First Timer, Proff. Intended Usage, Remarks and Impressions!

Lefteris Tsouris · Apr 6, 2016

Hi guys!

Here's my pre-arrival and my first flights experience. General Remarks on DJI too and the Phantom 4 as an end-consumer product. WARNING! Europe's "mentality" in this post..

PURCHASE
I avoided DJI's store, sorry people I hope you had a better exp. than the poor english-cannot-answer-more-than one-question I had. I wanted to buy as a business but they never really answered me if it's possible. I ordered from Sweden to a Greek DJI reseller and also deducted VAT (to whomever doesn't know a bloody TAX that of 20-25% here in EU countries). So with 1493€ got Phantom 4, hoods for tablet and mobile, extra propellers and an extra battery. Worth it the waiting, I got it yesterday.

FIRST TIME FLIGHT - EVALUATION
I watched a hell lot of youtube while waiting for the helicopter, from reviews to unboxing to anything, including 20' camera settings tutorial, drone settings, cinematography, how to shoot, what to avoid etc. I also read a lot. So yesterday I flew two times and today one. 5 STARS to DJI, this is an unimaginably fantastic product. I guess the most significant setting was to lower the sensitivity of the sticks...

QUESTIONS
-Why's Return to Home ******* around? Anybody had a similar exp? > it goes to land wherever it is instead of coming back to me...
-4K video is absurdly heavy for my PC and I run heavy software of all sorts... Anybody else same exp? However if downsized in exporting the video (I use Filmora) it looks fine
-Battery is .. well.. almost a joke. Fortunately I got two. Is DJI telling us 28' max flight time and they mean without recording video maybe? I know the battery has to run a few cycles, but 100% down to 10% with 4'50'' of flight time and video recording... Christ!

Here's an unedited compilation of raw footage from today, it's a waterfall and stuff trail in Northern Greece.

And finally, am I the only one who hears "Gimbal" and thinks "Bring out the Gimp Zed" !!

Pogopilot · Apr 6, 2016

What a great video!! Perfect location and you did it justice. Looks like the CA (collision avoidance)worked well there towards the end. I think ALL of us are having the same issues with quick (jerky) panning. This is really the only issue I have with your video and with just about all of mine. I think there is a way to tamp down the sticks but will have to re-read the manual.

nhoover · Apr 6, 2016

RTH is a fantastic feature and has saved me a number of times. By default it actually returns to home, although there is a setting you must've set that causes it to just land. Read the manual and use the default on that (although you'll have to intelligently set the altitude as per the terrain where you're flying).

About shooting 4k, yes you need a powerful computer, but the 60Mbps it shoots is not really that hard to process. My cell phone shoots 40Mbps but my other 2 cameras produce 80 and 100 Mbps 4k - P3P/P4 is kind of on the low end. I think more important than the actual computer you're using is the video software. Sure, they mostly all support 4k these days, but some are more efficient than others. If you have powerful video card(s), you might look into Davinci Resolve Lite - it renders on your GPUs.

I have 4 P4 batteries and they all are easily capable of flying well over 10 minutes while filming going from 100% -> 50%. While I doubt I'll ever go 28 minutes, the spec is kind of similar to that of previous models: it represents best case which doesn't happen in real life much. If you're only getting 4'50" something is wrong. Upload your log to healthydrones.com and post the link so we can see. Here's a typical one of mine: HealthyDrones.com - Innovative flight data analysis that matters

Others have complained about gimbal noise - mine is quiet.

Nice shots of that stream! Would like to see in 4k. Maybe its just youtube, but it looked over-compressed (low bitrate) to me.

---Nathan

tbird68 · Apr 9, 2016

Great footage. What a wonderful location. Little bit of tree trimming [emoji6]
What editing software do you use for the video? Loved the tiling of 3 shots.
I newbie to drones and have had my P4 for about 2 weeks and only managed 2 flights. Either too windy or raining or both. Got to love the U.K. Weather! Very early days for me but so far I have been very pleased with what I have seen so far.

Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app

Ramphex · Apr 9, 2016

Lefteris Tsouris said:
Hi guys!

Here's my pre-arrival and my first flights experience. General Remarks on DJI too and the Phantom 4 as an end-consumer product. WARNING! Europe's "mentality" in this post..

PURCHASE
I avoided DJI's store, sorry people I hope you had a better exp. than the poor english-cannot-answer-more-than one-question I had. I wanted to buy as a business but they never really answered me if it's possible. I ordered from Sweden to a Greek DJI reseller and also deducted VAT (to whomever doesn't know a bloody TAX that of 20-25% here in EU countries). So with 1493€ got Phantom 4, hoods for tablet and mobile, extra propellers and an extra battery. Worth it the waiting, I got it yesterday.

FIRST TIME FLIGHT - EVALUATION
I watched a hell lot of youtube while waiting for the helicopter, from reviews to unboxing to anything, including 20' camera settings tutorial, drone settings, cinematography, how to shoot, what to avoid etc. I also read a lot. So yesterday I flew two times and today one. 5 STARS to DJI, this is an unimaginably fantastic product. I guess the most significant setting was to lower the sensitivity of the sticks...

QUESTIONS
-Why's Return to Home ******* around? Anybody had a similar exp? > it goes to land wherever it is instead of coming back to me...
-4K video is absurdly heavy for my PC and I run heavy software of all sorts... Anybody else same exp? However if downsized in exporting the video (I use Filmora) it looks fine
-Battery is .. well.. almost a joke. Fortunately I got two. Is DJI telling us 28' max flight time and they mean without recording video maybe? I know the battery has to run a few cycles, but 100% down to 10% with 4'50'' of flight time and video recording... Christ!

Here's an unedited compilation of raw footage from today, it's a waterfall and stuff trail in Northern Greece.

And finally, am I the only one who hears "Gimbal" and thinks "Bring out the Gimp Zed" !!

Excellent quick video, beautiful spot to shoot. Glad to hear you had a great experience and I'll try to help with a couple of questions you have.

1) Return to Home - RTH requires that you have a GPS on your device to lock in the home point to return to. With that being said, if the Phantom is within 20 meters of the Home Point, it will just land. Do not ask why because no one knows and no it cannot be edited. Hopefully one day DJI fixes this setting.

2) 4K is probably not the issue, what are the specs on your computer? Play the video in VLC and report back if you're still getting any issues.

3) 28 minute flight time has been beaten to death around here, one of the people's biggest concerns with P4. 28 minutes is in Attitude Mode at Sea Level with all of the extra sensors and recording off - Optimal Conditions.

Enjoy your P4 and let us know if you have anymore questions.

Malakai · Apr 9, 2016

When you edit 4k its best to either transcode it (remove the compression) or create a proxy (low resolution version) edit that. The footage straight from the phantom is compressed and compressed video is hard work for an editor to work with, whenever you do anything it has decompress the video on the fly. Some are better at this than others but its still not ideal.

Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app

Jonah · Apr 9, 2016

Lefteris Tsouris said:
Hi guys!

Here's my pre-arrival and my first flights experience. General Remarks on DJI too and the Phantom 4 as an end-consumer product. WARNING! Europe's "mentality" in this post..

PURCHASE
I avoided DJI's store, sorry people I hope you had a better exp. than the poor english-cannot-answer-more-than one-question I had. I wanted to buy as a business but they never really answered me if it's possible. I ordered from Sweden to a Greek DJI reseller and also deducted VAT (to whomever doesn't know a bloody TAX that of 20-25% here in EU countries). So with 1493€ got Phantom 4, hoods for tablet and mobile, extra propellers and an extra battery. Worth it the waiting, I got it yesterday.

FIRST TIME FLIGHT - EVALUATION
I watched a hell lot of youtube while waiting for the helicopter, from reviews to unboxing to anything, including 20' camera settings tutorial, drone settings, cinematography, how to shoot, what to avoid etc. I also read a lot. So yesterday I flew two times and today one. 5 STARS to DJI, this is an unimaginably fantastic product. I guess the most significant setting was to lower the sensitivity of the sticks...

QUESTIONS
-Why's Return to Home ******* around? Anybody had a similar exp? > it goes to land wherever it is instead of coming back to me...
-4K video is absurdly heavy for my PC and I run heavy software of all sorts... Anybody else same exp? However if downsized in exporting the video (I use Filmora) it looks fine
-Battery is .. well.. almost a joke. Fortunately I got two. Is DJI telling us 28' max flight time and they mean without recording video maybe? I know the battery has to run a few cycles, but 100% down to 10% with 4'50'' of flight time and video recording... Christ!

Here's an unedited compilation of raw footage from today, it's a waterfall and stuff trail in Northern Greece.

And finally, am I the only one who hears "Gimbal" and thinks "Bring out the Gimp Zed" !!