drones

im wanting to get a drone to do some videos of farming .

I have a Yuneec Q500 4k.

I researched one and purchased one for work. I ended up buying the DJI inspire.it is one up from the phantom. It was great. Even in heavy wind it would hover still when you shot the video. Main difference was a better camera and the feet raised to allow 360 video with no feet in the shot. It did brick out when updating the firmware. I had no help from the store but, DJI was great and straight up replaced the bad part with no issues at all. The videos where great but it does take practice to get used to. Also be aware of the laws. They are ambiguous at best and very. Here the laws are different for personal and business. I would make sure here it would be personal as it is a lot easier then if it was for the farm.

Edited by Redwood - 21 Nov 2016 at 7:01pm

That is close to what is here. They are pushing for that but it is not formalized in a law but you have to have the insurance and file flight plans and such. But for personal as long as you own the land or have permission of the owner you are ok. With height restrictions.

I've bought one DJI Phantom 1, and built 2 DJI Flamewheel 550's.  The DJI is the most popular brand, but that is mostly because they were the first company to offer a ready to fly unit that with 15-30 minutes of practice virtually anyone could fly.  Keep in mind the more you pay the better the flight controls will be (and possibly the camera).  The new Phantom 4's have the obstacle avoidance equipment in them, but like any piece of equipment, the more features you pack in, the higher the probability of issues with software and hardware.  There is nothing wrong with a Phantom 3, you just need to always remember the limitations of what you are using for equipment.  DJI is a pain to get any help from on the phone, or computer (I don't know if there is any other companies with better customer support or not).  Usually when you do get a hold of a person the first thing they want you to do is send the unit in (after doing some very basic troubleshooting).  The local hobby shop has me come in occasionally to work on one that he can't figure out, trying to avoid sending it in and taking longer to fix.  Usually the problem is getting the firmware to update, or re-calibrating the IMU which re-zeros the gyro's for flight control (crashes will knock them out of calibration).  I haven't had any experience with any other brands of drones though.  For the most part, any new DJI unit now you should be able to do all the updates from a smart phone or tablet through the DJI app.  The earlier versions of firmware required you to load the firmware updates to a SD card and insert it into the aircraft, once you got the aircraft to a certain level of firmware, then everything was able to update from the app instead.  Using the app is very easy to update the firmware, instead of needing to be a little computer literate to download and move files.  The level of firmware that required the SD card to update is relatively old now and any new unit should come out of the box at a higher level of firmware that is app update ready (the firmware can have almost anything to do with the aircraft from: stability control, battery life/monitoring, control functions/features, no flight zones, camera settings/function, etc.).  The Phantom 3 and 4 aircraft come pre-programmed with the known "no fly zones", this way you can't inadvertently fly into restricted airspace if your firmware is up to date.  Always remember the fastest way to crash the aircraft when flying by the camera image (FPV-first person view ) is to fly backwards.  This is when you back into the tree, house, building, power pole, etc. that you can't see.  If you watch youtube videos and see how many get crashed while backing the unit up and hitting the object they forgot was there or thought was farther away.  Either the Phantom 3 or the Phantom 4 will do basically anything you want to do, going to the Inspire is a very nice step up in abilities with a very nice step up in the price tag too.  The Inspire has the ability to attach a thermal or video camera to it, a movie quality camera, like previously mentioned the landing legs retract for full 360 degree camera swing, and it has the ability to have a "slave" remote that a second operator controls the camera with while the first operator flies the aircraft.  For someone starting though either the Phantom 3 or 4 would be the most logical choice to get your feet wet and determine how far you want to go in the investment.  Building a Flamewheel kit requires the ability to solder and assemble your own RC radio system and integrate it into the DJI flight controller.  The advantage of the Flamewheel is you can configure it exactly how you want it with your choice of equipment from gimbals, cameras, motors, rotors, ESC's, batteries, video transmission, on screen displays, and radio systems.

I still use a Phantom 1 with a Zemuse gimbal and GoPro camera. My main board was upgraded to a Phantom 2 board to go to can bus to eliminate some weight to run the zemuse gimbal.

Sure mine is old school but rarely anything goes wrong and I can get some solid 18 minute flight times out of it plus I have no flight restrictions which I like.

and if the sheriff starts lurking around, be sure someone else's name is on it!

Shameless can you come and shoot warning shots at the helicopter that thinks they have the right to buzz my field at about 10 feet.

Shameless - how did your first one work out?   Fess up!  I don't mean the shotgun either! LOL!

I still gots my 1st shotgun had about 5 shells shot thru it, got it on my 16th birthday. Remmington 20 ga. pump. and Macvette....my first what?

Shameless - your first drone - I figgered you would have maybe used one in your previous career.

I have a Phantom 4. Excellent drone good capabilities. I use it for some custom work like mapping, crop checking and farmstead photos. 

I already have a GoPro hero4, can you buy one that doesn't have the camera and would accept my GoPro. Hate to spend extra for a camera when I already have one