oilmoney Posted September 26, 2016 Share Posted September 26, 2016 While we were evacuated this spring I bought a Phantom 4 drone. My bro inlaw's family has a fairly large farming operation and invited me to make some footage if I wished to. Combines are great subjects to practice on as they are slow moving! One thing I learned is how electrical signals/interference affect the drone. 6 combines and 2 tractor's equipped with GPS plus at least 13 CB radios throughout all the equipment put out alot of interference! Sometimes as a result of this the quality of the footage suffered. Has anyone noticed anything when filming their displays with drones? What kind of potential interference should I expect? What sources? I'm guessing our FM transmitters ELL's might cause some issues but does the lights themselves affect it as well? Here's the vid if you want to take a look, turned out pretty cool for being my first real attempt at it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. P Posted September 26, 2016 Share Posted September 26, 2016 If you truly wanted to practice then throw some lights on those combines and edit in some music. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Batzdorf Posted September 26, 2016 Share Posted September 26, 2016 Thats some pretty cool stuff. Nice job. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
debtoews Posted September 26, 2016 Share Posted September 26, 2016 We had a drone video done last year- we had no issues with the ELL's/FM transmitter or lights- the biggest issue here in California is the laws have changed regarding drone video at night plus we are close to an airport- not sure about where you live. We are planning 3 nights of drone video this year and cant wait to see it! https://youtu.be/nx1nkw0buJg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orville Posted September 26, 2016 Share Posted September 26, 2016 Cool Video. Really enjoyed watching those farm machines do their job. Where I live I can't even own a drone, I'm within 5 miles of 2 major airports and the flight paths are directly over our neighborhood, and sometimes directly over my house! So per the new laws and regulations, no drones allowed in my neighborhood at all. I can't even buy one because of my location to the two airports and the proximity of the flight paths. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orville Posted September 26, 2016 Share Posted September 26, 2016 NOTE: {Since still no EDIT button....} I didn't really notice any bad video degradation in your video, seemed to me just to be some atmospheric conditions that may have slightly dulled the video down a bit, or the sun got blocked behind a cloud, causing the camera aperture to adjust for the low light, making the video appear slightly darker in those spots. But it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be from your post. And the range on that drone must be amazing for the area you covered with it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mega Arch Posted September 26, 2016 Share Posted September 26, 2016 Awesome footage. They have a great set up for the farm too. You should get with a fellow Canadian, singer Kelsey Fitch...... Can't wait to see how your drone does filming your light show at -20deg. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
default Posted September 27, 2016 Share Posted September 27, 2016 Very nice video ! You are very fortunate to have such a wide open area to fly around. Watching the farm equipment do their thing was very cool subject matter. Good editing also. A few months ago I bought the Phantom3 Standard (all I could afford at the time) The video recording platform is amazing as shown in your video. Unfortunately I am surrounded by 100ft+ trees so I am usually flying at 200ft or so. The highest I have taken mine is 800 ft. It's an awesome view. I downloaded an app for the phone that tell me all plane activity in my area, even small aircraft. I suppose you already know of the DJI Forums, They would probably be interested to see your video there. Your video is as good as I have seen there. Also on a side note, I was reading that State Farm (in some US States) offers Drone coverage up to full replacement value for crashes, fly aways etc. for $60 a month. I have a call in to verify and see if it is available in my area, thought you might be interested. I took mine up once for a few minutes attempting to film my lights, but landed early because I was to close to the audience and the noise was distracting. I use the Open Enttec DMX dongle and use wireless antennas. I didn't notice any issues, but then again the flight was really to short to tell. Let us know this works out for you. Again nice video, excellent subject matter. Alan... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oilmoney Posted September 27, 2016 Author Share Posted September 27, 2016 8 hours ago, Orville said: NOTE: {Since still no EDIT button....} I didn't really notice any bad video degradation in your video, seemed to me just to be some atmospheric conditions that may have slightly dulled the video down a bit, or the sun got blocked behind a cloud, causing the camera aperture to adjust for the low light, making the video appear slightly darker in those spots. But it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be from your post. And the range on that drone must be amazing for the area you covered with it! Thank you everyone for all the kind words! I plan on making a seeding video in the spring, it should be fun as well. I believe they are using 3 85ft seed drills to plant so it should make for good footage. When I was referring to my experience with electrical interference some of the things I encountered was the screen freezing up totally, pixellating ( if that is a word ) and choppy recorded footage. I filmed over the course of 3 days and every clip I made I could only use footage up until it froze or started skipping. By the time I was done snipping out all the pieces of usable footage the video was 17mins long so I had to edit it down to it's current length. The worst case I seen of interference was when I was flying directly above a combine. I let go of the controls, with this drone when you release the sticks the drone is supposed to hover in one spot but to my horror it kept moving! It was like it " grabbed " onto the combines GPS signal and was keeping pace with the combine! This happened in 2 separate incidents, I lost all control of the drone for roughly 15-20 seconds each time. There is a setting where you can tell the drone to follow the object but it wasn't enabled at the time. One thing I never took into consideration was that I was sitting on the tailgate of my truck while filming, I wonder if I would have moved away from the truck if it would have made a difference? I know that you need to be away from metallic objects I also found if you fly the drone too low to the ground at a fair distance you lose signal. They advertise a range of 5km with no obstructions but I've never flown more than roughly 1km away from me so far. I'm not going to post online how high I've had my drone but it was high enough to see the trails in the crops from passing deer, coyotes, wolves, moose etc. Hee hee.... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orville Posted September 28, 2016 Share Posted September 28, 2016 Now that all makes sense. From your initial post, I expected to see some really bad video dropouts. Excellent editing on your video. And sounds like that drone can get some nice altitude too! As for pixellating, yes, that is what it's called when the screen starts blocking up all over the place. Why it's not in the dictionary yet amazes me, since that's what happens to Digital HDTV's when using an antenna, although I've experienced it on Satellite and TV services too, never had any of that stuff in the old analog world of TV's! And it's a term that's been around for quite a few years now too. So it's a word, even if the Dictionary says it isn't! LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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