Follow a car - how?

Farsen · May 29, 2017

Hi.

I´ve had my P3 4K for a month now, and I´ve been trying to figure out the best way to get some smooth and nice car-following footage. You know, where you follow a car (from which you are controlling the drone), and revealing a nice enviromentment in an easy-going and relaxing pace.

Here is what I´ve tried, and the problems associated:

1. Lichi Track and follow. The drone keeps losing track of the subject veeery easily.
2. Vertical studio Track. Quite better than lichi, but you have to control the drone while the car is moving, which often leads to bad results because of jerky movement to keep up with the car. Furthermore, when the drone is moving in the back of the car, it easily looses signal when the antennas are pointing forward. And it´s very hard to move and turn around in the passenger seat to face the drone, while controlling it.
3. Lichi follow and DJI go Follow. Would be cool if these modes just followed the car (RC) with smooth movements, but they dont. They seem too be so nervous and speed quickly up to keep up with the car, or going to fast - resulting in useless footage. And combining the follow mode when manually trying to adjust the gimbal or the drone itselt, just makes it worse.

So my question is, how do you guys achieve this? Am I doing anything wrong, or do I misunderstand something?

Thanks alot for you help and thoughts

Mallettron · May 29, 2017

Do a search for litchi magic leash it allows the drone to follow a gps cellular device, maybe what you are looking for

ifly2high · May 29, 2017

I have the autopilot app...have not used follow mode, but my understanding is that it follows the phone/device running the app, which also has an airspace function that allows more than one device to run the app and view fpv during flight

Farsen · May 30, 2017

I will try out the magic leash, thank you.
Well the autopilot is only for IOS which doesent work for me. And I guess it is just as good as lichi?

ifly2high · May 30, 2017

Farsen said:
I will try out the magic leash, thank you.
Well the autopilot is only for IOS which doesent work for me. And I guess it is just as good as lichi?

I like and use Litchi much more than Autopilot

120CCPM · May 30, 2017

I never tried this from a moving car, but I had some luck following a friend on a motocross track with Course Lock:
- put the drone in a position (distance, altitude, camera tilt) so you get a nice shot of the car, say from the side or 3/4.
- now rotate the drone so it points parallel to the road (needless to say, make sure there are no obstacles straight ahead)
- enable Course Lock (this mode makes the drone move on an ideal "grid" with right stick movements, regardless of its yaw)
- rotate the drone back toward the car and start driving
- push right stick forward to make the drone move parallel to the road and keep the car in the frame, use left stick (yaw) to help

Farsen · May 30, 2017

@120CCPM
Thanks! That sounds like a good idea, I will try that out

cprevost · May 31, 2017

Operating a drone from a moving vehicle is an FAA violation BTW.

120CCPM · May 31, 2017

cprevost said:
Operating a drone from a moving vehicle is an FAA violation BTW.

Fact Sheet for Part 107: No operations from a moving vehicle are allowed unless you are flying over a sparsely populated area.
No restrictions about moving vehicles, to my knowledge, if you're flying for fun. See Fly for Fun.

cprevost · May 31, 2017

You are right. Just tried to find info on it and don't see any restrictions for amateur use. Interesting.

120CCPM · May 31, 2017

cprevost said:
You are right. Just tried to find info on it and don't see any restrictions for amateur use. Interesting.

Yeah, it's one of those strange situations where casual recreational users have less restrictions than commercial operators who - supposedly - are more educated and skilled than Average Joe.

Mallettron · Jun 1, 2017

I think an amateur spreads and tries different things whereas a professional is tied to one thing
I do radio control, most aspects, boating, power and gliding, photography was an addon, then came drones with an f450 and gimbal, then the p4. You learn a hell of a lot
A professional photographer would buy a p4 to add to his portfolio, that would probably be all he did, so his experience of flying or operating remotrly would be far less
Model associations also tend to get exemptions which give us more