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Drone Recommendations


jfuller8400

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HI All,

 

For our anniversary this year, my wife offered to get me a drone so that I can get aerial shots of the light show.  Knowing nothing about drones (other than they are just cool in themselves) I thought I would see if people have any recommendations for ones that have a camera that works well in low light.  The budget's not unlimited but I don't have to go cheap either.

 

Thanks!

 

Joel 

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I fly RC planes and heli's. Check out rcgroups.com You can find a ton of help and info on "drones" there. 5here are so many on the market, and a lot are crap. Do some research before buying. You shohld start with a small inexpensive one to learn orientation and how to fly before investing in a decent one, as you will crash a lot at first.

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I have a DJI Phantom 2 Vision+. Awesome drone, but now discontinued and replaced by the Phantom 3. The 3 is just released and still waiting to see if all the bugs are worked out. I would recommend finding a Phantom 2 Vision+ as they are heavily discounted right now with the intro of the Phantom 3 and the 2 is really all you would need. The only real benefits of the 3 over the 2 is longer range and 4k video (vs. 1080p).

 

I will warn you that you should not expect to buy a drone and begin taking good video right away. Flying the drone takes practice, and taking decent video while flying takes even more. Expect to spend a few weeks minimum playing with it to gain proficiency before recording any worthwhile video.

 

-Paul

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Hey jstorms, can I borrow yours for a couple of day in December?

Look up, it has been flying over your house all weekend.

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I have a drone DJI Phantom 2 with a GoPro hero 3 + black on it and I am impressed with how good of video the GoPro takes. I am still trying different frame rates and I just got a filter kit for the lens. I have flew a couple of times at night and anticipate flying more with the intention of filming my Christmas display this year. The one thing I like on mine is it will fly by gps signal, so if I leave go of the control sticks it will stop and just hover until you move the sticks again. It also has the ability to fly itself home and land if it looses communication with your transmitter. I also have on mine what is called a FPV setup first person view, which is a monitor setup that receives a video stream from the copter so you can see what the copter see's. The GoPro camera will actually let you record video and also gives you a video out put for the FPV.

One of the other things to look for is battery life.

 

Wayne

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Great drone. Even self destructs if it is detected.

 

"I didn't hit it that hard. It must have had a self-destruct."

 

ViperProbeSelfDestruct-TESB.jpg

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I shot my neighbors drone with a 22 pellet gun... watched it going down.... kep buzzing my pool and patio I will shot it again

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going to have to find my old frequency counter from years ago and my Ham Radio days.... find their freq and take control one day.... lol...  would love to see their reactions when it just starts flying farther and farther away when they loose control of it and watch it do a power nose dive into the side of a building or a mountain...lol

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Take control, good luck with that. Now you can try to jam the frequency, but you will need to use a broad spectrum of frequencies to do the job. Unlike years ago with single frequency that was usually generated by a xtal. Most modern RC transmitters are frequency hopping or spread spectrum and use the Bluetooth method of pairing and setting up the frequency handling scheme. Not saying that they use bluetooth, which we all know is only good for about 30'.

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The new Phantom 3 is a good quad and you can get it with a 4k camera or the standard 1080HD cam.  You might also want to check out the new 3DR Solo that will be available later this month.  You use your GoPro for the cam, since the solo does not have a camera built in.   But the advantage of the Solo is it has compleate camera control from the ground and also has advanced camera shots so you can pre-program you shots and angles.  For a new quadcopter pilot the Solo will give you more control over your pictures without having to worry about flying the quadcopter and controlling the camera to get the great video.

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