Newb questions..

[lickitysplit11111]

OK so I took my first flight today using a real drone (P4P) I've been practicing for a few days with a Cheerson CX-10 which is fun and a really cheap way to learn a few basics .
I was in beginner mode but soon wanted to leave it because of the limitations but I wasn't sure how too ?
1. How do you leave beginner mode ? besides sliding the selector to off will I then be able to enter max. flight altitude & max. flight distance ,& RTH alt. and it'll stay set as a default or do i have to enter that before every flight ?

2. Is there a DJI program for my home PC that keeps all my pics and videos in the same place ? Nikon has has a program like this for pics so I figured DJI would also..

3. I cant find where in the APP I can change the pic quality to DNG instead of jpg ? Sorry I cant find it..

4. I tried the RTH button but I'm guessing because I was on grass it kept refusing to land and it kept giving me a "unsafe to land " pop-up ,it it not advised to take-off or land on grass because its uneven ? Does this happen even in "P" mode ? Not that landing manually was a problem I did it about a half dozen times but I'm just trying to figure things out.

Sorry bout the uber newb questions but that's where I'm at.. thank you for your help..

 

[Jayfdee]

Re 3 you should be able to set the camera to shoot in jpeg+raw, I don,think you can just shoot raw, it is in the camera settings, keep hunting.
Re 2 not to my knowledge, maybe Lightroom can be used to good effect. I just copy them to a folder.I always take the card out of the ac and into a card reader, I think most people do this.
Re 1 Yes , just move the slider off beginners mode. Definitely check your RTH settings, and test them out in a wide open field. You can also now set your max height and distance, maybe stay conservative for a few flights, maybe 200ft max alt, and 500ft max dist, although you can easily see up to 1000ft dist, it is possible to lose sight at 500ft, and def possible to lose orientation.

I am a P4 user, so I am assuming the P4P is similar in the settings.

 

[ricphoto]

OK so I took my first flight today using a real drone (P4P) I've been practicing for a few days with a Cheerson CX-10 which is fun and a really cheap way to learn a few basics .
I was in beginner mode but soon wanted to leave it because of the limitations but I wasn't sure how too ?
1. How do you leave beginner mode ? besides sliding the selector to off will I then be able to enter max. flight altitude & max. flight distance ,& RTH alt. and it'll stay set as a default or do i have to enter that before every flight ?

2. Is there a DJI program for my home PC that keeps all my pics and videos in the same place ? Nikon has has a program like this for pics so I figured DJI would also..

3. I cant find where in the APP I can change the pic quality to DNG instead of jpg ? Sorry I cant find it..

4. I tried the RTH button but I'm guessing because I was on grass it kept refusing to land and it kept giving me a "unsafe to land " pop-up ,it it not advised to take-off or land on grass because its uneven ? Does this happen even in "P" mode ? Not that landing manually was a problem I did it about a half dozen times but I'm just trying to figure things out.

Sorry bout the uber newb questions but that's where I'm at.. thank you for your help..

#1) in your mode screen (bottom left icon on the main screen) you should just be able to slide the Beginner switch off which h will enable your other functions...(be sure to set your RTH altitude)

#2) Not from DJI...what you can (should ;-) do is take the card from the bird and import it to your puter...on the desktop or top level of an external drive (preferred) create a folder called "Drone_shots" or some such...every time you bring in another shoot make another sub-folder in that folder by date ( 20161204_drone_XXXX (test, river, city etc) that way when using Lightroom or photoshop to view and work on your images you'll know where to find every shot...even years later.
NOTE: Be very careful about filling up your computers hard drive and bringing your system to a halt...get an external drive and keep all of your images on it. Gigs add up really quickly with video and RAW images...REALLY quickly..

#3) Behind the 3 lines on the right hand side of your screen will be your camera settings...in there will be 3 tabs. Your image quality setting will be there...use just RAW...raw and jpeg is a waste as you can make any jpegs you need (and better ones) off your RAW files after editing. If you don't see the settings you need hit the camera icon with the circle/arrows around it...that shifts the emphasis from stills to video.

#4) Try it again when out of beginner mode...(or get a landing pad ;-)

 

[KevMo Photog]

OK so I took my first flight today using a real drone (P4P) I've been practicing for a few days with a Cheerson CX-10 which is fun and a really cheap way to learn a few basics .
I was in beginner mode but soon wanted to leave it because of the limitations but I wasn't sure how too ?
1. How do you leave beginner mode ? besides sliding the selector to off will I then be able to enter max. flight altitude & max. flight distance ,& RTH alt. and it'll stay set as a default or do i have to enter that before every flight ?

2. Is there a DJI program for my home PC that keeps all my pics and videos in the same place ? Nikon has has a program like this for pics so I figured DJI would also..

3. I cant find where in the APP I can change the pic quality to DNG instead of jpg ? Sorry I cant find it..

4. I tried the RTH button but I'm guessing because I was on grass it kept refusing to land and it kept giving me a "unsafe to land " pop-up ,it it not advised to take-off or land on grass because its uneven ? Does this happen even in "P" mode ? Not that landing manually was a problem I did it about a half dozen times but I'm just trying to figure things out.

Sorry bout the uber newb questions but that's where I'm at.. thank you for your help..

Everyone else answered your other questions. But on the RTH problem, you have to be at least I thinks it's 60 meters out for it to activate and work. If you are inside of that distance I think it will just hover there I believe. Is that what happened to you maybe?

 

[Richard R]

I don't think that the Phantoms have anyway to evaluate the 'quality' of the landing site, something else is going on! How close to the takeoff location were you when hit RTH? Usually, the bird has to be more than 20 meters from 'Home', before RTH will iniate a return, otherwise, it will just land where it is. Doesn't sound like that was your problem though. How many satelites were you showing? the bird won't do a RTH if it doesn't have enough GPS satellites (the indicator will be greyed out)

 

[Meta4]

4. I tried the RTH button but I'm guessing because I was on grass it kept refusing to land and it kept giving me a "unsafe to land " pop-up ,it it not advised to take-off or land on grass because its uneven ? Does this happen even in "P" mode ? Not that landing manually was a problem I did it about a half dozen times but I'm just trying to figure things out.

Sounds like a thing in the new autolanding system rather than RTH.
It's where it's using the downward facing cameras to assess the landing spot.
Grass is going to be tricky for it because it doesn't have a strong pattern to recognise.
Try it where the ground looks different and it might work.

 

[lickitysplit11111]

Re 3 you should be able to set the camera to shoot in jpeg+raw, I don,think you can just shoot raw, it is in the camera settings, keep hunting.
Re 2 not to my knowledge, maybe Lightroom can be used to good effect. I just copy them to a folder.I always take the card out of the ac and into a card reader, I think most people do this.
Re 1 Yes , just move the slider off beginners mode. Definitely check your RTH settings, and test them out in a wide open field. You can also now set your max height and distance, maybe stay conservative for a few flights, maybe 200ft max alt, and 500ft max dist, although you can easily see up to 1000ft dist, it is possible to lose sight at 500ft, and def possible to lose orientation.

I am a P4 user,

Re 3 you should be able to set the camera to shoot in jpeg+raw, I don,think you can just shoot raw, it is in the camera settings, keep hunting.
Re 2 not to my knowledge, maybe Lightroom can be used to good effect. I just copy them to a folder.I always take the card out of the ac and into a card reader, I think most people do this.
Re 1 Yes , just move the slider off beginners mode. Definitely check your RTH settings, and test them out in a wide open field. You can also now set your max height and distance, maybe stay conservative for a few flights, maybe 200ft max alt, and 500ft max dist, although you can easily see up to 1000ft dist, it is possible to lose sight at 500ft, and def possible to lose orientation.

I am a P4 user, so I am assuming the P4P is similar in the settings.

Thank you , I never flew or did any and I mean any video before so I'm really going into this kinda clueless but I ordered a card reader just so I can see what type of files the cameras going to give me and video I'll figure out at a later date.I kinda stopped looking for the file type selector I'm sure I stumble upon it in the next few days. I still gotta figure out the camera too. P mode is sweet. I went about 1/2 mile out about 30 ft above the Meadowlands then I got scared and came home.

 

[lickitysplit11111]

#1) in your mode screen (bottom left icon on the main screen) you should just be able to slide the Beginner switch off which h will enable your other functions...(be sure to set your RTH altitude)

#2) Not from DJI...what you can (should ;-) do is take the card from the bird and import it to your puter...on the desktop or top level of an external drive (preferred) create a folder called "Drone_shots" or some such...every time you bring in another shoot make another sub-folder in that folder by date ( 20161204_drone_XXXX (test, river, city etc) that way when using Lightroom or photoshop to view and work on your images you'll know where to find every shot...even years later.
NOTE: Be very careful about filling up your computers hard drive and bringing your system to a halt...get an external drive and keep all of your images on it. Gigs add up really quickly with video and RAW images...REALLY quickly..

#3) Behind the 3 lines on the right hand side of your screen will be your camera settings...in there will be 3 tabs. Your image quality setting will be there...use just RAW...raw and jpeg is a waste as you can make any jpegs you need (and better ones) off your RAW files after editing. If you don't see the settings you need hit the camera icon with the circle/arrows around it...that shifts the emphasis from stills to video.

#4) Try it again when out of beginner mode...(or get a landing pad ;-)

Thanks for the tip on how to sort the files I can definitely handle that my current photos catalog is a mess and I'm not gonna let that happen again with this , I know raw files take up a lot of space but I didnt know video did also. I thought it was lesser quality.
I found the image quality selector..

 

[lickitysplit11111]

I don't think that the Phantoms have anyway to evaluate the 'quality' of the landing site, something else is going on! How close to the takeoff location were you when hit RTH? Usually, the bird has to be more than 20 meters from 'Home', before RTH will iniate a return, otherwise, it will just land where it is. Doesn't sound like that was your problem though. How many satelites were you showing? the bird won't do a RTH if it doesn't have enough GPS satellites (the indicator will be greyed out)

I think it was either the grass or beginner mode or a combo of the two I was within the 30 meters or whatever beginner mode is and it came back every time but just hoovered and then made a pop-up that it didnt like the landing spot. On my second time out today I didnt get a chance to use the RTH button on grass in P mode so I cant really say if it was the grass ,I landed on blacktop then got chased out the deserted park by this nice Police officer who informed me that its illegal to fly in the park especially if the drone had a camera on it .
I didnt even ask I just left.

 

[lickitysplit11111]

Sounds like a thing in the new autolanding system rather than RTH.
It's where it's using the downward facing cameras to assess the landing spot.
Grass is going to be tricky for it because it doesn't have a strong pattern to recognise.
Try it where the ground looks different and it might work.

Hmm, I only used the one RTH button but it just hoovered there each time over grass ,when I was on the sand of 1st base it landed using the same button.
The P4P is a piece of cake to land manually compared to the nano drone.

 

[lickitysplit11111]

Another question I took a few pictures today and those are easy to see using Windows photo viewer but when I tried viewing the video I received a pop-up saying the file type is unsupported can someone point me in the right direction, oh and another question how much video time fits on the 16gb card they give ?
Thank you for your help..
Instead of me starting a new thread for every stupid question I have I'm just going to keep digging this one up if thats OK ..

 

[Meta4]

Another question I took a few pictures today and those are easy to see using Windows photo viewer but when I tried viewing the video I received a pop-up saying the file type is unsupported can someone point me in the right direction, oh and another question how much video time fits on the 16gb card they give ?

File type not supported just means your computer either:
a) doesn't know which file will open that file type or
b) doesn't have a program to open the video
If the problem is a, you can point the computer in the right direction by clicking on Open With ...
If it's b, Download a copy of VLC media player

Just a guess ... you are probably recording in .mov format and if you recorded in .mp4 format instead, your computer would probably just open the files without complaining.

 

[ricphoto]

Another question I took a few pictures today and those are easy to see using Windows photo viewer but when I tried viewing the video I received a pop-up saying the file type is unsupported can someone point me in the right direction, oh and another question how much video time fits on the 16gb card they give ?
Thank you for your help..
Instead of me starting a new thread for every stupid question I have I'm just going to keep digging this one up if thats OK ..

View attachment 70082

If you're in Windoze you need to be shooting in MP4 not .mov...go back to that place where you found the photo settings and you'll find the movie settings...

4k can take up to a gig a minute so choose something like 1080/30 while you're learning...easier to process and takes up way less room but will still look nice...that's regular HD and the options are also found in the photo settings area...

Meadowlands? you trying to film a game?

 

[lickitysplit11111]

File type not supported just means your computer either:
a) doesn't know which file will open that file type or
b) doesn't have a program to open the video
If the problem is a, you can point the computer in the right direction by clicking on Open With ...
If it's b, Download a copy of VLC media player

Just a guess ... you are probably recording in .mov format and if you recorded in .mp4 format instead, your computer would probably just open the files without complaining.

Thank you for explaining...I'm gonna download it ,I use to use that player a few years ago

 

[Meta4]

Thank you for explaining...I'm gonna download it ,I use to use that player a few years ago

Looking at your screenshot, I can see that my guess was right.
Simply recording in .mp4 instead of .mov would allow you to use Windows Media Player.

 

[lickitysplit11111]

If you're in Windoze you need to be shooting in MP4 not .mov...go back to that place where you found the photo settings and you'll find the movie settings...

4k can take up to a gig a minute so choose something like 1080/30 while you're learning...easier to process and takes up way less room but will still look nice...that's regular HD and the options are also found in the photo settings area...

Meadowlands? you trying to film a game?

Got it , I was recording in MOV .
And Wow a gig a minute thats why it took so long to transfer ,and thats a great idea as far as lowering quality of video to save space ..

Film a game ? LOL, Maybe on my next outing . I went to Laurel Hill Park in Secaucus cause its empty ,lots of space with nothing to hit except Snake Hill but I still got chased out by a cop , my guess its over 5 miles to the stadium..

 

[lickitysplit11111]

Looking at your screenshot, I can see that my guess was right.
Simply recording in .mp4 instead of .mov would allow you to use Windows Media Player.

You were right ,I had and still have no idea what the difference is I'm just glad its sorted out..