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Buying an Aerial Drone
12-12-2014, 02:56 PM
Phantom is a good choice. You can make some pretty amazing and accurate maps with just GoPro stills, a few ground control points and a demo version of Pix4d/agisoft
A pan/tilt gimbal mount for the Phantom is a nice upgrade but you'll have to add a FPV kit to get the most out of it.
Whatever you end up buying you should practice in controlled conditions for at least the first 5hrs (i.e. >5mph wind, no vertical obstructions within 300m)
Realize that you will eventually crash it, probably beyond repair depending on your altitude. The goal is to not do so without getting your money's worth first.
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Buying an Aerial Drone
12-12-2014, 03:15 PM
you are better off building your own
look into 250 and 450 chassis with beginner build/kits
I wouldnt go with pan tilt off the bat, but once "servostab" comes out it should be pretty dope.
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Buying an Aerial Drone
12-12-2014, 04:55 PM
Considered it for a long time, but decided not to commit yet since I won't have a chance to put it to good use at the moment, and I don't want to buy it and have it lying around collecting dust. Cool idea though especially if you have a specific vision in mind of what you want to achieve with it.
Bare in mind that GoPros have a significant fish-eye effect going on so horizons will look curved...generally not a good thing, depending on what you have in mind. You can try to correct it in post but then you will be losing a lot of the wide-angleness of the shot, so you may be better off just getting a different wide-angle camera, without a fish-eye effect.
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Buying an Aerial Drone
12-12-2014, 05:15 PM
^^
we were talking about multicopters
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12-12-2014, 05:19 PM
Why have I heard the word 'go-pro' here 5 times in two days and never before? What is it? Camera I know but what else
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Buying an Aerial Drone
12-13-2014, 08:37 AM
I was thinking about building one, but from what I can gather the battery powered ones have a very limited flight time of about ~12 - 15 minutes. Maybe a petrol one would be better!?
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12-13-2014, 08:53 AM
Holy shit 600 dollars is cheap as hell compared to what I thought. I always thought those things were only created and used by the government and large corporations. Hell of a toy right there.
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Buying an Aerial Drone
12-14-2014, 08:30 AM
Parrot Drones look decent.
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Buying an Aerial Drone
12-17-2014, 08:50 AM
While we are on this topic, let me throw this out there..
I fly drones professionally for survey assessments, forestry mapping, and large-scale agriculture health assessments.
This type of business here in the States is difficult to build due to the restrictive FAA policy for drone use and government interpreted illegality of selling drone-based imagery/data for commercial use. But the concept does work and customers are willing to pay for the data/products.
Drone based aerial imagery is needed anywhere in the world where agriculture, logging or infrastructure development takes place – SEA, Latin America, EE, etc.. Outside the US there are dozens if not hundreds of companies flying drones to fulfill these needs, from small startups to large corporations. Even some US firms have contracts to fly and image large tracts of agriculture with Drones (sugarcane plantations in Brazil, for example).
If I ever considered starting an overseas/location-independent business it would be using drones for these purposes.. only I do not have the foreign contacts to get work and my language skills aren’t up to snuff (espanol).
But I know exactly what is required to make it viable, how to operate the aircraft, process the imagery and the analysis piece as well.
So if anyone with an aviation / remote sensing / business background and hopefully speaks better Spanish (or other non-English language) wants to kick around some ideas, send me a pm and we can discuss. Thanks
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12-17-2014, 09:39 AM
I bought a small hand held one for $20 on eBay. It's a 6 axis one with rings around the propellers to protect it from smashing into walls. Novelty Christmas present for my kid.
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Buying an Aerial Drone
12-17-2014, 12:50 PM
Hey Atlantic I bet you could start a pretty popular youtube channel just filming some of the things that go on on a drilling rig in crisp HD.
I'm not talking about rig pig fuckery but things like connections, tripping, what the driller does, your MWD work, directional drilling, pressure testing, equipment breaking etc.
When I try to find drilling rig vids on youtube they're generally all grainy and shitty. A lot of people might find it interesting to know what goes on to really pull hydrocarbons out of the ground. Plus aerial shots using a drone would add big value to these videos.
Just a thought!
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Buying an Aerial Drone
12-27-2014, 06:27 PM
I know this guy who built a drone and mounted a GoPro on it and now makes some nice side cash shooting events like weddings and festivals and mansions for real estate agents. This is definitely a niche market to exploit as the regulations slack off in the future. Depending on where you are, drones are only allowed to fly at model aircraft clubs so you might get a hefty fine ($1,000 in Canada) depending on the regulation in your area.