Sunday, December 7, 2014

Looking For a New Multi-Rotor for Aerial Photography

At this point a good still photography rig is more important to me than an aerial video set-up.

After an unfortunate hard landing with the DJI F-550, it and the Sony NEX-6 camera it was carrying no longer work.

I'm looking for a  multi-rotor, UAV (drone) which will carry and stabilizing gimbal and a quality camera.  I was happy with the image quality from the Sony NEX 6 so I might continue along those lines.

One of the craft I'm considering is the X8 from 4DR.

Here's my issue with these brushless gimbals.

Most of them, including the Zenmuse models from DJI require a certain camera with only one specific lens.  If you change the lens you change the balance and the gimbal won't work properly.

I learned from one well equipped UAV aerial photographer that he has a brushless gimbal but had a servo controlled tilt axis.  This allows lenses of differing weights to be used since servo controlled axis are not so "balance critical."

Readers of this blog are encouraged to make recommendations to multi-rotors which might fit my needs.

If money were no object I'd go with something from the Cinestar line.