New P4P Gimbal Drift? (Video)

Matty1551 · Dec 30, 2017

I have a p4p whose gimbal drifts in both directions. Say I come to a stop and hover in one place. The camera will continue to drift either left or right. While this isn’t too bad shooting video, it really slows me down when shooting stills While trying to frame shots.

I’ve tried
-IMU Cal
-Compass Cal
-Gimbal Cal
-Controller Cal
-Resetting All Gimbal & Camera Settings

Nickster · Dec 30, 2017

Matty, it is a setting in the camera settings. If I remember right, it is “gimbal yaw”. Turn it off. Defaults have it on. That will take care of it. @msinger, am I right?

DaRana · Dec 30, 2017

Both of my phantom 4 Pro units have done this and no amount of settings, calibrations, disabling gimbal yaw/follow/etc, physically degaussing, etc have stooped it. Your video looks like the worst that mine have been, I have yet to determine a pattern or consistency in them.

By contrast the Mavic gimbal settles to rock solid in <0.5 sec in all but the most extreme circumstances (like spinning 5x times at full speed in sport mode ... then it takes like 2 secs to settle.)

Laserred94 · Dec 31, 2017

I recently purchased a P4A and it did it. Took it back and exchanged it and the second one did it too. They were both exactly the same and did what yours is doing. Mine did it a little worse though. Calibration after calibration made no difference. No better or worse. I'm starting to think they all do it some.

Speedmeister · Dec 31, 2017

You may want to experiment on the gimble settings

Matty1551 said:
I have a p4p whose gimbal drifts in both directions. Say I come to a stop and hover in one place. The camera will continue to drift either left or right. While this isn’t too bad shooting video, it really slows me down when shooting stills While trying to frame shots.

I’ve tried
-IMU Cal
-Compass Cal
-Gimbal Cal
-Controller Cal
-Resetting All Gimbal & Camera Settings

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turn off the gimble sync pan/follow on the camera gimble settings. It allows you to have 3 saved configuration so you can have 1 for photo and another for video.

EhmayWuntee · Dec 31, 2017

I need to look into mine more, but I am like 99.9% sure mine is/was stable when I use my phone, but drifted (to the right) when I recently tried an 8" tablet while visiting my parents.

I didn't check too much into the tablet's DJI Go settings to see if all match my phone, but there may be a chance the drift only happens with certain screens? I don't recall if I tried my phone since then to see if it drifts, the temps dropped a fair bit where I am visiting.

DaRana · Jan 1, 2018

Laserred94 said:
I recently purchased a P4A and it did it. Took it back and exchanged it and the second one did it too. They were both exactly the same and did what yours is doing. Mine did it a little worse though. Calibration after calibration made no difference. No better or worse. I'm starting to think they all do it some.

That’s where I’ve landed, (No pun intended), I think most do it but most don’t notice it. It can be subtle at times, and for many they just may not notice it most of the time if ever, or just assume that’s where the tech is. If i were only doing video or FPV and didn’t have a Mavic to compare it to, I might not have noticed it. Since I’m often doing multi stack hdr, large panos, and timelapses, it’s been pretty annoying.

Matty1551 · Jan 3, 2018

DaRana said:
Both of my phantom 4 Pro units have done this and no amount of settings, calibrations, disabling gimbal yaw/follow/etc, physically degaussing, etc have stooped it. Your video looks like the worst that mine have been, I have yet to determine a pattern or consistency in them.

By contrast the Mavic gimbal settles to rock solid in <0.5 sec in all but the most extreme circumstances (like spinning 5x times at full speed in sport mode ... then it takes like 2 secs to settle.)

If it settled in a reasonable amount of time I could deal with it but it just continues to drift endlessly.

skyeboysteve · Apr 26, 2018

Any solution to this? It's been a few months since I've tried any long exposure photos with my P4P, and didn't have many issues. However, the last few days, I've been finding it impossible to shoot any long exposures due to a constant yaw drift. Often it's very subtle; and not noticeable unless you watch the landscape slowly drift by an overlaid grid. The irony is, that tonight I flew in very stable air with a light wind; yet all my pictures have a lot of motion blur. I've shot much better night photos a year ago while hovering in gusty 20-25mph winds.

Speedmeister · Apr 27, 2018

Has anyone tested the drift while the drone is on the ground? If it is a camera problem the drone should drift no matter what.

skyeboysteve · Apr 27, 2018

Speedmeister said:
Has anyone tested the drift while the drone is on the ground? If it is a camera problem the drone should drift no matter what.

Mine doesn’t drift on the ground. Though I admittedly haven’t checked recently.

For me it seems to drift more when I stop yawning at certain directions. I can sometimes get virtually no drift when facing one direction but when I go back to facing the same general direction where I got drift earlier, it drifts again.

Speedmeister · Apr 27, 2018

skyeboysteve said:
Mine doesn’t drift on the ground. Though I admittedly haven’t checked recently.

For me it seems to drift more when I stop yawning at certain directions. I can sometimes get virtually no drift when facing one direction but when I go back to facing the same general direction where I got drift earlier, it drifts again.

Set the drone on a turntable to simulate yaw. Adjust the gimble setting for the desired result. Slow for video and fast for camera.

skyeboysteve · Apr 28, 2018

I've tried changing gimble pitch speed and gimble pitch smoothness; but it doesn't seem to make any difference for me--not that I'd expect it for a yaw issue. What gimble setting are you referring to? I did notice that there is a little yaw drift in the gimble after I rotate the drone on the table--but it quickly stops and stabilizes. In the air it's another matter. It almost acts like there's a narrow deadzone with the yaw stick that's sending a very slight yaw input.

Speedmeister · Apr 28, 2018

skyeboysteve said:
I've tried changing gimble pitch speed and gimble pitch smoothness; but it doesn't seem to make any difference for me--not that I'd expect it for a yaw issue. What gimble setting are you referring to? I did notice that there is a little yaw drift in the gimble after I rotate the drone on the table--but it quickly stops and stabilizes. In the air it's another matter. It almost acts like there's a narrow deadzone with the yaw stick that's sending a very slight yaw input.

If you have tried the gimble settings and still exibits the problem then I dont know whatelse to tell you. I have the P4PO and I have not encountered the same problem were the gimble drifts after it finds the center. From the ground, my left and right yaw will move the gimble and have the same amount of time returning to center. Have anyone with the obsidian reported the same issue yet?

DaRana · Apr 28, 2018

I’ve given up on it ever being fixed for the P4P. I’ve had three of them now, all exhibited essentially the same problem.

As others have noted, it’s not always super obvious, I suspect many people simply never notice it and for many types of photo and video it might not ever be an issue. But it’s definitely a royal PITA the rest of the time.

Glad to hear a report of the P4PO not drifting - maybe that bodes well for the P5. As I think I probably mentioned earlier, the Mavic Pro is rock solid. I kinda forget just how solid it is bc I mostly fly my Phantom, then whenever I fly the Mavic it’s a stark reminder.

Matty1551 · Apr 29, 2018

Speedmeister said:
Has anyone tested the drift while the drone is on the ground? If it is a camera problem the drone should drift no matter what.

Mine can be seen drifting on the ground as well. I'm on my second p4p and they both do it so I'm starting to think this is a common issue.

Matty1551 · Apr 29, 2018

Speedmeister said:
If you have tried the gimble settings and still exibits the problem then I dont know whatelse to tell you. I have the P4PO and I have not encountered the same problem were the gimble drifts after it finds the center. From the ground, my left and right yaw will move the gimble and have the same amount of time returning to center. Have anyone with the obsidian reported the same issue yet?

The gimbal settings could help if it consistently drifted in ONE direction but mine seems to drift in both directions.

EhmayWuntee · Apr 30, 2018

I'll have to pay closer attention the next time I take one of mine out, but I thought it was minor drifting that I thought I had luck in tapping the yaw a tiny bit to counter the drift and it would steady.

So if I end up coming to a place I want to stand still at and it is slightly yawing left, I will subtly stick right and it stabilizes. I suppose I don't know for how long though since 90% of the time I am taking photos and I'm sure the drift is bother people who are trying to do still video.

tommy lo · Sep 16, 2018

I have the same issue, it even happens when the drone is sitting on a table. Very annoying.

Heckmaniac · Nov 5, 2020

Same issue here - notice the other posts are from 2018 - so maybe this issue had been resolved (perhaps someone could comment). I just purchased a used P4P and have camera drift to the left whenever hovering. Thought maybe I purchased a damaged drone (until I read this post).