Drones: Let's talk

[SD51555]

Who has one? What kind, how much, what to watch out for etc?

I'd be happy to pay 5-10% of the cost of a drone to have it flown well once if I don't have to own one myself. Google earth just doesn't have the resolution to be able to see what I want to see.

 

[tooln]

I almost bought one last year. After getting the tractor the drone idea went away, not totally gone but on hold for sure. But in my research at the time lead me to the attached link. That's who I would have bought one from.

http://www.dji.com/

 

[nwmn]

I bought a DJI phantom 3 advanced. I was going to go the go pro route and go with phantom 2, but decided to sack up and pay the extra with camera attached from factory. glad I did. the app for the drone connects right to the controller so you can see what the drone sees while in flight (can get choppy at times but if you're recording the video doesn't miss a beat when reviewing ). it's AWESOME. this is what got me to buy this model. the ability to control when you take a pic/vid on the fly, and the instant feedback is great. you can also utilize Google maps and the drone shows up as a red arrow on the map so you can fly it thst way too.

the cost wasn't puny at 1k, but I justified it by planning on getting my girlfriends parents a print of their farm for Christmas. they paid 300 for one from a guy doin farm pics from a plane. easy to justify when buying a toy :)

after my research, the dji popped out at me and seemed like the only relevant brand jn the market. it's super cool being able to get birds eye view in a matter of minutes.

we're renting a dozer in a week (pending availability ) and I plan to put together a flyover video of a before view, then follow up with an after view to showcase improvements of trails and plot additions.

it's also nice to get any view of anything you want to capture, including straight above shots or slightly angled to get perspective. plans to get a nice photo of our cabin at the right angle to get framed now that it's 99% finished.

I could go on and on about how cool it is. wish I was closer to you folks, I would offer this service for free. I need to learn how to edit videos and I'll get it up on YouTube for an interactive land tour.

 

[biglakeba$$]

A friend of mine has one. I am trying to hook up with him to bring it to our place and take vid of the whole place.

He has some app where it will follow you. So you if you bike, run, or whatever, the thing trails you.

I think it would be fun to run the property and have it follow you to get a veiw of the trails and everything else.

 

[nwmn]

here's a low res cached photo of our cabin. I'll have to upload a few from my next flight and share. this quality sucks, but the camera shoots at 12 mp, and 1080p vid. next one j get I'll upgrade to 4k anf hopefully have the TV to support thst made. thhat, would, be, SAWEET!

edit: photo doesn't look too bad like I thought it did

 

[nwmn]

A friend of mine has one. I am trying to hook up with him to bring it to our place and take vid of the whole place.

He has some app where it will follow you. So you if you bike, run, or whatever, the thing trails you.

I think it would be fun to run the property and have it follow you to get a veiw of the trails and everything else.

haven't gotten that advanced yet. I'll have to research the follow me mode, I think the next firmware upgrade will have it. there is also a way point feature where you can trace a path and the drone will follow it based off of the gps coordinates from Google maps. I would love to have it follow me in the spring during plotting seas on as well, that'd be cool to see and put all the videos together to connect the story

 

[nwmn]

NWMN- I am very interested in this technology and know zero about it. What is the maximum distance the drone ca fly from the controller? How high could it fly and still see a deer against a white background?
Thanks NWMN. Sorry if I hijacked the thread SD!

it's range is stated at 1.2 miles. I've had video transmission errors at about half mile. altitude and trees play a huge factor in the video range. I had a snafu yesterday with losing complete connection but don't know why. my phone froze and thinks got hairy. ended up finding the drone in the woods, luckily it landed itself safely in reed canary and missed a tree by inches.

if you're looking for deer in snow, it'd be pretty easy. I can spot them from 300 feet up and from 300 feet away when they are jn beans, or even in black dirt. I've flown with clear skies every time so shadows have been issues in evenings over the woods too. I think legally the highest you can go is 400 ft, but you can adjust thst setting. I haven't yet. I've gotten damn close to a buck with it. they really don't know what it is, so you can hover over and take pics of them. with the 12 mp, it's easy to zoom in when reviewing the pics.

again, it's awesome! only bad thing is the battery life at ~23 minutes of flying, depending on how hard you run it. the video transmission is flaky too, I think trees play a factor, and the higher altitude flights seem to be better with that. the ability to seamlessly use Google maps with the integrated gps is so slick, so you can get to places youve identified on the map but haven't been able to walk there before.

 

[nwmn]

WOW is that cool!!! Sorry again ...couple more questions. How high is that shot taken from NWMN and what would you hear it on the ground?

I wold say 300 ft? it isn't quiet. you can hear it approaching from about 200 yards?

I've nicknamed my drone the mosquito lol

 

[nwmn]

I'm sure you guys have figured out where I'm going with all the questions....What an awesome tool to monitor and manage ones property (exactly NoFo). I never even thought about drones. I am a technology junkie and this stuff is SICK!

how nice is it to be able to check food plots without leaving the deck? it's stupid awesome.

you can monitor fields as well. neghbor wheat. looks amazing from the road, but yiu can see the drown outs clearly from here. beans look nice from the road as well. there is a monster that hangs out jn these beans. I plan to locate him and flyover and get a shot of him soon.

 

[nwmn]

as you can tell, I love this thing. I plan on doing a lot of documenting with it

 

[SD51555]

Oh man bring it on NWMN. Please post your stuff.....Game Changer! Thanks a lot SD for starting this thread. Now I have another tool added to my wish list. :DThese things are so cool.

This is the banter I was looking for. Getting tired of waiting for google to update the earth image.

 

[tooln]

NWMN Does your app connect to your phone that allows you to see live video or is it on the controller? The one I was looking at had an app to connect to the phone. The biggest problem I could see is trying to see the phone screen in bright light. How is the vision on your? I was thinking of using it to fly over and record in my, sanctuary. Also like others not to have too wait for an update to google earth.

 

[wiscwhip]

I am not against shooting one down if I notice any suspicious activity going on within the property boundaries of my home.

 

[wklman]

I am not against shooting one down if I notice any suspicious activity going on within the property boundaries of my home.

Should be a federal law allowing us to do this. The right to privacy should override anyone else's ability to fly their drone on your property.

 

[wiscwhip]

Don't fool yourself. The Feds will likely be the biggest perpetrators at some point. They will let it go on and let these things play out in court in the private sector. Believe me, they have a team of lawyers watching and working on ways for them to get around any and all of this in the name of "national security".:rolleyes::mad:

 

[foggy]

Do any of these come in 300 WSM? ;)

I can foresee all kinds of problems from these in the time to come. Also all kinds of good. :) Could be a good way to "root out" feral hogs - for example.

 

[wiscwhip]

I think you are being optimistic when you use the word "potential", the reality is such that it is already being abused, many either just don't know or have their heads in the sand. The laws for this are in their infancy and are either non-existent or poorly written and full of loopholes. I have heard unconfirmed reports that some DNR's are already flying them over lands suspected of using bait piles and looking for wetland modifications. Who knows what other Govt agencies are flying them over peoples properties looking for who knows what!?!o_O :eek:

 

[dogghr]

^^^^^^Hope the feds dont find my Weed!!!!!

 

[wiscwhip]

They have been able to find that ^^^ for years without the use of drones, cannabis gives off a specific heat signature that can be picked up easily from a satellite if planted in any type of cluster at all. I watched a documentary a few years back that showed them detecting small groups of as few as a dozen plants from space. The technology has likely increased since then. If it is growing outside and they want to find it, they can find it in most cases.

 

[dogghr]

O I know Wiscwhip, they been flying this whole state for years each fall. Kinda cool copter and attachments they use. Land sometimes just down the road for lunch. Caught a dude in northern part of state last month who said he'd been growing his crop for 40 years. I picked up fert for fall crops last year and dude loading my stuff at co op told be I was kinda late fert my Weed, and he wasn't kidding. Funny stuff.