Drones and quadcopters – Richard's blog

Initial Thoughts on the DJI Mini SE

Byrichard 19 February 202219 February 2022

Today I went for my first flight with the DJI Mini SE and it feels very familiar, after flying a spark so frequently, until I crashed that drone. I would have replaced the spark but I didn’t because it would either cost two thirds to replace the old one, or cost a lot to buy a new drone, with batteries and the rest of the gear. I waited. I didn’t wait for four weeks, four months, or four seasons. I waited for two years, until I saw the DJI Mini SE was about to come out.

What I like about this drone is first and foremost its price, but also its form factor. In Europe drones that way more than 250 grams have stricter rules than drones below 250 grams, so with a small light drone, you can fly in more places. The other advantage is that you can go for a two hour walk, without ever been bothered by the weight. I know because that’s what I did today.

Another nice feature is that the DJI Mini SE Flymore pack comes with a three battery charger spare props, and a carrying case. Everything fits neatly into the carrying case, and the carrying case fits nicely into a 10 litre hiking bag.

With the DJI spark it was a pain because the charger was large and needed to be transported in one case. In another case I had the drone and three batteries and because batteries were good for just 20 minutes you had to have a few. In the end it was a pain to keep everything charged and ready. Thinks have improved over the last three or four years.

If you crash this drone, and break one of it’s arms you can unscrew the broken arm and replace it, without replacing the entire body. Repair-ability is important with something that can get stuck and fall from a tree onto a tarmac road, as mine did.

And finally, I have flown just once for about 15 minutes and I feel a little rusty. It feels just the same as the Spark, but maybe a little slower. I notice that between telling it to go full forward to full backwards there is a little control lag. I would consider getting a landing mat, for when landing in grass. With the Spark if you tried to start it near grass it would behave like a lawnmower. This one tells you there is a motor error. I took off from the edge of a farm road. I had good visibility and could see cars if they were approaching.

That’s it for now. I will update you as I learn more

Drones and quadcopters

Day Two of ORCA in Switzerland

Byrichard 18 March 202018 March 2020

We are in ORCA day two in Switzerland and I crashed the drone. I also avoided the shops because of the behaviour I witnessed yesterday.

The weather is excellent at the moment. Sunny, warm, and without wind. These are perfect conditions for drone flying so I thought I’d take advantage. I forgot to put an SD card in the drone so instead of flying and trying to get video I put it in sports mode. I played in the field, flying forwards, backwards, going up, down and more. Eventually, I flew towards the trees and decided that I would get the drone to fly in between trees as I have done in the past.

Previously I put the drone back into normal mode and this time I forgot so the drone hit something and “bounced”. I’ve seen this type of bounce before so I decided to put full throttle upwards. Instead of flying up and clearing the branches it got unstuck and fell to the ground. I thought that it would fall through and hit a few branches and land in the mud. The issue is that the drone was further forward than I thought and it fell through the branches and hit an asphalt road. This broke the rear right arm and loosened that motor. Other than that the battery fell off.

Some people fly their drone and crash during their first flight, or after ten flights. It took 166 flights before I had a serious crash with this drone. Before this crash, I had knicked the propellers on branches or other branches but nothing serious. If it had been above the forest floor it would have been fine. The fall was slowed down the whole way. Mud would have saved the drone.

The break is clean so I can try fixing it with the right kind of glue. I also need to find a way to get the affected motor back into its housing. The second option is to buy the plastic component that houses all the engines.

We will see if I find a way to resolve this issue.

Drones and quadcopters | Video

Flying over Oeschinensee with an FPV Drone

Byrichard 21 January 2020

Flying over Oeschinensee with an FPV drone looks nice. I went there as a child and the lake is distinct with its lake, green slopes, hills and that wall of rock on the other side. It’s above Kandersteg and there are a number of walks to be enjoyed in the area.

Flying a drone in such a place is great because it gives you a way of exploring the landscape either before you’ve been on a hike or afterwards. It also allows you to find new locations from which to take pictures or even to find a new climbing route. I haven’t looked at what climbs there are around there.

I know that there is a Via Ferrata that I have been tempted to do in summer. With a drone, it would be fun to get some shots from a different perspective than usual.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOaxV9N108g

Instead of people on a boat, he could have found people exploring the Via Ferrata. There are some nice shots going down waterfalls, through the valley, along the river bed, through the forest and more. It’s a great location for flying a drone.

Drones and quadcopters | Video

A Drone flying over Hong Kong at night.

Byrichard 25 October 201925 October 2019

I ate lunch as I watched the footage of a drone flying over Hong Kong at night and at first I was confused as to whether the images were real or not. As you watch more of the video you see that everything is real. The depth of field is good and so is the exposure. There is no or very little noise from this being shot at night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYO1uk7vIcc

You see buildings, cars, traffic and more. You see things from above, others from the side and yet more from eye level. There is an interesting flight by an office building where we can look into the lit offices.

Another beautiful shot is the shot of the shipping containers that are on a shipping container as it sails. There are plenty of shots in this video to show that you can give time for images to breath. People will enjoy watching this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e10pVhxNOco

There are some atmospheric shots of Budapest. We begin with a drone flying over a tram as it makes its way across a bridge. We then see the city and a variety of landmarks and more. It’s an interesting video to watch in 4K.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKaVhXn49xY

A timelapse from the top of an ice breaker as it breaks through the ice is familiar. Less familiar is the moment when two ships are next to each other. Even less familiar is when The Icebreaker attaches itself to the stuck ship and pulls it back to freedom. It’s a scene that is unfamiliar to many of us.

Drones and quadcopters

Mavic 2 Pro – For When I fly More Often

Byrichard 28 August 201816 April 2020

The Mavic 2 Pro just came out and people are euphoric about the drone because of its one inch sensor, it’s ability to zoom and it’s omnidirectional systems keeping an eye on the environment below, behind, above and ahead of it. It also has a flying time of 31 minutes.

I’m happy with the DJI Spark. Last Autumn as the nights shortened and work got in the way of flying the drone I felt disappointed that I would have to suspend the passion whilst waiting for the next summer to arrive. This summer came and it is now approaching an end and I haven’t flown as much as I would have expected to. It’s partially due to having to get the charger out, charge all the batteries and fly somewhere new that slowed me down. NFZs limit the number of places where you can fly.

The issue with DJI drones is that whilst they are excellent camera drones they are not as versatile as FPV drones. If you don’t have a video project in mind they’re limited in scope.

This being said I did get nice footage of the Swiss flags with vineyards in the background. You can tell how windy the conditions were by how taut the flag is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7WN41loH-4

I also got footage of golden crops yesterday. I had the sun behind me and I stayed on the grass between the field and a road. You get a nice view of the crops in the foreground and the Mont Blanc and the Alps in the background.

https://youtu.be/wxpTAHDzT7I

Drones and quadcopters

A list of drones I have tried this year.

Byrichard 30 December 2017

Trying various drones

This year I finally bought a few drones to play with and DJI and Hubsan are currently my favourite brands. The most fun to fly indoors is the Hubsan Nano Q111 drone, or something to that effect. At first this is a hard and temperamental little drone to fly. Just getting it off the ground is a challenge., This challenge comes from the fact that it has no pilot assistance. It slews to the right and the left and it has no altitude hold. This means that constant little inputs are needed. As the battery depletes you need to give the drone more power simply to hover. With practice the drone is really fun and best of all I didn’t break any props. I only burned out two of the motors when the drone got caught in something.

I tried flying the Q4 as well but the results were disappointing.

I tried flying the Demon something by some brand and this was a flop. The problem with this drone is that the props are well protected against colliding with things but the struts are too fragile. Within just a flight or two I broke the strut to one of the props and it is now great at spinning in place rather than flying.

DJI

Earlier this year I saw someone fly the DJI Mavic pro during the IFSC World cup and when I saw how easy it seemed to fly my interest grew exponentially. I saw that it could guide itself back to it’s take off point and was autonomous. For a while I hesitated about buying my own drone until I finally decided to buy the DJI Spark. This is a really fun drone to fly. It’s simple and intuitive to use and it provides great images. I have now flown it in France, Spain and Switzerland. What makes this drone so great is that it’s tiny, ideally suited for when I go hiking and to do other sports. I have 7 batteries for a total flying time of 105 minutes. I calculate three batteries per day and one spare. I am now at my 99th “flight” with that drone, My next flight will be number 100. We’ll see how I celebrate that.

Addressing the Stigma

There is a lot of stigma around drones. People are afraid that they will be used for spying, that they can be used as weapons, that they can interfere with aviation. The truth is that most drones are small and light and that the lens is wide therefore they can be heard from a distance. People refer to the sound they make as that of a large bumblebee. Not only can you hear them but you can also see them quite easily. Rules are in place to prevent us from flying above 120 metres in most countries, around cities and above crowds. We also have to fly them within visual range. This means that whenever people can see the drone they can see us. They can ask us to stop flying or they can ask questions.

As drone enthusiasts, we can work as ambassadors to show that drones are not the stigmatised devices that they were encouraged to fear. We can show them the beautiful images and videos we can get and we can also show them that some of them are relatively easy to fly. The better we behave as early adopters the fewer restrictions we will see implemented down the road. We have a moral duty to obey the rules and sensibilise the lay public to how much fun they can be.

Drones and quadcopters

Flying the DJI Spark is fun

Byrichard 8 December 2017

My most recent flight with the DJI Spark was fun. As I forgot the miniSD card I decided just to fly it in sports mode over some empty fields. I ended up flying over 4km within visual range. It was fast, responsive and behaved just as I wanted it to.

Indoor flying

Flying the drone indoors is possible. Thanks to its downward facing cameras and proximity sensors it detects when it flies too close to objects and stops. It does have the weakness that if it detects objects below it or objects ahead of it it will back and rise. As it has no upward looking sensors and no sensors looking behind or to the sides the risk of collisions increases. For these reasons flying indoors is more demanding. It also displaces a large volume of air. It will shift light objects so be careful what you fly over.

Outdoor flying

Every September the cows come down from the mountains and I decided to fly over them to get an original perspective. The advantage of filming swiss cows with a drone is that they’re wearing loud and noisy bells. This means that the drone is not noisy enough to be heard.

As there are fewer flight restrictions I flew over the Jura mountains and the footage I got was nice. I often use PolarPro ND filters and tweak the images in post production. The reason for this is that the dynamic range on this camera is low compared to others and the ND filters help the camera cope. I bring the blacks up, lower the highlights and adjust the mid tones slightly. The result is images such as you see in the video below.

It takes practice to get smooth shots. The controls are not as gradual as I would like so I sometimes cut from shot to shot when the camera is already moving at the desired speed. With time and practice, I aim to start and stop shots smoothly.

Small and portable

This drone is small and portable. It can easily fit into your hiking bag and with a few spare batteries, you can get some nice shots whilst hiking.Each battery lasts for about fifteen minutes so having 3-4 batteries should give you the desired flexibility. I usually take off from the ground after it has acquired 10 GPS or more. I then fly it, get the desired shots and then land it in my hand. When landing I don’t use the return to palm control. I get it close to me and then select land. I let it come down on my fingers and let it throttle down. This is a useful feature for when you are flying on a mountainside as there may be no suitable landing spots.

Drone Rules and regulations

Before flying the drone I study the flight rules and regulations for the country where I am flying. If you are flying in Switzerland then I suggest using this website to quickly identify what restrictions are in place before you fly. I also use this website to see what rules and regulations are in place before flying in France. In theory, the DJI maps provide you with this information already but in my experience, they are not as up to date as the Government flight restriction maps for drones.

Drones and quadcopters | Uncategorized

The Hubsan Nano Q4 H111 drone

Byrichard 5 November 2017

The Hubsan Nano Q4 H111 drone is a tiny drone

The Hubsan Nano Q4 H111 drone is a tiny drone. It is not much more than a flying circuit board with four engines, a battery and a cowling. It is very light and fits easily on the screen of an iphone SE, along with it’s controller. Such a small drone requires practice to fly properly. This is because there are no flight assists. When you take off you need to apply just the right amount of thrust to hover and you need to make small adjustments to keep it from drifting. With practice you gain control of the quadcopter.

Constant adjustments

I found that when taking off it is good to get above the ground effect. This is because when it is within the ground effect zone it tends to skim in one direction or the other. Once you’re at 30 centimetres it becomes more stable. Keeping it at a specific height takes tiny thrust adjustements. As the battery depletes you need to give more thrust for it to stay at the same height or rise. Eventually it runs out of thrust and drifts to the ground.

When you turn the drone on the lights flash and when you turn the controller on the light on the controller flashes red for a few seconds. Once the controller and the drone are paired the light turns green. The thrust control does not spring back to neutral so if and when you feel that the drone is about to crash throttle to zero.

More demanding to fly than the Spark but a lot cheaper

Having a tiny drone like the Nano Qç H111 is fun to get to grips with flying a drone although it could be frustrating at first. With drones like the DJI spark you can get the drone to take off automatically and it keeps itself in place using GPS, onboard cameras, sensors and more. If you lose control with a spark you just let go of the controls. With the Q4 H111 you you have to compensate and counteract the issue.

At 30CHF you’re not taking a big financial risk and props are available if you break them.