Gopro Karma drone

[jtatexc]

I have flown the Mavic several times now and it is so easy to fly it is almost cheating. I finally get to take it to the lake this weekend. No boating but get to fly open and try it over the water. As long as it doesn't try to go swimming it should all go well.

Awesome to hear. A grand is a lot for me but this has me so intrigued. I may be getting one here soon. I am really curious to see how the follow me feature works with surfing

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[5:00]

You and me both on the tracking. I have only flown in manual mode and pointing the camera myself to be ready if something goes wrong. I will try out some of the auto features this weekend. I will post if I get anything good but I am still learning the camera. Glad to have it way ahead of the season to learn.
Agreed it is a lot but I am hoping to get a lot out of it.

[jtatexc]

You and me both on the tracking. I have only flown in manual mode and pointing the camera myself to be ready if something goes wrong. I will try out some of the auto features this weekend. I will post if I get anything good but I am still learning the camera. Glad to have it way ahead of the season to learn.
Agreed it is a lot but I am hoping to get a lot out of it.

I have a bit of tax return money left that is burning a hole in my pocket. How long is the life of the battery? 20 minutes like the others? Did you buy an extra battery and if so how much was it?

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[5:00]

Looking at my flight record my longest non stop flight was 23 minutes. At the time I had the controller set to warn me at 20% battery and at 10% battery to do an auto land. It seemed to do it a little early and landed with 10% left on the battery. I would say you could probably get the 27 minutes out of it depending on wind and how you fly. That was constant flight, lots of throttle with very little hovering and not much wind on a day that was about 60F. I have managed to put 18 miles on it flying around a baseball field LOL.
Now I have my warning lower so I can fly longer. Once I fly further I will bump that up to keep out of danger.

I got the Fly More Combo but now wishing I didn't. You save money but only enough to almost get the too small bag that's included. It is basically a field bag band you can't fit everything into it. The rest of the stuff I just leave at home like chargers and so on.

I have a total of three batteries that came with the kit and I plan on buying another one or two when boating season rolls around. I think they are $89 each so not cheap. I will bring the charger on the boat so that should keep me in batteries for the day pretty well. Its about four hours to charge with the slow charge hub that came with it. They have a faster hub and the Phantom 4 charger that charges four batteries in just over two hours. I would go for that if I had to do it over again. The advance charge hubs are hard to find right now but that will change. On the other hand slow charging is better for the batteries. I may get the faster charger and use only when needed.

If have haven't already go on the DJI forum to the Mavic and start reading and learning but that will make you want to get one. See if it is right for you. I was on that site for about four months before I got the Mavic. You will see some people who have lost control, crashed, had flyaways but MOST all of them didn't read the manual and just launched it or some other pilot error. I am all for not reading manuals but when $900 is flying through the air over water I am reading the manual. They don't float as well as a Moomba.

[jtatexc]

Looking at my flight record my longest non stop flight was 23 minutes. At the time I had the controller set to warn me at 20% battery and at 10% battery to do an auto land. It seemed to do it a little early and landed with 10% left on the battery. I would say you could probably get the 27 minutes out of it depending on wind and how you fly. That was constant flight, lots of throttle with very little hovering and not much wind on a day that was about 60F. I have managed to put 18 miles on it flying around a baseball field LOL.
Now I have my warning lower so I can fly longer. Once I fly further I will bump that up to keep out of danger.

I got the Fly More Combo but now wishing I didn't. You save money but only enough to almost get the too small bag that's included. It is basically a field bag band you can't fit everything into it. The rest of the stuff I just leave at home like chargers and so on.

I have a total of three batteries that came with the kit and I plan on buying another one or two when boating season rolls around. I think they are $89 each so not cheap. I will bring the charger on the boat so that should keep me in batteries for the day pretty well. Its about four hours to charge with the slow charge hub that came with it. They have a faster hub and the Phantom 4 charger that charges four batteries in just over two hours. I would go for that if I had to do it over again. The advance charge hubs are hard to find right now but that will change. On the other hand slow charging is better for the batteries. I may get the faster charger and use only when needed.

If have haven't already go on the DJI forum to the Mavic and start reading and learning but that will make you want to get one. See if it is right for you. I was on that site for about four months before I got the Mavic. You will see some people who have lost control, crashed, had flyaways but MOST all of them didn't read the manual and just launched it or some other pilot error. I am all for not reading manuals but when $900 is flying through the air over water I am reading the manual. They don't float as well as a Moomba.

That is a good point, I will check out the forum and see what people are saying. I would definitely be the dumbass to have it fly away so I should look further into that. Thanks for the battery info, that is what I needed. I was thinking more of the regular model and not the combo so that helps too. Thanks!

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[wolfeman131]

They don't float as well as a Moomba.

I'm bummed the lily camera never made it to market. I haven't looked, but has anyone on the Mavic forum figured any way to make it float?

[5:00]

I'm bummed the lily camera never made it to market. I haven't looked, but has anyone on the Mavic forum figured any way to make it float?

I am with you on that. I think the Mavic would have been better in the end but waterproof and floating would be a good place to be. DJI just announced an IP64 drone which basically means you can put it in a dishwasher but still can't submerge it. That one will probably go for around $3-5K on the low end but no one really knows yet. Too rich for me.

There are some float solutions but they look kind of iffy to me. The one I have seen for sale is basically about a 4" ball on each arm. It looks top heavy to me and the wind would really push it around. I think the floats would need to be flatter, even cutting the balls in half and flat part down.

You can get their Care Refresh. They will replace it for you at a small cost for two times if crashed or in water. You have to get it out of the water though and send it back. Some people are adding fishing rod floats that activate under water. I was just thinking to put piece of shaped foam over the top of the fuselage. The Mavic would be dunked but recoverable.

Floats are going to change the flying characteristics way too much so I am leaving them off but that is just me.
I got some not so good video this weekend and will post later. It was really windy and somewhat overcast. A huge storm was coming in so I was not taking my time with the flight.

[5:00]

That is a good point, I will check out the forum and see what people are saying. I would definitely be the dumbass to have it fly away so I should look further into that. Thanks for the battery info, that is what I needed. I was thinking more of the regular model and not the combo so that helps too. Thanks!

I was plenty nervous for my first flight. Nice large field with no one around. I read the manual twice then went over specific questions via searches and just read a ton. Learn from my mistake, don't get the combo. You will still save money but will still need a bag. There are a ton of different styles that people have tried and reviewed. I am thinking a backpack type maybe. I also got form fitting semi rigid cases for the RC and the Mavic. I can just throw them in a regular pack with no issues.

[5:00]

It isn't great video but I said I would post it. Here is what I recorded this weekend on the Mavic Pro. Everything you see here is default settings and basically unmolested. No Photoshop although they are a bit dark but other than the XLV pic that looks pretty cool.
It was really windy and a bit overcast that day as you can see on one of the trees. A big storm was coming and I probably shouldn't have been out there due to high winds. It does show how stable the gimball is except for the take off by the boat. The wind was really cranking.

The only setting I changed on the video was to lock in the white balance. If I didn't there would be no contrast in the clouds especially when pointing toward the sun. I did the flying very quickly so the pans are way too fast (sorry) and some of it is jerky. I had no lens filter (but needed it), no color grading etc. There are gain settings for the sticks and for the gimball plus cinematic mode that can really make it look professional but I didn't use any of these plus it was in sport (fast) mode.

I ran the video through a coder ONLY to bring the video resolution down from 4K to 2K 1080p). YouTube claims to work with 4k and maybe they do but not on my system. You can still see some compression issues now but it is much better than the 4k. The best place to see it is probably in YouTube and at 1080p at full screen. Worked for me anyway. I am still figuring all of this out as this is my first posting of a video. I have just been learning the flying so far.

This needs to be played in YouTube directly. Too much compression going on here. It is REALLY dark. I have a lot to learn about the settings so that is my fault.


VERY old shed. This property was first used in the 1700's. The shed isn't that old but was told it wasn't a lot newer. It has been restored several times.


View North up the 17 mile long lake. It's about 1 mile to the other side.


The white house with the red roof belonged to Thomas Jefferson's sister and was built in 1725. He did visit the house. The shed used to be part of that property. The house is selling for $459,900 if anyone is interested LOL.


You know what this is.

[5:00]

Looks like the downgrade to 1080p caused the dark video. This one is a bit better. 40MPH quick flight.
Got rid of all of the other issues also.