P4P can carry 500 g safely?

[Dronefriend]

I just had this curious idea... would it be so hard to attach a light camera such as the Sony A7S II to a Phantom? Use the built-in cam for navigation.

Talk about cheap flying awesome camera... full format in the air for price of a P4 and price for A7S.

It should be possible.

 

[Fly Dawg]

That is roughly half the weight of the Phantom itself. It's far to heavy to be efficient. It might carry it, but not for very long. It would struggle immensely.

 

[Meta4]

I just had this curious idea... would it be so hard to attach a light camera such as the Sony A7S II to a Phantom? Use the built-in cam for navigation.
Talk about cheap flying awesome camera... full format in the air for price of a P4 and price for A7S.
It should be possible.

There's a reason why you don't see people doing that.
It's not much use having a freaking awesome camera if you can't mount it securely or control it
How would you attach the camera and how would you control it?
How much would the equipment necessary for that weigh?

 

[$gambino$]

Yup then you would need it to be stabilized somehow... so no gimbal I don't think it would look too good

 

[Al Bany]

Is it really 500g with a lens and battery ?

 

[Meta4]

It's 627g plus lens another 70g for the lightest lens.
That's 700g.
Even if that was all the weight you had to worry about, it would significantly eat your flight time.
Presumably the aim of the exercise is to improve image quality.
That's not going to work if you can't properly support and control the camera or view the image.
For that you will need a suitable gimbal (and a drone that can lift it)
Here's a lightweight gimbal for that camera:Zenmuse Z15-A7 - Lightweight Stabilizer for Low-Light Shooting
I'll let you look up the weight in the specs.

Like I said, there's a reason you don't see people strapping regular cameras under Phantoms.
If you want to swing a full-size terrestrial camera, you need a drone that's built for it.
It gives you an appreciation for DJI's achievement developing the P4 pro camera.

 

[Fly Dawg]

"It's not much use having a freaking awesome camera if you can't mount it securely or control it..as @Meta4 mentioned, even if you can mount it, and by some miracle she still flies stable, once you add the extra weight of at least another Servo motor to control the shutter action plus the battery to do so.......hmmmmm...... I think.....NOT! Just IMO.....

 

[Dronefriend]

I had this idea about attaching it with some durable.. dont know the english word for this but ”elastic rubber band” .

Very light weight. And some plastic stuff to keep the camera fixed at the same angle.

Would have to press Rec before take off, or by WiFi camera app on phone.

Impossible to control the camera but one might use a good enough angle, point in same direction and angle as on board cam and use that one to know what the cam is shooting.

Just some thoughts and probably not doable but hey, would be nice indeed.

Real problem the way I see it is the Inspire not having a proper detachable cam.. the X series are too niched IMO.

For high budget productions its no issue but for low budget.. would be great to be able to attach a lightweight full sensor cam to a good drone.

 

[RunningWithScissors]

As pointed out above, even if your Phantom could carry the camera without significant stress, and you could get it stabilized, you still have the problem of activating the shutter once it's in the air. If your Sony has a hot shoe attachment, then it might be as simple as adding a remote shutter release like this...

Neewer 860/L1 Camera Shutter Release Wireless Remote Transmitter Receiver 808018103160 | eBay

I've used one of these on my Canon cameras and it works very well, although I was using it for fairly limited range. I'd suggest one like this wireless device versus the devices that use bluetooth or infrared.

 

[RunningWithScissors]

Ironically, there may be an unforseen problem with mounting your Sony camera to the Phantom. Someone else posted about mysterious compass errors after having a Sony A7R camera in close proximity to their Phantom. Do not know if this would apply to your particular situation, but it's interesting nonetheless...

Sony a7r III IBIS Causing P4P Compass error?

 

[Just_nick]

This sounds like a way to end up with a $3K repair bill

 

[Meta4]

Very light weight. And some plastic stuff to keep the camera fixed at the same angle.
Would have to press Rec before take off, or by WiFi camera app on phone.
Impossible to control the camera but one might use a good enough angle

If the aim is to improve the quality of the recorded images, it's kind of counter productive to have a "better" camera that you can't see through and can't control.
Particularly when it's going to significantly reduce the flight time and performance of the Phantom.

 

[MaxHam]

I just had this curious idea... would it be so hard to attach a light camera such as the Sony A7S II to a Phantom? Use the built-in cam for navigation.Talk about cheap flying awesome camera... full format in the air for price of a P4 and price for A7S.
It should be possible.

The P4P can carry it's own weight (incl. battery).
Besides mounting this camera is not a good idea as others have stated here,
one very difficult thing with any payload is balancing. Tape anything leightweight (20-50g) to a landing gear and you see what I mean.

 

[FlyingUser]

The biggest thing the P4P can carry is maybe a panasonic GM5 (211g incl battery) with a lightweight prime (such as the 1.7/20 panny, or 1.8/45 oly). This gives you 300g and maybe another 100g for a decent mount with vibration reduction.

 

[flynorth]

I have a Phantom 2 fitted with a Sony RX100, and even if it is a rather lightweight camera, flight time is significantly reduced, I can get about 10-12 minutes. Camera can be tilted 90 degrees, and the shutter is activated with a servo mounted on top of the camera - a lever presses the shutter button. A screen on the remote shows me live feed of the image. To prevent vibrations I have some moon-gel between the camera mount and the landing gear. Image quality is great, but I usually take 5-6 images of each subject to make sure one of them is pin sharp.