps shots from the stock standard definition camera which came with this quad. I pre-process everything before posting now.
As far as flying over water, I think the biggest fear is a total loss from it being at an unreachable depth. I agree, shallows, and small bodies of water are no less dangerous to the quad than a drop from altitude. Then again, I am overly cautious. I would never buy a sports car to drive, because I would likely never drive it for fear of dinging it up. My 10 year old Saturn does what I need it to do.
@HeliStorm
Yeah, youtube does a lot of compression on your already compressed video. By the time your done its been encoded and compressed twice or maybe three times even - assuming you edited it.
Honestly though I dont know why everyone gets so worked up about flying over water. If you have enough faith in your quad to load it with HD cameras and whatnot then I dont see a reason to doubt its ability to stay aloft over bodies of water. Obviously I understand the fear of something like the deep portions of a lake wherein your copter would be more or less gone forever, but some smaller pond or the shore of a lake or something - dont really get it.
Of course I would attach a streamer with a buoy on it to the top of the copter so that in the event of something horrible you can find the bloody thing.
Also, YouTube lacks something to be desired, even in HD. This video looks significantly better fed from my laptop to my HDTV. There is just a bit of fuzziness in this video not present in 52 inches of HD glory.
Ted, I don't think you could go wrong for the price. It is NOT a GoPro, but it is also nowhere near as expensive as a GoPro. Check this out for a very simple, cheap, waterproof case for the 808. I have thought about making something similar for flying over water.
I've been eyeing the 808 for flight over water..just can't risk a $300 GoPro.
I hate to say, but there are some pretty good HD video cameras which are priced to be all but disposable these days. Not that I intend to dispose of them so quickly, mind you, but I have a couple projects in mind where a camera and quad could likely be sacrificed in the process, so cheap is good! I have another less expensive quad coming, clocking in at less than $40 BNF, and a couple standard def keychain cams at just under $10. These will likely be my sacrificial lambs.
Thanks for sharing this! I always love buying and testing out cheap HD Cameras and I might have to add this Cam to my list!