Quadcopter? Or something else?

D

David W. Richardson

Chapelgrove Films
I'm thinking seriously about taking a stab at aerial videography using a quadcopter. But never having flown any kind of R/C craft before, I decided to begin with just a cheap toy quadcopter, to learn how to fly and control the thing -- which is proving to be more challenging than I expected.

Which has me wondering -- is there something better than a quadcopter? Or as good?

One of the things about the quad is direction -- it's hard to tell visually which direction the thing is pointed in, so that makes it hard to know which way to move the control joysticks to send it somewhere else. It seems to me that other kinds of R/C vehicles -- namely airplanes or blimps -- wouldn't have quite as much problem with that.

I know that one advantage of the quadcopter is its ability to hover, as well as to move more slowly through the air. It also has the ability to go straight up or down. An airplane can't hover or go straight up/down. Some R/C planes can fly quite slowly, which is good.

So I'm thinking there may be some advantages to outfitting an electric R/C airplane with a GoPro or similar, rather than doing the same with a quadcopter. I think the R/C airplane might be easier to learn to fly -- its controls seem pretty straightforward to me.

But an R/C blimp is also a consideration. It probably wouldn't fly as fast as either an airplane or a quadcopter, but it could hover and it would probably fly much like an R/C airplane. The down side, of course, would be having to buy helium every time I wanted to fly the blimp. But since its motors wouldn't have to provide enough power for lift, it would probably have significantly longer maximum flying times.

Any thoughts?
 
Apparently the number of quadcopters that crash terminally on their first outing is quite high. Rotary wing aircraft of all sizes are very tricky to keep in the air, and even with computer assistance mistakes are common. The popular quadcopters have an LED you can see from the ground to orient them properly - if, apparently, you can actually see it.

The people using them properly have hours of airtime - it's unreasonable to expect proper performance without the time being invested. Here in the UK, the pilot training that people are now doing to use these devices legally is a small obstacle - but colleagues report the reputable operators are doing it.
 
David W. Richardson said:
I'm thinking seriously about taking a stab at aerial videography using a quadcopter. But never having flown any kind of R/C craft before, I decided to begin with just a cheap toy quadcopter, to learn how to fly and control the thing -- which is proving to be more challenging than I expected.

Which has me wondering -- is there something better than a quadcopter? Or as good?

One of the things about the quad is direction -- it's hard to tell visually which direction the thing is pointed in, so that makes it hard to know which way to move the control joysticks to send it somewhere else. It seems to me that other kinds of R/C vehicles -- namely airplanes or blimps -- wouldn't have quite as much problem with that.

I know that one advantage of the quadcopter is its ability to hover, as well as to move more slowly through the air. It also has the ability to go straight up or down. An airplane can't hover or go straight up/down. Some R/C planes can fly quite slowly, which is good.

So I'm thinking there may be some advantages to outfitting an electric R/C airplane with a GoPro or similar, rather than doing the same with a quadcopter. I think the R/C airplane might be easier to learn to fly -- its controls seem pretty straightforward to me.

But an R/C blimp is also a consideration. It probably wouldn't fly as fast as either an airplane or a quadcopter, but it could hover and it would probably fly much like an R/C airplane. The down side, of course, would be having to buy helium every time I wanted to fly the blimp. But since its motors wouldn't have to provide enough power for lift, it would probably have significantly longer maximum flying times.

Any thoughts?
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Do yourself a favor and get yourself an RC simulator. Phoneix or real flight. Fly CP 3D helis and quads there. Also get the micro. I had good success with blade mqx and the latrax from traxxass. they are very tough and work well outdoors as well. If you can fly a 3d helicopter multirotors will seem like toys.
 
Here's the totally-off-the-wall aerial photography solution.

Go to Lowes and buy one of those super-long, extendable poles used for washing third-story windows. Buy a cheap paint roller, and adapt the threaded handle to carry a camera. The pole and paint roller handle are already designed to connect via a screw. Stick it up in the air and see what you get. IMHO, the real magic happens in the 10 to 20 foot high range, where you can still see plenty of detail, but you are clearly above it all. Have done that a few times with my little Mobius, and it''s a hoot! Shots where you tilt the whole pole up and down from horizontal to vertical can be pretty interesting. If you have some assistants, have each one tension a string attached up near the camera. With two strings and a slightly tilted-forward pole, you have something like a giant tripod and the image is pretty steady. Tape a stick onto the pole for a sort of pan control, move the stick forward and backward for tilt. No, really! It works!

The RC model with camera thing is really fascinating. But it's becoming an extremely crowded field. At least around here there is pretty vicious low-balling for the very few professional shoots that come up. Plus, we are going to see a lot of severely limiting anti-drone laws coming down in the near future. For instance, drones are now banned from Yosemite, and that is likely to extend to most US national parks by the end of this summer. Apparently, at this point the Park Service is not prepared to offer waivers of any kind. Unfortunately it will not be long before somebody drops one of those things into a crowd (and I've some really irresponsible shots in the regard) and every city council will get on the ban-the-drone bandwagon.
 
Bill T. said:
Here's the totally-off-the-wall aerial photography solution.

Go to Lowes and buy one of those super-long, extendable poles used for washing third-story windows. Buy a cheap paint roller, and adapt the threaded handle to carry a camera. The pole and paint roller handle are already designed to connect via a screw. Stick it up in the air and see what you get. IMHO, the real magic happens in the 10 to 20 foot high range, where you can still see plenty of detail, but you are clearly above it all. Have done that a few times with my little Mobius, and it''s a hoot! Shots where you tilt the whole pole up and down from horizontal to vertical can be pretty interesting. If you have some assistants, have each one tension a string attached up near the camera. With two strings and a slightly tilted-forward pole, you have something like a giant tripod and the image is pretty steady. Tape a stick onto the pole for a sort of pan control, move the stick forward and backward for tilt. No, really! It works!

The RC model with camera thing is really fascinating. But it's becoming an extremely crowded field. At least around here there is pretty vicious low-balling for the very few professional shoots that come up. Plus, we are going to see a lot of severely limiting anti-drone laws coming down in the near future. For instance, drones are now banned from Yosemite, and that is likely to extend to most US national parks by the end of this summer. Apparently, at this point the Park Service is not prepared to offer waivers of any kind. Unfortunately it will not be long before somebody drops one of those things into a crowd (and I've some really irresponsible shots in the regard) and every city council will get on the ban-the-drone bandwagon.
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Cool. I'd love to see the paint brush footage....


Not sure the ban the drone thing is going to be quite as bad as you think. Wherever there is money to be made the gov is likely to oblige. Just might be some permitting or mandatory training involved so gov can get a cut. people die all the time from aerobatic helis, no bad press about that. Multirotor and FPV is just the tickle me elmo of RC right now. So it is getting a lot of press. Good and bad...
 
I've actually seen that paint pole thing done before, Bill T. That's really more of a crane/jib replacement than an aerial platform, though.

My main focus will be shooting aerial stock footage, not necessarily hiring out for shoots -- though I'll gladly do that too, of course. Competition always drives prices down, no matter what the product or service. That doesn't worry me too much.

But I guess my real question is -- other than hovering capability, what makes quadcopters the vehicle of choice for doing aerial videography? It seems to me they're harder to fly than airplanes or blimps. So what are the advantages?
 
A multirotor or single rotor helicopter can go 0 mph if you desire. A small blimp is susceptible to wind, not practical for precise control. Multirotrs are popular because they are "easy" and a versatile utility craft. All the props make it easy to lift heavy weights. CP helis are much more smooth IMO.
 
Blimps are also very slow, and can't get where you need it quickly. Time matters. I agree that a full collective pitch rotor craft has a lot of advantages, but you can get some serious precision from these multirotors, and the lack of a pitch adjustments means that maintenance and repairs are cheaper and faster. You are also unlikely to run a single rotor on a battery, which has the potential of increased cost and noise.

Airplanes can't stop. They're good for surveying crops and things of that nature, and could possibly be used for stills, but are useless for video. No versatility. Even if you have a shot they could do, landing without VTOL has some serious limitations.

If you've never flown, flying will be difficult. That's not really a big leap of logic. Those of us who this regularly have to train ourselves a lot to do it right. Practice, with the goal of improving, and those challenges will eventually seem like nothing.

The painter's pole thing isn't off the wall at all. I've seen it done and done it a lot, including on large sets for reality shows and at weddings. But it isn't quite the same thing.
 
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David W. Richardson said:
I've actually seen that paint pole thing done before, Bill T. That's really more of a crane/jib replacement than an aerial platform, though.
But I guess my real question is -- other than hovering capability, what makes quadcopters the vehicle of choice for doing aerial videography? It seems to me they're harder to fly than airplanes or blimps. So what are the advantages?
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While you can toss many winged drones into the air, they're difficult to catch so you need a bit of space for the landing roll. And you have to dodge things like fences, lighting poles, walls, cars, and people along the relatively shallow takeoff and landing phases.

It is also more difficult to stabilize a winged plane in a windy situation. The 3D gyroscopic flight stabilizers in multicopters are much better in choppy air, because the control rate is much higher than you get with a winged aircraft. With a winged plane the rate of roll is limited by the wings to a few seconds per say 90 degrees, versus a few milliseconds for a multicopter. Multicopters can counteract turbulence before it can affect whatever stabilized camera gimbal you are using. Multicopters with both 3D gyros and GPS can work in winds up to about 20 or more mph, which would be pretty challenging for a winged aircraft, regards of stabilization.

To be fair, wings have one big advantage: if you lose the engine you can probably still glide to landing with little damage to your camera gear. Not so with a multicopter, which gives you not just one but 4 to 8 changes to lose an engine on a given flight.

I got pretty stoked about multicopters a few months ago. But in the end I gave up the idea since the amount of maintenance and support time required would tend to make me commit to aerial work as my prime activity.

FWIW, it's worth trying out a flight simulator as a way of seeing how practical a winged-versus-copter choice might be in actual use. For one thing, if you miss the shot on the first go around with a winged aircraft, you have to commit a considerable amount of time to maneuvering it back to the shooting position. Add to that issues with coordinating action on the ground with the brief window of correct aircraft position, and things could get difficult. I think that alone would exclude wings from most kind of commercial shoots, where producers and directors tend to freak out at the slightest thing that delays the production.

I have Phoenix, Real Flight, and Aero-SIM simulators. IMHO Aero-SIM has by far the most accurate multi-copter simulations, including a few "for cinema" craft that can simulate both main camera and FPV (first person viewpoint or pilot) camera views. And unfortunately it also the crudest graphics. Phoenix still has a way to go. The Phoenix multi's tend to fly somewhat like winged aircraft, and if you scale a multicopter it suddenly develops the amazing ability to auto-rotate, something not actually seen in the physical world.

edit: fully stabilized multicopters with 3D gyros and GPS stabilization are BY FAR the easiest aircraft to fly! OTOH, most of the multicopters you see in cheap kits etc are very, very unstable and require a lot of skill to simply avoid crashing. Aero-SIM has the whole spectrum of these types, and is very informative in that way.
 
If you got a Phantom with prop guards you can learn whilst knowing if you bump into something at a slow speed it's not going to be an issue. Many people put LEDs on the arms of their quads (obviously Phantom has these built in), these help orientation, if you install an On Screen Display module and have video transmission back your home location is also shown on the HUD which also helps if you're finding orientation an issue.

Incidentally APM/Pixhawk have a mode called drift where the copter flies like an aeroplane but this relies on a GPS signal. http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/drift-mode/

[video=youtube;0mdk2-sNXmg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0mdk2-sNXmg#t=0[/video]
 
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