Best cheap drone with gimbal/stable camera?

[Gershy13]

Just now, Hackentosher said:

It's for altitude sensing and it looks at the ground to give information as to whether or not it's drifting. If the camera senses movement on the ground, it will compensate for it. But in a film making use case, I can't think of why a filmmaker would use a drone inside.

it would provide some interesting shots...

[KaminKevCrew]

On 4/17/2016 at 4:09 PM, Hackentosher said:

There isn't one. Filmmaking + drone does not equal less than 100 quid. The cheapest you can get is a phantom 3 standard for around 350 quid.

While I agree that you can't get one for less than 100 quid, I could pretty easily build one for less than the $500 that one costs in the US. (and indeed, other than the camera, I have.) I built a quad with an f450 clone frame, and some turnigy 2216 motors, and turnigy ESCs. The total cost for the quad, with APM and GPS was roughly $220. I could then grab a mobius camera for $70, and a halfway decent gimbal for it for about $50. That's well under the cost of the Phantom. Granted, it doesn't take a transmitter into account, but a 9XR would pretty easily do the job for about $70 (including an orangeRX DSMX module) and then another $20 for the receiver.

On 4/18/2016 at 2:53 PM, Gershy13 said:

it would provide some interesting shots...

indoors, there isn't much that you can do with a quad that you can't do with many other more prevalent pieces of equipment, not to mention if you're not using a flying machine indoors, you don't have to worry about crashing it (which would be ridiculously easy indoors, if the venue isn't big enough.)

[Hackentosher]

 

4 minutes ago, KaminKevCrew said:

While I agree that you can't get one for less than 100 quid, I could pretty easily build one for less than the $500 that one costs in the US. (and indeed, other than the camera, I have.) I built a quad with an f450 clone frame, and some turnigy 2216 motors, and turnigy ESCs. The total cost for the quad, with APM and GPS was roughly $220. I could then grab a mobius camera for $70, and a halfway decent gimbal for it for about $50. That's well under the cost of the Phantom. Granted, it doesn't take a transmitter into account, but a 9XR would pretty easily do the job for about $70 (including an orangeRX DSMX module) and then another $20 for the receiver.

Sure you can build an air frame for cheap, my quad is probably about $400 before FPV equipment, but for stable shots, you have to spend a bit of money. Quality gimbals aren't cheap, even on HobbyKing. Still standing behind the Phantom 3 for about 3x what the OP wanted to spend. At the end of the day, the OP still can't spend only 100 pounds and get a stable shooting aircraft.

[straight_stewie]

You can always build your own (even for under your budget assuming you already have the camera and ALOT of spare drone parts).

[KaminKevCrew]

17 minutes ago, Hackentosher said:

 

Sure you can build an air frame for cheap, my quad is probably about $400 before FPV equipment, but for stable shots, you have to spend a bit of money. Quality gimbals aren't cheap, even on HobbyKing. Still standing behind the Phantom 3 for about 3x what the OP wanted to spend. At the end of the day, the OP still can't spend only 100 pounds and get a stable shooting aircraft.

I'm of the belief that if you spend a decent amount of time properly balancing the props, and you use a decent vibration dampening solution, you'll be able to take passable aerial video with a cheap gimbal. 

 

You're absolutely correct that the phantom does probably represent a good value (especially when you talk about the effort required to get it to fly well) and certainly, there is no way at all that OP is going to be able to build something even close to passable (or with a gimbal at all, really) for the stated budget.

8 minutes ago, straight_stewie said:

You can always build your own (even for under your budget assuming you already have the camera and ALOT of spare drone parts).

The problem isn't the camera so much as it is the gimbal. Also, I doubt that the OP would have a lot of spare drone parts lying around, since they only talked about one quad that they have, and it doesn't sound like they've built their own multicopter before, so I wouldn't think that they've got much of anything lying around.

[Gershy13]

Thanks guys, but i think ill just save up for a used Phantom 3 Advanced or something...

[Hackentosher]

2 minutes ago, KaminKevCrew said:

I'm of the belief that if you spend a decent amount of time properly balancing the props, and you use a decent vibration dampening solution, you'll be able to take passable aerial video with a cheap gimbal. 

Well a gimbal provides more flexibility to the shot. Say if you want the aircraft to be stationary, but the camera to pan across the scene.

 

 

[KaminKevCrew]

Just now, Hackentosher said:

Well a gimbal provides more flexibility to the shot. Say if you want the aircraft to be stationary, but the camera to pan across the scene.

 

 

That's why I said 'with a cheap gimbal'

 

I was just saying that for the caliber of photography that OP seems to be going for, and expensive gimbal isn't needed. 

 

A friend of mine has a DJI Ronin gimbal for his DSLR, and I'm looking into building a y6/other multicopter so that we can carry it around and get some really nice shots with that. But that will need a TON of work and money to build.

[Hackentosher]

1 minute ago, KaminKevCrew said:

 

A friend of mine has a DJI Ronin gimbal for his DSLR, and I'm looking into building a y6/other multicopter so that we can carry it around and get some really nice shots with that. But that will need a TON of work and money to build.

Jesus, why don't you get a Spreading Wings or something? Isn't the Ronin really heavy?

[KaminKevCrew]

Just now, Hackentosher said:

Jesus, why don't you get a Spreading Wings or something? Isn't the Ronin really heavy?

I mean, with camera, it's about 10lbs. So it's pretty heavy, but it wouldn't be terribly difficult to build something that would lift it. My current 450 quad can lift around 5lbs on a 3s, so I can't imagine it's terribly difficult to double that. The other part of it is that we already have the ronin, so it would be pretty easy to just keep it and use it for general purpose and aerial photography. (or course, if we started making money, we would upgrade, but just for starting out)

[Hackentosher]

Just now, KaminKevCrew said:

I mean, with camera, it's about 10lbs. So it's pretty heavy, but it wouldn't be terribly difficult to build something that would lift it. My current 450 quad can lift around 5lbs on a 3s, so I can't imagine it's terribly difficult to double that. The other part of it is that we already have the ronin, so it would be pretty easy to just keep it and use it for general purpose and aerial photography. (or course, if we started making money, we would upgrade, but just for starting out)

I just saw Flitetest do some risky business with some big boy motors that run on 6s. They're big motors though, I think they swing a 300mm~ prop around. Maybe like a 3110 motor would work? I thought my Cobra 2204's were expensive, god damn.

[KaminKevCrew]

3 minutes ago, Hackentosher said:

I just saw Flitetest do some risky business with some big boy motors that run on 6s. They're big motors though, I think they swing a 300mm~ prop around. Maybe like a 3110 motor would work? I thought my Cobra 2204's were expensive, god damn.

I just watched that video too! Those motors are WAYYYY overkill for that size prop though. My 450 runs 12" props (300mm) on 2216 motors, and those don't even get hot when I fly. If I had a bigger frame, I'd probably slap some 14 or 16 inch props on and see how it handles those.

[Hackentosher]

1 minute ago, KaminKevCrew said:

I just watched that video too! Those motors are WAYYYY overkill for that size prop though. My 450 runs 12" props (300mm) on 2216 motors, and those don't even get hot when I fly. If I had a bigger frame, I'd probably slap some 14 or 16 inch props on and see how it handles those.

Lol I just want to try some 6" triblades and those new Emax red bottoms on my quad. It's already pretty damn fast with a 4s and 5x4.5x3 props.

[KaminKevCrew]

1 minute ago, Hackentosher said:

Lol I just want to try some 6" triblades and those new Emax red bottoms on my quad. It's already pretty damn fast with a 4s and 5x4.5x3 props.

have you seen the video where chad (finalglideaus) flies his quad on 6S with 30A KISS ESCs? he hits close to 100mph with that setup. The thing is insane, even in the video.

[Hackentosher]

Just now, KaminKevCrew said:

have you seen the video where chad (finalglideaus) flies his quad on 6S with 30A KISS ESCs? he hits close to 100mph with that setup. The thing is insane, even in the video.

I have not, I'll check that out if I ever get home today. I love chad, he's such a great person. But god damn, Skitzo's latest video is amazing.

[KaminKevCrew]

Just now, Hackentosher said:

I have not, I'll check that out if I ever get home today. I love chad, he's such a great person. But god damn, Skitzo's latest video is amazing.

I'll have to check it out! I don't think I've seen it yet! 

 

what Tx do you use? I'm using the taranis, and it has way better gimbals than my Gen2 DX7 did, so I'm really happy with it (let me tell you though, it took a while to figure out how to mix the tail on a V tail quad! Just takes time to get used to...)

[Hackentosher]

2 hours ago, KaminKevCrew said:

what Tx do you use? I'm using the taranis, and it has way better gimbals than my Gen2 DX7 did, so I'm really happy with it (let me tell you though, it took a while to figure out how to mix the tail on a V tail quad! Just takes time to get used to...)

Since I am a professional high school student, I am broke AF. So, I am running with the Flysky FS-i6. It's not bad, does what I want it to with no detectable latency.

[KaminKevCrew]

21 hours ago, Hackentosher said:

Since I am a professional high school student, I am broke AF. So, I am running with the Flysky FS-i6. It's not bad, does what I want it to with no detectable latency.

Latency is the most important part of FPV, so that's a good thing! 

 

I'm about to be a professional college student this fall (although I've been out of high school for around 2 years) so I'm trying to get my hobbies out now...