Drone suggestion

[japody]

Y'all have posted a lot of useful info and have me leaning toward the Mavic mini. One question (remember I'm new at this) - I'll be using it in an area far off the beaten path. I saw that the Mini uses Wi-fi. Does that mean that it has to have Wi-fi connection with a tower or does it communicate directly with the controller? Also, someone mentioned getting quieter props. Are they readily available?

Thanks again.

 

[bunyip]

You won't need a tower, it communicates with the controller and looking at the specs it has a range of 2.5km CLEAR AND UNOBSTRUCTED!!!, I imagine that if it loses contact it would automatically RTH or you could programme it to do that.
Most of the DJI's have the quiet props now.
I see it is 2.7K resolution, obviously not as good as 4K but most likely adequate, mine is 4K but unless you have a 4K TV it won't matter that much.
As I am trying very hard to buy a new Kubota M5100 (old stock runout) I won't be rushing out to buy a new drone just yet but I wish you well with your quest.

 

[japody]

You won't need a tower, it communicates with the controller and looking at the specs it has a range of 2.5km CLEAR AND UNOBSTRUCTED!!!, I imagine that if it loses contact it would automatically RTH or you could programme it to do that.
Most of the DJI's have the quiet props now.
I see it is 2.7K resolution, obviously not as good as 4K but most likely adequate, mine is 4K but unless you have a 4K TV it won't matter that much.
As I am trying very hard to buy a new Kubota M5100 (old stock runout) I won't be rushing out to buy a new drone just yet but I wish you well with your quest.

That's good news. The most range I'll be using it for will be 300 - 400 yards.

 

[cqaigy2]

I like the high wind warning. I almost lost one of my drones to that. I'm not sure how high it was, but looking at some of these videos and pictures, im guessing maybe as high as 200 feet. To me, on the ground, it was a tiny whitish square, and looked to be getting smaller, very fast, and moving to the south. I tried to figure out which way was front, or at least see if i could make it move toward me, i turned the throttle down all the way and it just kept getting smaller. I finally hit the cut off switch, as it was going out of sight. I thought crud, not exact phrase, there goes camera and drone, but i hopped into the subaru, started down the drive, and out to dirt road, toward the main road. Went a bit and as i came up to my nearest neighbors, i saw them both standing off to the side of their drive way, looking on the ground. His wife reaches down, and picks up my drone, led lights flashing!

Drone needed a bit of repair and the neighbors and i had quite the laugh over it, once i convinced them it was mine, and nobody was casing their house to rob it. The video was pretty interesting to watch, and you could hear the wind come up and drown out the sound of the props.

 

[rswyan]

You are welcome. I enjoy doing it.

Yeah ... it looks like it would be a gas ... :thumbsup:

 

[ovrszd]

Or a long arm
I've had mine for about three years I think, still on the original props but you can buy quieter ones, the latest Mavics come with the quiet props, Richard was the one who led me on this slippery slope and I was impressed with the Autel quality but, always a but, we can't get them here but the other big names have an established presence.
The rules here are much the same as your FAA, ours is CASA, 400 foot ceiling, no flying over people or events, no flying over emergency scenes, the list goes on, most is common sense but you see it being breached all the time.
I haven't had it out for a while and I forget how to calibrate the compass but if it needs doing it won't take off and will prompt me how to do it, I also like the auto take off, just leaps to 4' and just sits there waiting for further instructions, impssible to crash land, just push the down control and it will drop to 4' then land itself gently, they are pretty much idiot proof but some manage to prang them, the collision avoidance turns off in sport mode but I have never used it.
At about 50' you barely hear them, at 100' you wouldn't know it was there, you are supposed to keep eye contact but they are easy to lose sight of but the camera helps you navigate home until you hear and see it again.
A bit of practice gives you smoother control unlike my first video (DJI 004 on the link) and you can adjust how smooth you want it to be, the aperture on the camera is fixed but you can get ND filters for really bright days and polarising filters, I think I paid about $100 for a set which are ND4-8-16 and polarising.
The latest Mavic has a longer flight time than mine but only about 3-4 minutes which in the scheme of things is not much.
I discovered one day it has a high wind warning, I was up about 200' and it was being buffeted around something shocking and I was alerted that wind was exceeding 60kph, drone was not happy and couldn't stabilize in the gusts but came down safely.

Good stuff. Very informative post.

 

[ovrszd]

That's good news. The most range I'll be using it for will be 300 - 400 yards.

For clarity. Drones fly by coordination with satellites. Mine will normally have 15. A remote area shouldn't affect that.

Range is determined by how well the controller can communicate with the Drone. Timber areas or tall buildings can limit that. Mine will warn me if there's interference.

Another point, for clarity. FAA says you must have line of sight with your Drone at all times. I've been in several debates about what that means. It doesn't mean whether you can physically see your Drone or not. Although, I think that was the original intent. But because of the wording it means an unobstructed line of sight between you and the Drone. Once you lose that unobstructed line of sight signal issues may come into play.

If I lose track of my Drone and don't have viewer view of the camera I can hit "Go Home" and the Drone will elevate to a preset altitude and come back to "home".

 

[bunyip]

It seems that the terminology may vary a little, Richard says 'Go Home' mine says 'RTH' which is return to home, same thing of course.
Collectively there is a lot of very good information here but I will stress that these drones are very easy to fly, I have an older manual drone that I could take into the middle of the Sahara desert and hang it up in a tree, it has a mind of its own, in reality the onboard computers and satellite guidance keep things on track and compensate for all conditions and you won't even be aware of what is happening, just point it where you want it to go and it will go there.

 

[ovrszd]

It seems that the terminology may vary a little, Richard says 'Go Home' mine says 'RTH' which is return to home, same thing of course.
Collectively there is a lot of very good information here but I will stress that these drones are very easy to fly, I have an older manual drone that I could take into the middle of the Sahara desert and hang it up in a tree, it has a mind of its own, in reality the onboard computers and satellite guidance keep things on track and compensate for all conditions and you won't even be aware of what is happening, just point it where you want it to go and it will go there.

Most important and best thing about these Drones in regards to control is this. When things start going bad, let go of the controls!!!! The Drone will stop and hover in place and give you time to get yourself oriented and back on track. Many Drones have been crashed by operators that just kept moving the joystick in what they thought was the right direction when in fact it was the wrong direction. "I don't know what's wrong with that thing it just went crazy".

I've had mine go into "critical land" mode displaying a battery almost flat when a second before it showed 50%. That's frustrating. But the Drone saved itself and soft landed.
Something went wrong with the battery inflight.

Autel records every flight and it's data including the controller functions. My first Drone had an internal problem after about 30hrs of flight time. When manual landing it would go berserk and crash. First time I thought I did something wrong. Second time I knew I didn't. Contacted Autel and they checked my data and verified that the Drone miscommunicated. They sent me a new Drone, no charge.

 

[Alien]

Very nice to have 4k if you have plenty of storage on your computer and the time to edit it. I also use Filmora. It is a powerful tool but I get lazy and just do basic editing now.
I have run some experiments with my camera and found 4k to be a bit jittery because it is only 24 fps. Likewise with 2.5k.
I prefer 1080p at 60 fps as quality is still excellent for posting to YT and vids are very smooth. Also great for taking frames from a vid.
One day I will invest in a Mavic 2 or similar but until then I will keep building my own.