{"id":3195,"date":"2014-05-30T12:50:06","date_gmt":"2014-05-30T12:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/?p=3195"},"modified":"2014-05-30T13:29:57","modified_gmt":"2014-05-30T13:29:57","slug":"dji-phantom-quadrocopter-drone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/2014\/05\/30\/dji-phantom-quadrocopter-drone\/","title":{"rendered":"DJI Phantom Quadrocopter Drone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"647A9957__16876.1397859650.1020.1020\"<\/a>This might be the strangest thing you’ll ever see reviewed on the gear blog. \u00a0I just returned from a photoshoot for the Sage fly rod company down in Mexico. \u00a0They had hired a serious set of professional commercial photographers from Motofish<\/a>\u00a0to run the shoot (complete with an art director from Hammerquist Studios<\/a>). \u00a0It was an incredibly interesting experience being a fishing model; not sure it’s something I would do again but definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity.<\/p>\n

The guys from Motofish had one of these drones. \u00a0I was both amazed and then ultimately unsurprised by both the capabilities and the limitations of this piece of gear.<\/p>\n

First off, capabilities. \u00a0This is only a $1300 product, with a spare battery. \u00a0That in and of itself is amazing. \u00a0The transmitter unit has a Wi-Fi broadcaster on it (you can see the extra lump of plastic). \u00a0This gives the drone a height range of about 300 feet and presumably a similar amount of lateral leeway. \u00a0The drone is very powerful; they were able to fly it and control it in about a 10 mph wind. \u00a0Standing on an open saltwater flat with this thing buzzing your head is a little bit like being strafed by a flying lawnmower. \u00a0It is not subtle; you know where it is at all times by the noise.<\/p>\n

The image it sees is transmitted via the Wi Fi connection to an ordinary iPhone, which clips to the transmitter or which can be controlled by a dedicated camera operator. \u00a0That’s right: camera operator. \u00a0The gimbal mount system you can see machined onto the bottom can be independently controlled from the actual flight controls, so a camera operator can run a zoom or stay on a subject while the flight operator pans or even circles the subject. \u00a0It’s bad ass.<\/p>\n

The images themselves are excellent: 1080p, extremely clear, similar to a Go-Pro camera. \u00a0In the event that the drone gets buffeted or shaken, there are post-processing tricks to recover a steady image (this is achieved by zooming in slightly then pinning a subject to one spot on a coordinate grid; and camera shake is thereby erased by “overlapping” the outer edges of the frame, making the zoom necessary).<\/p>\n

Now for the limitations. \u00a0Flight time is poor. \u00a015-17 minutes at best, and that doesn’t give you much time to set up a shot, especially with a heavy headwind. \u00a0And the drone is exceptionally fragile. \u00a0Motofish broke their first one by flying it into a basketball goal prior to the trip. \u00a0They broke their second one when it went out of Wi-Fi range, then started hunting for a signal. \u00a0Evidently it glommed onto the lodge’s Wi-Fi broadcast, thus losing flight control. \u00a0As soon as it hunted for and re-established the flight control signal the controls went haywire. \u00a0The drone crashed into a dock, then fell in the water. \u00a0Motofish tried to recover the data by plugging it in before the salt corroded the card, and the drone actually caught fire.<\/p>\n

So, basically conditions need to be perfect for safe operation. \u00a0Exposed copper flight engine coils mean no operation in any kind of precipitation, and there’s always the chance of a gust of wind crashing the bird.<\/p>\n

All that being said, this is AMAZING technology for a $1300 drone, and the prices are dropping rapidly. \u00a0With a little waterproofing, possibly a flotation array on the bottom, a little longer flight time and some tweaks to the Wi Fi system (when the bird loses contact it should use its GPS location to simply freeze until you can get to it), this could turn into an amazing tool. \u00a0Imagine being able to scan a flat from 300 feet up to spot a school of permit or tarpon? \u00a0Or putting a GPS chip on an angler and letting the bird follow, Lakitu-style, for the most epic fishing perspective possible. \u00a0The possibilities are enormous.<\/p>\n

Here’s a video showing the unit’s capabilities. \u00a0Excuse the terrible country.<\/p>\n