DJI – Love em, Hate em. & The OSMO!

So i haven’t posted in a while, i have been busy, not being a UAS Pilot, and busy being a ground based camera man. Yorkshire weather isn’t the best. Today i got to fly, i filmed a Garden Nursery, which was nice!

Anyway this post is a quick rant, aimed right at DJI.

My Inspire 1 was damaged on 28th Aug (i drove over it – yup, that actually happened) and i sent it off to DJI to get fixed. Still waiting for the final price, but they have initially quoted 2000 Euros!!!!! For a snapped Boom Arm. Well im waiting on their response to my strongly worded email – more on that in another post.

Today DJI have released the OSMO, you probably won’t get your hands on one till mid Nov, maybe Christmas, but i for one will be buying it. As i mentioned today, i have been using my GH4, which i bought because most of my clients need ground as well as aerial footage, and the DJI have taken months to release, the OSMO.

This is my issue. I love DJI. Im my opinion they rival Apple in terms of their pure imagination and epic product design. But like Apple, they have two issues. They have a tendency to rob us of our money in broad daylight, and we like it. And secondly their customer service, is frankly shit.

Apple is the only company that makes you wait a week to get a problem fixed that they usually cause. So many times i’ve had to visit the ‘genius bar’ to get a stupid problem fixed with my iPhone. But i love my iPhone/s, and my iPads, and Macs, so i put up with it.

To be fair to Apple, at least there is somewhere in the UK, that you can actually go to fix it………….

Now DJI have finally released the OSMO – I love them. BUT. I also hate them, and for good reason. First off, they released details of this product months ago, to such fan fair, it seemed like it was due for immanent release. So we waited.

And we waited.

And we got sick of waiting. So most Inspire users, decided to sack off waiting, and bought a GH4 and a Ronin. Then they released the much better (my opinion), much cheaper (fact!) Ronin M. With a good lens, kiss good buy to £4000.

Dont get my wrong, the  GH4 with a Ronin M is epic (much better than the X3, but better than the new X5, sure there will be a video comparisons up soon), but professional standard epic. TV and Movie production quality. Not an Inspire Pilot, who originally, just wanted to get some good ground shots, and not look like a tit, holding his Inspire, in hand, running around like a fool. The OSMO, means you can now do this and look cool!

I know so many people who have decided to go down the GH4 Ronin route, who would have defiantly NOT had this been out sooner. Yes they are getting better quality footage, £4ks worth more? Don’t know, but ill ask one of them!

And another thing, and i’m sure someone else has thought this, but i can’t find it anywhere. How much is the OSMO without the X3? The promo acknowledges, Inspire users and states we can attach our camera to the OSMO, but i cant find a price for it without the new black OSMO camera that comes packaged????

AND ON THIS POINT – HOW CAN YOU ONLY CHARGE £100 MORE FOR THE OSMO, THAN AN INSPIRE X3 CAMERA IS ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://store.dji.com/product/osmo

http://store.dji.com/product/zenmuse-x3-gimbal-camera

Are you telling me that the Handheld Gimbal and all accessories, but excluding the X3 camera are only £100? Does this mean Inspire owners will be able to buy the OSMO for £100? Of course not, but imagine how annoyed people like me are, when last month we bought a new X3 Camera, for £450, and less than a month later, for only £100 more, you can get a brand new cool looking black X3 and handheld stabilised awesome thingy? DJI this is a harsh, some might even say, total bastard move.

I don’t actually think the OSMO is over priced. I don’t think DJI have much of a choice with the price point on this product, but i do think the x3 and the Phantom models are over priced.  Im just really annoyed that i wasted £450 on a new camera, and now i need to spend £550, to get what i have been holding out for since April, May, not sure when, but ages.

But maybe, this is more DJI genius. Get everyone excited about the Inspire, delay shipping, release it, everyone goes mad to own one. Make a killing. Tease the Osmo, people go crazy with anticipation. Then deiced to buy a Ronin M. Then decide to buy an S900 and attach the GH4. S900 sell well again. Then release the OSMO, and everyone goes mad again, and even the GH4/Ronin/S900 owners, who still have their Inspires, will also go mad, and buy one, because once again DJI release something amazing. Maybe this was their plan all along.

Damn, my brain hurts, this was only supposed to be a quick rant about the price difference between a x3 and the OSMO! Anyway i for one will be placing an order, as soon as i can buy the OSMO and use my own X3 and save up for a X5, eventually!

TU

Selling Yourself – UAS Sales Tips

I haven’t posted anything in weeks. I haven’t stopped. Since my PFAW came through. I really miss writing my little blog.

So, this is a post i plan on adding to over the next few weeks, i just wanted to share a few pictures a friend and fellow UAS Pilot, Des Sterland of SkyHawx, took of my and my client at a local Golf Course.

I went in the see the Club back in May and offered to do a short promo video for free, as i hadn’t got my PFAW, and i wanted the experience…. my first tip, if you can get in the club pro, Golf Clubs are great places to meet the kind of people you need to meet in our industry. Its doubtful you can survive 365 days of the year, in the UK, from weddings, golf clubs and estate agents (which was originally my business plan, and many others new to the industry).

Most of these business will doubtfully, need your services, come the cold, rainy winter months…remember how much flight time you got between December and March?

I have learnt from working with SKEYEBV (more on that and them in a later post!), that if you really want to succeed in this industry and thrive, you need to make good contacts, and look more towards other industries. I don’t want to get in this now, thats a whole 3 hour writing sessions.

Anyways, back to my original comment, golf courses are great for contacts. I have already met and filmed couple of PGA Pros and on friday will be filming, Joe Miller, 2010 Long Drive Champion. There is mumbling with one or two well known golf brands as well. Mumblings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZhAc0b3NRs

My point is this. Offering your services for free, isn’t a bad way to make good contacts. The people in this world, who run companies and earn lots of money, like Golf, its a fact, you know it is 🙂

Anyways i wanted to show you these great images, taken by Des, with a Sony Nex 5n. These are going on my own personal webpage and showreel – thanks Des.

And a huge thanks to Arron Hodkin, the soon to be Pro at Wheatley Golf Club, who have given me the keys to a Golf Buggy and given me free region of his beautiful course. I must have been back five times, just to enjoy the view and food on their patio.

Now i need to learn how to play golf…and dress appropriately!

Thumbs Up Wheatley!

http://www.wheatleygolfclub.co.uk/

http://www.skeyebv.com/

You can tell which one is me, the one not dress like a golfer! The Golf Pro, Aaron, is the one dress like a Golf Pro!

An Act of Stupidity?

Skip to about 11.30 and you will see this Pilot fly his Phantom directly over the heads of these Firefighters, not a great idea as they are busy putting out a house fire.

The Firemen are clearly not happy about the Quad flying so close to them, not sure if it a privacy issue, they are annoyed with being filmed, or maybe they are concerned about safety?

Well their solution, is to try to shoot the Phantom out of the sky with a hose pipe! Ridiculas!!!

Skip to 12.01 minutes to see the hose pipe in action.

I know how safe a Phantom is, and there is no reason for it to simply fall out of the sky, and Pilot had demonstrated 11 minutes of relatively ‘safe‘ flying. Had the fool with the hose pipe actually hit the electronics of the Phantom it could have caused a fly away or crashed onto someones head.

What on earth possessed him to do it? I have had a few concerned members of the public approach me when working, unsure of how safe or legal my UAS is, but no one has actively tried to ground it!

TU!

Source – http://www.popsci.com/drone-films-firefighters-gets-soaked

Stupid Pop star makes Drones look bad – again

So by now most of you will have laughed heartily at Enrique Iglesias, firstly grabbing the Inspire Camera and screaming one of his shit songs right at it (poor Inspire 1), and secondly you will have certainly laughed as it decided to take its revenge, and attack him…. ‘that’ll show him for making shit music!’ – said the inspire 1 – But just to clarify, nothing with the Inspire goes wrong. He cuts his finger because he catches it in a spinning prop….. who knew!?

An epic fail in front of 12,000, which has gone viral, Inspire 1 forums are alight around the world…..’stupid pop star’, tends to be a common phrase.

What amazes me more than his stupidity was the fact that it was there in the first place. Ok so the concert was in Mexico, but does that mean you can fly anything, anywhere there? Erm, well yeah. According to my research there is no Mexican CAA regulation on the use of UAS at all.

So thats awesome news if your a stupid pop star. Secondly, once the Inspire cuts his fingers, he appears to throw it off the stage towards the audicence. Now that could have been disaterous. Anyone who owns an Inspire will know, it always tries to corrects itself. That could have easily corrected itself, flying back upwards, into the faces of his equally stupid fans (can anyone who buys a Enrique Iglesias concert ticket be anything else?)

So, was flying a UAS over these people, literally an accident waiting to happen? In my opinion, no. There is no reason to fear a UAS, in particular an Inspire 1, over say a car!!!!

Do you fear for your safety every time you walk down the road, that it will lose a wheel and career towards you? Of course you don’t. Thats because we have become used to cars on our roads. We interact with toy versions of them from 9 months. What is more dangerous a 3.5kg object or a 2000kg one? Maybe now its time for better UAS regulations like cars; a licence, insurance, training for all users.

Drones are still a new trend for most, but in fact if you ask anyone, born since 1980, if they have ever flown a remote controlled car of helicopter, they will say yes! If people associated ‘Drones’ with the RC toys from their childhood, rather than Military and Surveillance UAVs, i’m sure the public would be more receptive….

And stupid Pop Stars like this fool, aren’t helping. Once again we have another negative story associated with a UAS. People who read this story at face value, will think he was the innocent victim of ‘yet another drone incident’, when in fact they should be thinking ‘oh look, another stupid pop star’!

All i can say, i please, please, please, can someone upload the actual footage from the Inspire, i want to see the look on his face when he realises his mistake.

The Source of this video is ABC News, just check out the other negative UAS reports. One in, all in.

TU!

Pocket Drone!

Two Swiss engineers have manufactured this new Quad, designed to live in your pocket and be used in seconds. Robotics researchers Stefano Mintchev and Dario Floreano at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology are the great minds in question.

Owners of typical Quads would love how quickly this model is able to fly. It normally takes me a good 5 minutes of fiddling before my Inspire is ready to fly. Not ideal when you want to capture something on the ‘fly’.

Their is more info on the Wired.com site, where i found the story. Have a read.

http://www.wired.com/2015/05/watch-foldable-mini-drone-launch-snap/

TU

Your own personal Entourage

Meet Lily. A new UAS, designed for extreme sport enthusiast, who want to take personal footage to a new level – move over GoPro!

Simply throw Lily, into the air and she uses a GPS tracker to ensures she stays close by, and alerts the drone to elevation changes. This is a great function, similar to the Perceptor Drone i wrote about last month.

You can tell Lily, to take a photo, fly in front, behind by your side, or even circle around you. And it gets better. Lily has a built in microphone which is totally awesome!

As an additional extra you can buy a waterproof case, which would make it a must have for white water rafters and surfers everywhere. Oh yeah, it floats too! POW – take that DJI!

Lily packs a 12-megapixle camera, that captures 1080p @ 60fps and 720 @ 120fps. With a 94 degree field of view, a price tag of $999 and a shipping date of Feb 2016, both the Phantom 3 and Solo have some serious competition on their hands. And it gets better still; if you like you can pre-order now and get it when it ships for $499, until June 15th so hurry!

I can tell you this, if this works as well as the promo video shows, i will be looking to buy one. It will be interesting to see, how easy it is to control without a standard RC.

THUMBS UP LILY!

Read more on Mashable. http://mashable.com/2015/05/12/lily-camera-drone-follow-video/

https://www.lily.camera/

http://www.percepto.co/

How much is DJI Worth?

A few months ago a wrote about DJI annual and quarterly profits, and how difficult it was to get any real numbers. Well, here is a number $10 billion for you.

I meant to post this a few weeks ago, one of my oldest friends is a trader, he was telling me that his firm was thinking of backing DJI.  I told him it was a no brainer, even though the new 3DR Solo looks like it could take a chunk out of the Phantom 3’s market, DJI have a bright future ahead of them.

VS 

DJI is currently looking to raise money from investors for a a $10,000,000,00 or ten billion for a stock market valuation!

Not bad for a company that didn’t exist ten years ago. They now employ over 3000 staff with offices in America, Germany and Netherlands, and distributors all over the world, its not a bad investment if you have the cash!

Well done Frank Wang (CEO), who set the company up while at University, i barely even made it to class!

TU!

PS – how sweet does the new solo look. Looking forward to seeing that in action!

Waiting for CAA UAS Approval?

My Ops Manual has just been sent to the CAA. According to the CAA website, and my contact at EuroUSC, it takes approximately 28 days for it to be passed off and ‘permisson to fly’ to be granted. I’ve sketched the 26th May, into my mind, including weekends, so it might be longer.

So what do you do while your waiting. Or more appropriately, what can you do?

I have been toying with the idea of approaching a few local businesses, telling them about what i do, and what i can offer them. I decided on monday this week, that i would do just that.

Today i visited my first client, a prestigious Golf Course in my local Town. At 1pm this afternoon they gave me the keys to a Golf Buggy and gave to free run of the Grounds.

This is the only image of the Course, the Club’s website currently has…..

I have offered my Aerial Photography services free of charge. Why? Well, until i have received ‘Permission for Aerial Work – PFAW. Secondly, there are lots of Golf Courses in my area. Golf Courses have money and their members are generally wealthy. Its not about getting my grubby mitts on their cash, its about Networking, building a client base.

Filming a Golf Course will help improve my portfolio, i’ve tended to fly over fields and rivers of late. I spent over 4 hours on location today, this allowed me to conduct a thorough ‘pre’ on-site assessment. Using GoogleMaps on my Ipad i was able to spot local hazards. My Regional VFR Map to identified the Course is within Regional Class D Air Space, so i will need to contact my local ATC.

I cannot wait to get started in ernest. I plan on visiting the site again later this week, and the Course Manager has asked that i look to film in a few weeks, allowing the foliage to fully bloom, and the course to look its best. This gives me time to plan my shots and angles. Because i was given a Buggy, i was able to drive around the entire location, so i already have an idea of the shots i want to get.

An additional Camera Operator is going to be essential to get the best shots. Luckily the Course Pro is a UAS fan, he had already pitched the idea to the Board! He knows the shots he wants, so i will be taking some of my ‘direction’ from him.

I will post more when more happens!

YouTube Channel Live!

Hello all. Just a quick post to say i’ve finally gotten round to creating a YouTube Channel, OverlandUAS.

I will be post the occasional video on news articles or videos relating to UAV’s. I will also be discussing the preparing for the BUNC-s and RPQS Qualifications, skills such as VFR Map reading etc…. As i have recently qualified i will also be discussing how i get on in the industry.

Let me know what you think.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbwoYVnfFJIecY9vpfFv8lg

Thumbs Up

Drone Wars

Is that a GoPro Black? No its a Bomb!!!

A Few months ago i wrote about how ‘Consumer’ UAVs are helping less well funded armies fight the big boys, in particular how the Ukrainian Army was using DJI Phantoms to help fight ‘Separatists’ in places like Donestsk – Ok lets call it Dronestsk from now on!

Well, as per, there are people with far better journalistic talents, and contacts to get even closer to the action. Well the guys at the Guardian News Paper have actually been out and met the Ukrainians using Crowd-funding and Private Business to help even the odds.

Here is link to their articles and also mine from February

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/24/crowdfunding-war-ukraines-diy-drone-makers

https://overlanduas.wordpress.com/2015/02/20/uas-footage-ukraine/?preview=true&preview_id=189&preview_nonce=8e305a21d5&post_format=standard

TU