Hesitant to upgrade!

[kyle925]

Hi all. I'm 5 months into this multirotor world ( vc450/Naza/GPS/go pro) and loving every minute of it. I could say that I have a pretty good handle ( very confident and comfortable )of my craft on both manual and GPS mode. I am a videographer by trade and this is my sole purpose of getting into this cool hobby ... to have AP/AV footages to compliment my projects. My plan is to eventually upgrade into a multirotor w/c can carry a DSLR cam. I hesitate though because of the different technical problems that i'ved seen by just reading thru the different forums, w/c led to crashes and heartaches. Even the skilled pilots out there, I'ved read some bad experiences thru their posts. It kinda makes me decide to just stick w/c my VC450 and gopro setup ( w/c produces decent footages), rather than get the professional/sophisticated/ expensive quads w/ no gaurantees. Not to mention too of the risk of destroying some really expensive DSLR cams and equipment. I'm just imagining myself of doing all the pre-flight checks of the quad and suddenly all goes haywire ... and there goes my "Epic RED camera" shattered to pieces.
You think I should give it a couple more years until the technology on these "flight controller computers"/ESCs/props/motors are more trust worthy and reliable ? Just wanted to post this to get some feedback. I hope I don't get flamed for this post. This is just my opinion.

 

[DucktileMedia]

I am totally with you. I constantly think of selling all my gear and just getting a beater to keep my skills up. shoots can be so damn stressful it is often barely worth it. And to pay for the investment of "real" gear takes a lot of work without crashing. In california if you hit someone or their property you are pretty much through with. No insurance is going to cover the damages today's lawyers are capable of dishing out. BUT...there are compromises. Try not getting a dslr, or stick with a t2i which is only $500. Sony nex5n is awesome, my favorite camera. keep it simple, go Hoverfly, get rid fo the DJI and get some buttery smooth shots. Your investment is in the hands of 50 Chinese firmware engineers that have a totally different agenda than other manufacturers have. Hoverfly has a small group of people in the USA and will answer the phone and keep their products from being overly complex. Simple, simple simple.. heli goes up, and over and back DONE. No POI, Holding patterns RTH, voltage cut off, etc. Just make the thing fly smoothly and NOT do anything erratic.

I would keep your quad/gopro and get something with more arms that is not going to exceed $3500 in the air. It's still alot of money but after having something $12k-15k in the air you will see how much more relaxing it is to fly, and your shots will be better because of it.

 

[kyle925]

I am totally with you. I constantly think of selling all my gear and just getting a beater to keep my skills up. shoots can be so damn stressful it is often barely worth it. And to pay for the investment of "real" gear takes a lot of work without crashing. In california if you hit someone or their property you are pretty much through with. No insurance is going to cover the damages today's lawyers are capable of dishing out. BUT...there are compromises. Try not getting a dslr, or stick with a t2i which is only $500. Sony nex5n is awesome, my favorite camera. keep it simple, go Hoverfly, get rid fo the DJI and get some buttery smooth shots. Your investment is in the hands of 50 Chinese firmware engineers that have a totally different agenda than other manufacturers have. Hoverfly has a small group of people in the USA and will answer the phone and keep their products from being overly complex. Simple, simple simple.. heli goes up, and over and back DONE. No POI, Holding patterns RTH, voltage cut off, etc. Just make the thing fly smoothly and NOT do anything erratic.

I would keep your quad/gopro and get something with more arms that is not going to exceed $3500 in the air. It's still alot of money but after having something $12k-15k in the air you will see how much more relaxing it is to fly, and your shots will be better because of it.

Just the reply I need. I kinda agree w/ you about DJI. I love my Naza/GPS setup right now and my craft is so simple and it works ( no gimbals, just the gopro mount etc). But man oh man am I salivating w/ their "spreading wings 800" model. But upon doing some reading in another forum, problems after problems and frustrations of the craft. Aside from that, to get customer support from those guys are tough. Hoverfly is my answer if I do need to upgrade. As what you said, customer support is excellent. And in this serious hobby of ours ( and expensive too), it is a must. BTW, I was checking out the AMA organization to become a member so at least to have some sort of insurance for ( knock on wood) accidents. Would it be smart to join?

 

[Dewster]

I agree with Irisaerial. Small, light, care free. I just want to keep my Sony Nex 5n in the air. Originally I wanted a craft capable of carrying a DSLR like a Canon T3i (which I'm selling...). Too much weight. The photos that I took with the Sony are amazing. Stress free flying is a must. I haven't had any control issues with my WKM outside of user error (I didn't know how to interrupt the RTH feature when my craft started circling (toilet bowling) to land). I've flown numerous times to the point where I had total trust of the system.

What caused my crash was a full carbon fiber prop break. The prop snapped at the hub with less than five minutes flight time. Like Irisaerial mentioned. You don't want your craft falling out of the sky on property or injure someone on the ground.

I'm going to convert an F550 into a Y6 (hoping for some redundancy should a prop/esc (or rare motor failure) occur. I will try to keep the craft light enough to maintain a good power to weight ratio so that the craft can stay airborne in the event of motor failure etc. Watching my craft go down and being thankful it didn't wreck a home, car or injure is something that will make you respect these machines. I was lucky I was over trees in a clearing even though I was a few feet from a house. (I was trying to record storm damage which resulted in power failures from downed trees thoughout the area...).

Anyway. Stay safe. Upgrading is not always worth it. If it's not broken, don't fix it. I wanted carbon fiber props thinking it would be better and ended up spending more money to build another craft.