Hopefully getting a Phantom 3 2.7k standard on pay day
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If you get the Phantom 3, I also recommend you get some ND filters for the camera. Otherwise on a bright day, you'll be filming with a high shutter speed and motion will look very strange as you film while flying the drone around.
Think of Mad Max Fury Road where they used very small shutter angles (high shutter speed) to film some action shots, the motion blur was almost non existent that while the effect made it look great it can also appear to be choppy/stuttering. You can see what I am talking about in this video, at the 0:39 mark. The crew that filmed with the drone didn't have ND filters.
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ah ok my friend builds drones for people so knows all about them just like you id happily just let him do it all, his job is to assemble and solder electronics so hes pretty good !!!!
I mean id love something that could carry my proper full frame DSLR but depends what I want to invest
call me crazy but I think a prebuilt like the phantoms with their ground detecting cameras are a lot safer than most built (though im sure you can add that stuff anyway) -
" I mean id love something that could carry my proper full frame DSLR but depends what I want to invest "
This is going to cost, not just for the drone but because it will be bigger and heavier it may require a license. Also there will be a bigger risk if the drone fails. While with a Phantom drone, if it fails and crashes the write off will be less (not that they fail easily).
One thing I will tell you about flying the Phantoms: They are easy to fly, but it will take a bit of practice to be able to learn operating the camera gimbal and flying the drone at the same time. The two joysticks control the drone and there's a dial on the left hand side that controls the tilting of the gimbal. In most "pro" camera drone setups they use two people with each with their own controller. One for flying the drone and the other to control the camera+gimbal.
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I don't think you will need a special license unless your aircraft weighs more than whatever 55lbs is in kg. Assuming the UK uses similar regulations to the rest of the world, you don't need a special license or permit unless you're using your aircraft to make money or if it exceeds the weight limit. However, you will still need to spend a couple thousand to get an aircraft powerful enough to carry a gimbal for an A7, and that gimbal will cost near a thousand itself. Not to mention repairs if the damn thing crashes and breaks your camera.
It is possible to get really smooth video with a phantom, but you really should practice with a multirotor.
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DJI makes a drone that can carry the A7 series camera, and it certainly doesn't weight more than 10kg. So I guess you don't need a license unless you're in the US with the new FAA rules. The drone costs around $4000-5000.
Flying a Phantom is indeed easy to get really smooth flights, but if someone wants to get some really interesting camera movements it will require a lot of practice. Simple stuff like up-down, forward-backward, side-side movements are easy, but mixing all that in to film a specific camera movement requires some skill.
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Just the gimbal for an at tho https://m.dji.com/product/zenmuse-z15-a7?from=search
If you can get a smooth camera movement and fly the aircraft in a straight line, you can make a lot of really good shots.
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$4900 for the drone + A7 gimbal + Lightbridge 2 connection kit. The Lightbridge 2 connection is necessary to monitor what is being filmed/photographed from the ground.