3 axis gimbal questions

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When is the third axis useful? I would assume when yawing left and right if the controller knows when to stop so the legs don't come into view.

What about with the camera pointed straight down? Would the third axis be helpful in this situation?
 
gfredrone said:
When is the third axis useful? I would assume when yawing left and right if the controller knows when to stop so the legs don't come into view.

What about with the camera pointed straight down? Would the third axis be helpful in this situation?

Good question ... I'm curious about this as well.
 
There's a few ways they can be used, but in general a 3rd axis on the gimbal will dampen any yaw movements of the aircraft so they will appear much smoother in video. Some people use it so they can pan the camera independent of the aircraft, but on the Phantom you still can't do that very much unless you don't mind having the legs in the shot, so the main benefit would be just reducing or eliminating the jerky look you can get from a number of factors while yawing he Phantom (less than optimum stick input, wind buffeting, etc).

The 3rd axis would still affect the orientation of the camera mount even if the camera were pointed down, but the effect in your video would be a smoothing of rotation instead of pan.

Phantom turning left/right in relation to itself = yaw
Camera turning left/right in relation to the view = pan
 
OI Photography said:
There's a few ways they can be used, but in general a 3rd axis on the gimbal will dampen any yaw movements of the aircraft so they will appear much smoother in video. Some people use it so they can pan the camera independent of the aircraft, but on the Phantom you still can't do that very much, so the main benefit would be just reducing or eliminating the jerky look you can get from a number of factors while yawing he Phantom (less than optimum stick input, wind buffeting, etc).

The 3rd axis would still affect the orientation of the camera mount even if the camera were pointed down, but the effect in your video would be a smoothing of rotation instead of pan.

So in our case, when the quad yaws, the 3rd axis will momentarily delay and then smoothly move to match the quad's orientation?
 
GneeChee said:
OI Photography said:
There's a few ways they can be used, but in general a 3rd axis on the gimbal will dampen any yaw movements of the aircraft so they will appear much smoother in video. Some people use it so they can pan the camera independent of the aircraft, but on the Phantom you still can't do that very much, so the main benefit would be just reducing or eliminating the jerky look you can get from a number of factors while yawing he Phantom (less than optimum stick input, wind buffeting, etc).

The 3rd axis would still affect the orientation of the camera mount even if the camera were pointed down, but the effect in your video would be a smoothing of rotation instead of pan.

So in our case, when the quad yaws, the 3rd axis will momentarily delay and then smoothly move to match the quad's orientation?

Correct, I believe that's known as "follow yaw"...this great vid explains it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44ON5ND ... iIaaxxyKTA (that was produced by Gizmo3000, member of this forum)
 
OI Photography said:
GneeChee said:
OI Photography said:
There's a few ways they can be used, but in general a 3rd axis on the gimbal will dampen any yaw movements of the aircraft so they will appear much smoother in video. Some people use it so they can pan the camera independent of the aircraft, but on the Phantom you still can't do that very much, so the main benefit would be just reducing or eliminating the jerky look you can get from a number of factors while yawing he Phantom (less than optimum stick input, wind buffeting, etc).

The 3rd axis would still affect the orientation of the camera mount even if the camera were pointed down, but the effect in your video would be a smoothing of rotation instead of pan.

So in our case, when the quad yaws, the 3rd axis will momentarily delay and then smoothly move to match the quad's orientation?

Correct, I believe that's known as "follow yaw"...this great vid explains it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44ON5ND ... iIaaxxyKTA (that was produced by Gizmo3000, member of this forum)
Ahh, very cool. I've officially been schooled on 3rd-axis-follow-yaw-magical-voodoo-now-my-brain-hurts stuff.

And that vid is what I was imagining would happen after I read your explanation. Good info.

It's amazing what I'm learning here. My initial intent was to fly the cool, neato, boss, 4 prop helicoptor thing and make it go zoom zoom zoom thru the air. Now look at me ... 2 weeks ago I didn't know what fish-eye was - now I can correct it ... and next I'm going to learn how to solder! LOL

This is more than just a hobby. This should count for Continuing Education credits :)
 
GneeChee said:
Ahh, very cool. I've officially been schooled on 3rd-axis-follow-yaw-magical-voodoo-now-my-brain-hurts stuff.

And that vid is what I was imagining would happen after I read your explanation. Good info.

It's amazing what I'm learning here. My initial intent was to fly the cool, neato, boss, 4 prop helicoptor thing and make it go zoom zoom zoom thru the air. Now look at me ... 2 weeks ago I didn't know what fish-eye was - now I can correct it ... and next I'm going to learn how to solder! LOL

This is more than just a hobby. This should count for Continuing Education credits :)

Glad ya dug my video!
it's a common question when people ask about the legs getting into the picture and such.
advanced copters with retracts and more channels have the ability to manually rotate the camera as well,
.but if you're flying FPV using the main camera it would be a bit disorienting as well.
so essentially, you either want to have it set to Yaw Follow, which works great for 90% of the people,
Or have it set up on a hex or octo copter, where one guy is flying FPV thru a small forward facing camera (or line of sight), and another is operating the camera remotely! - but that's pretty hardcore.

Yah, like many of us, you see a Phantom with GoPro and figure it'd be fun to shoot video.
.. THEN when you see the results and start learning more, it's like a drug where you want to get more and produce better results
-getting gimbals, new transmitters, FPV, balanced props, motors.. there's a TON to learn.

as per the 3 axis gimbals, .they do weigh a bit more, but the results are dope. (no yaw-wobble), I highly recommend for larger quads or Phantom 2's.. flight times on a Phantom 1 are reduced down to under 5 minutes, which is pushing it a little bit.
 
iDrone said:
Gizmo3000 said:
Glad ya dug my video!
Gizmo your park video was outstanding fun, what a ride, thanks for uploading it.
http://youtu.be/RIWpKcf7mcQ

iDrone :!:


I agree, great fun!

Now see - when I'm flying and recording --- in my mind THAT is what my vids look like ... but the reality is ... well ... they are usually quickly deleted never to be seen again. LOL

To be honest - trees scare me - I'm usually way up above them.
 
Anyone know if we will be able to enable roll for the rotorpixel gimbal like gizmo did at the end of the tree video?
 
gfredrone said:
Anyone know if we will be able to enable roll for the rotorpixel gimbal like gizmo did at the end of the tree video?

Its a future update and no time line has been suggested. Keri did say he is working on camera adapters so we will probably see those first. Heck, they haven't really started to ship the 2d units yet (I know, 10 went out).

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk
 
iResq said:
gfredrone said:
Anyone know if we will be able to enable roll for the rotorpixel gimbal like gizmo did at the end of the tree video?

Its a future update and no time line has been suggested. Keri did say he is working on camera adapters so we will probably see those first. Heck, they haven't really started to ship the 2d units yet (I know, 10 went out).

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk

I think it should work on the 2 axis model via input into simple BGC, but I have never used the software before so I'm not sure. You don't need the 3rd axis for roll. The motor in the back controls the roll. Side motor is tilt and 3rd axis would be yaw.
 
I couldn't pull up video, some fashion lunch thing comes up. So it would work auto magically? I couldn't imagine having yet another thing to try to control.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk
 

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