DJI Phantom 3 vs 3DR Solo Specs

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it also ignores that many of us, at least the v2 owners already have invested in the gopro hero 4 :) and feel comfortable with the fish eye effect.
 
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It's a good comparison for new starters - though as noted, for those of us that have already invested in some of the tools (GoPro and fisheye removal aka - Adobe Premiere in my case) the starting position is better.


There's a lot of nice features with the SOLO, really interested in seeing some reviews specifically on the gimbal and camera features (orbit and cable) and now well they perform.
 
So the 3DR Solo with camera is going to cost nearly double the P3 Advanced and has less than half the range, less flight time and users have to put up with fisheye..
I can see it might appeal to people that love their Gopros but it looks like 3DR is going to struggle getting this to take off in the general market.
 
What's all this about fisheye? You don't have to put up with fisheye on the GoPro. GoPro outputs far better quality than what has come out of the Inspire so far.
 
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What's all this about fisheye? You don't have to put up with fisheye on the GoPro. GoPro outputs far better quality than what has come out of the Inspire so far.
Fisheye is a pain in the neck.
It takes processing time to get rid of it and you lose so much of your original image when you remove it.
The Gopro and P3 have similar sensors but if you defish the Gopro image you lose a percentage of what you started with.
With the flat feild lens, the P3 means you keep the whole image you started with.
Are you comparing quality before or after defishing?

Until the Solo arrived the Gopro hasn't been a suitable camera for serious still photography because the photographer had no control over the camera in flight. 3DR have fixed that but being stuck with a fisheye lens camera, they still aren't competitive for stills.
 
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Yes .. there are aftermarket lenses for additional cost and you can remove fisheye in software .. but because you can get a better flying camera for much less money so those won't make much difference. 3DR are going to have trouble competing against the P3 of features and price..
 
considering this is a phantom forum, the results are naturally going to lean in the phantoms favor. I do like some of the features offered by the solo. For example, you can hit a button and it will fly up and away to offer a nice zoom out affect. Yes this could be achieved with waypoints on a P2 with ground station but it is the little things like that that make it easy and fun to fly. I have only watched the youtube videos on both the P3 and the Solo so perhaps both have that feature. One thing I do like is that both are an all in one package. You do have to add the gopro but at this point in time, I don't know many people who don't have a gopro already. Regardless, it is not like the P1 and P2 days where you had to add FPV and then the ground station and before you know it the phantom 30 different things hanging off of it. I personally lean towards the phantom in this case because I know the phantom and I also like that the camera is integrated and all I need is a quad and controller and my iPad. I think if they were able to make the solo a little more attractive on price, I would buy that instead. I really do want to look more into the software features. I honestly feel that we are more or less neck and neck on flight time and camera specs (with the Pro). The FPV range isn't that big of a deal because technically you shouldn't fly out of line of sight and anyone that has flown a phantom in florida bright blue skies will tell you that it is hard to see it once it gets past about 2000 feet.

so if anyone has more info on the software and the different features within, I would love to learn more about that.
 
The waypoints capabilities alone are worth it for filming. If I can pre-program orientation, path, speed and gimbal movements and have it repeat the shot until I like it, that would be amazing.

As for GoPro losing quality when you de-fisheye, I'll take that Pepsi challenge. Watch this in full screen and tell me if you see any noticeable loss of clarity on the sides:

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(Ignore the over-sharpening you see when it's reduced size. That's my bad.)

It may take an extra step to get it but it's part of the Protune process which yields exceptional results. It's not just a LOG mode. The conversion process unpacks extra color information which effectively gives you the results of a higher bit rate output.
 
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BTW, Solo has 3 IMUs. That says a lot about 3DR's philosophy vs. DJI's. I strongly believe the flyaway I suffered this weekend is the result of a single IMU getting it's panties in a bunch. All it takes is one small IMU hiccup and you're bird is out of control. 3 IMUs is a fully redundant system to avoid just such a scenario.

And if you're convinced your crash is a hardware / software defect, send the telemetry to 3DR and they'll replace any damaged parts if the data shows it wasn't your fault.

Maybe the Solo has warts or it looks like a bad sci-fi spaceship but DJI can bloody well pay some attention to these features and customer service.
 
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The waypoints capabilities alone are worth it for filming. If I can pre-program orientation, path, speed and gimbal movements and have it repeat the shot until I like it, that would be amazing.

As for GoPro losing quality when you de-fisheye, I'll take that Pepsi challenge. Watch this in full screen and tell me if you see any noticeable loss of clarity on the sides:

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For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
(Ignore the over-sharpening you see when it's reduced size. That's my bad.)

It may take an extra step to get it but it's part of the Protune process which yields exceptional results. It's not just a LOG mode. The conversion process unpacks extra color information which effectively gives you the results of a higher bit rate output.

+1

Nice editing Woods. Can't believe you can make rocks look stunning by doing simple aerial and adding a dash of chill-out beats.

Back on topic..
Maybe if you were running superwide/wide you may see the "stretch" around the edges. I run medium on all my footage to avoid props and skids appearing. I think with medium and narrow, there is minimal loss/stretch that Meta4 is stating.
 
+1 on medium FOV. It also means no gangly legs or buzzy props in your shots.
 
Maybe if you were running superwide/wide you may see the "stretch" around the edges. I run medium on all my footage to avoid props and skids appearing. I think with medium and narrow, there is minimal loss/stretch that Meta4 is stating.
Or ... maybe there is loss.
Here are specs for the Hero 4 Black photo resolution from the Gopro website
i-BLh2THF-L.jpg

Gopro doesn't have a zoom lens that will fill the sensor at different focal lengths.
The medium setting simply masks the outer part of the image to leave a smaller image in the middle - sort of a digital zoom. This leaves an even smaller image to stretch and crop if you want to remove the fisheye distortion.
Since no-one whats the fisheye effect and they all convert to flat-field anyway, it's a better solution to shoot with a rectilinear wideangle and keep all of the image up from rather than cut it down later.

What's all this about fisheye? You don't have to put up with fisheye on the GoPro. GoPro outputs far better quality than what has come out of the Inspire so far.
If you are going to shoot Gopro in medium it's pointless to try to claim that the Gopro has superior image quality.

Ouch .. just saw the cost of a Hero 4 black - add that to the Solo + gimbal and you could buy two P3 Advanced !! Good luck 3DR with that value proposition.
 
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I'll wait for a suitable platform/gimbal (whether that be from 3DR or someone else) to fly a Blackmagic Micro Cinema Camera.

That kind of capability will separate the men from the boys. Meanwhile, I'm content with the P2.

The comparison chart above is useful, if not a bit biased. For instance, the Solo will supposedly do 55 mph, while the P3 clocks in at 35. Handy when you need speed.

As for battery cost, if the Solo battery proves to be reliable for say 100 cycles or more (and don't you know 3DR knows this is one of DJI's Achilles heal), then $150 looks like a bargain.
 

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