Camera not staying centered. Prop Arm and Landing Gear in video

[Dredog]

I've noticed a couple issues with my Advanced. The videos below are to help demonstrate the issue issues I'm having with the gimbal on my new Phantom 3 Advanced.


Camera Drifting and not staying centered when aircraft is stationary

As shown on the video the camera often times does not point forward and often pans or drifts horizontally when the aircraft is not moving. The same effect happens when I'm flying, which makes it difficult to keep my shots framed since it keeps moving even when the aircraft is stationary. It's really obvious at :13 and :30 seconds marks.

This video is sped up 4x to make the effect more obvious. It looks like I'm shaking the Phantom violently but I'm not. Just moving it side to side.

I've updated the firmware, calibrated the IMU and gimbal several times but I've seen no improvement. Also, I’ve noticed that sometimes the camera stays level for a period of time and then will be tilted only to eventually correct itself during the same flight.


Landing Gear and Prop Arm visible

Also, I've noticed that the Landing Gear and Prop Arm are sometimes visible when shooting in 16:9 format. Not sure if this is normal?

Wondering if anyone else is experiencing these issues.

Thanks in advance.

 

[zeitgeisty]

I would think that the issue with landing gear being in the shot when the camera is tilted downwards and the props being visible when the camera is pointing forwards is unavoidable due to the design of the Phantom series. The drone is not always 100% upright when it moves and the gimbal compensates for tilt and yaw stabilising the shot. Due to the compact design the periphery of the Phantom becomes visible in the shot, especially during quicker manoeuvres.

The bigger brother Inspire minimises (or eliminates?) this problem by moving the landing gear / rotor arms high above the camera. Other designs like hexacopters with tilted propellers try to keep the whole flight platform more level hence avoiding that chopper parts intrude the field of view of the camera. The CyPhy LVL 1 follows this approach.

I wouldn't go that far to call it a design flaw, but a compromise that was made to achieve a compact design (and to save costs). The effect can be minimised by flying and manoeuvring more slowly or alternatively one could crop the shots in post production. So far I don't mind this "Phantom signature" in my shots, but I am only filming for the fun

The erratic camera movement that you showed in your first video seems to me like a software issue, but I am not an expert. I have a similar problem with my P3a: The horizon is often slanted; its visibly higher on the right than on the left. This issue is also topic in thread on the DJI forum (http://forum.dji.com/thread-15253-1-1.html) So far I haven't been able to cure it with calibrating the gimbal or anything else.

 

[Teddyen]

Hi!

Did you ever figure out how to resolve to horizontal camera drift? I've had it since my Phantom 3 Pro was new, and it has ruined my shot several times. Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not. Horrible when you're working for high end clients. It's the single biggest drawback on the PH3 in my opinion.