DJI Phantom 3 Quadcopter Aerial Photography

amirm

Banned
Apr 2, 2010
15,813
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Seattle, WA
I love to get into shooting with a quadcopter but everytime I looked at them, the quality and parts were not there at affordable prices. Seems like the new Phantom III may finally be the ticket that gets me to dive in. Love the built-in three axis gimbal stabilizer and real-time HD video. 4K video capture and 12 megapixel still image capture:

 

Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
Here is an overview of features and pricing ($1200 for pro version and $1000 for advanced):


My son has been using that one on shoots and he loves it. It's his third quad copter. The first one ended up in the SF Bay
 

MadFloyd

Member Sponsor
May 30, 2010
3,076
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Mass
You get a copter AND a 4k camera for $1200? That seems way too good to be true. I would have thought just a 4k camcorder would cost $1200. Is the optics low quality? What am I missing?
 

amirm

Banned
Apr 2, 2010
15,813
37
0
Seattle, WA
You get a copter AND a 4k camera for $1200? That seems way too good to be true. I would have thought just a 4k camcorder would cost $1200. Is the optics low quality? What am I missing?
They are pretty crude in that regard. They have a fixed lens with no focus or zoom. You get the shot and angle of view that you get, i.e. wide angle.

The core logic exists now in every point and shoot and smartphone engine to encode 4K video. And the sensor is also readily available. In other words they have 10% of what is in your phone on board.

That said, a lot of the standard copters have cheap lousy sensors and encoders. So this is a good step up, just not anything out of ordinary compared to other platforms.
 

amirm

Banned
Apr 2, 2010
15,813
37
0
Seattle, WA
My son has been using that one on shoots and he loves it. It's his third quad copter. The first one ended up in the SF Bay
That is what has kept me away from them 'till now. Losing one especially if one were to strap a DSLR and lens on it. At the prices for this package, it will still be a big loss but not that bad :). We have almost a throw-away camera on them that shoots decent images.
 

Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
That is what has kept me away from them 'till now. Losing one especially if one were to strap a DSLR and lens on it. At the prices for this package, it will still be a big loss but not that bad :). We have almost a throw-away camera on them that shoots decent images.

His first one went down with a GoPro
 

c1ferrari

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
May 15, 2010
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I harbor privacy concerns... :eek:
 

DaveyF

Well-Known Member
Jul 31, 2010
6,129
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La Jolla, Calif USA
My nephew works selling these devices. Tells me that a large number of people buy the copter and then proceed to lose it as it either a) flies out of range because they have disabled the sensor or b) crash it, because their skill level isn't commensurate with their expectations. Either way usually an expensive mistake.
 

ack

VIP/Donor & WBF Founding Member
May 6, 2010
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Boston, MA

amirm

Banned
Apr 2, 2010
15,813
37
0
Seattle, WA
I harbor privacy concerns... :eek:
Just like the Internet, privacy will be and already is the first thing to go as we start to see as birds do with such devices. FAA rules have put fair number of gates on commercial applications (e.g. line of sight) but for private use, there is nothing there.

As an aside, we took down some trees that was between us and the neighbor's house as we both feared they would come crashing down as they were leaning pretty bad. Their house sits 20-30 feet higher than ours. Before, I could not see their house and now I can easily see theirs so I *thought* I had lost our privacy. Then thought it about and realized we never had it! The trees were pretty close to their house so from our vantage point, it seemed that they could not see us. From their side though, they could have all along peered through the trees and see us. So privacy is the same. We are just more aware of it now than we were before.

Best to go and get big land some place in order to create a buffer. According to US law, you not only own the land but own a column of air going into space according to your property line! So seems to be one can take down any such plane attempting to trespass into our "air space." :)
 

rockitman

Member Sponsor
Sep 20, 2011
7,097
412
1,210
Northern NY
Flying one of these around in most neighborhoods will make you very unpopular indeed. I know if one was hanging around my yard and I lived outside city limits, I would blast it with my 12 guage...
 

amirm

Banned
Apr 2, 2010
15,813
37
0
Seattle, WA
Speaking of that, you all saw the footage of the marriage in a church? Who on earth would allow a quadcopter inside such a place? Liabilities alone would stop it dead in its tracks.
 

c1ferrari

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
May 15, 2010
2,162
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amirm

Banned
Apr 2, 2010
15,813
37
0
Seattle, WA
Nice hands on test of the unit:


Fascinating comment about the gyro being so good that one can take still images with up to 8 second shutter speed! Night-time timed-exposure images would be wonderful that way.
 

amirm

Banned
Apr 2, 2010
15,813
37
0
Seattle, WA
And this is a rather wordy comparison of the Phantom 2 with Gopro Hero 4 with gimbal mount versus the all integrated version in Phantom 3:


Jump close to the end to see the actual footage. I like the camera in Phantom 3 better as its lens is rectilinear and doesn't suffer from the curvature/fisheye effect of the GoPro lens.
 

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