For the last 3 years, myself and RC pilot, Neil Jones have been trying to perfect our aerial filming service. We started with a Trex400 RC Helicopter and then moved up to a bigger model which we mounted a Canon 550D on... each time we got pretty good results, but not perfect. We always had problems with what our American cousins call 'Jello'. The vibrations of the rotors caused the sensor to shake so much that you get the nasty wobble effect on all the footage... which although sometimes wasn't too bad, it was always there...and that makes the footage unusable in a professional situation.
There's a lot of QuadCopters out there which people mount GoPro cameras on...but again, most of these suffer from Jello... 4 rotors can often mean 4 times as many problems for vibrations.
But... we have solved it. Neil meticulously balanced each of the motors before mounting the GoPro3 using a combination of rubber based materials to the frame... he then developed a simple but effective servo controlled gimbal which keeps the camera pointing forwards when the Quad pitches forwards to move... the combination of all these things gives us beautifully smooth, jello free images.
We also have FPV...First Person View... Neil can actually see in a pair of video goggles what the camera is seeing... so we know what we're shooting...we don't have to guess based on where the Quad looks like it is pointing. The Quad also feature a HUD (Head Up Display) so Neil knows when the battery is getting near the end and can bring the Copter home safely. If the worst happens and the signal gets disrupted... the Quad automatically ascends to a safe altitude and then returns to the point of take-off and lands itself.
Currently, we have the GoPro Hero3 mounted on the AIRCAM, but in the near future we will be flying the 550D too. As part of the service (and included in the £350 price) we also stabilise any shots that need it and transcode all the footage to ProRes 422 before delivery.
Check out the showreel...
S
Wow! Amazing.
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