In preparation for next weeks shoot for the UN over some bad countryside. I ran a shake-down test today on the gimbal as a stand alone unit mounted in the normal way on the S/800 landing gear. This I will take into the Hughes 500 and shoot three quarters side/fwd from the back. It was just awesome. like shooting cineflex on wide angle. I was also able to rebalance the mount successfully to take the 18-55 OSS lens (Locked at 50). It ran the initializing calibration OK so It seems to be not just a single lens set-up after all. I can understand why they would not want people playing around in that area. It runs some pretty fancy auto calibration/anti vibration program before it will initialize ready for use. This is much more advanced technology than I thought it would be. When they said it could only be used with a WKM controller I was a bit surprised to find that this is not just a way to keep you from using it on another system. It really does reference the WKM IMU unit as well as a high sensitivity gimbal imu. and has nothing to do with matching up serial numbers etc. :tennis: This is a real camera mount.
Zenmuse as a stand alone gimbal
- Thread starter DennyR
- Start date
mounted the Zenmuse on a different frame due to the problems with the S800 at the moment.Of the surrounding area yes, but the buffer zone is militarily and politically highly sensitive. Some parts are still mined. As an illegal immigrant found out recently.
As a general rule all footage is handed over after we land.......... so no post stab. is possible. Anything used for public domain has to have approval certificate from the Army. Not just here but all over the Island. Some people are ignoring the rules but that is a good way to loose your bird.
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DucktileMedia
Drone Enthusiast
Man, if that worked this would be awesome! My friend just bought a R44 and we have been toying with ideas. I just assumed that the 400 rpm head speed is too nasty of an oscillation to try and constantly compensate with a gimbal like this. I am leaning more towards a mechanical isolation. If we could stabilize 100mm I would be happy. Right now i can take my 24-70 up and take sharp pics without a gyro and thats about it.
It does work, I'll post some shots of the rig later. I did run floor vibration analysis some time ago for my other rigs. With an R44 you would in probability need to have it on your lap. So you should not have an issue there. I am using the standard U/C legs to stand it on some foam layers. I did once shoot through the front perspex with an R44 from the front left seat taking out rudder pedals, but you could shoot from the back. Door off.. If you like living on the edge try a R22. I flew a new one a few years ago and it was amazingly stable. just don't have an engine failure.
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Juri sorry to see that report about the guy with a six foot heli. I feel that the legislation to control what is going on is going to be too little too late. So here is the Stand alone gimbal https://vimeo.com/45048504 View attachment 4990
And here is the heli. type that I am going to be using.View attachment 4989 On my left is the Russian Director and on my right is the young German pilot. Inside the heli is a 435 Arri.A commercial licence will have cost that guy about 60k so he is not going to blow his career by low flying or any other type of crazy ****. In the video you will also see a Mitchell mount seat with an iso-elastic arm. that is what I use for the AS350. it will have a flat board attached for mounting the Zen. This is how that set-up looksView attachment 4991
If your'e planning to start a career flying in full size helis I would strongly suggest the following:- Always use a pilot with at least 1000hrs on type. People die every year doing this stuff.
I think the video says it all about how much faster and more accurate the zen is over the other stuff out there.:tennis: You need to look at the background because the foreground will have parallax movements.
On the day it will also have a wind breaker to stop the slipstream from hitting the side of the mount and preventing direct sunlight getting into the lens.
And here is the heli. type that I am going to be using.View attachment 4989 On my left is the Russian Director and on my right is the young German pilot. Inside the heli is a 435 Arri.A commercial licence will have cost that guy about 60k so he is not going to blow his career by low flying or any other type of crazy ****. In the video you will also see a Mitchell mount seat with an iso-elastic arm. that is what I use for the AS350. it will have a flat board attached for mounting the Zen. This is how that set-up looksView attachment 4991
If your'e planning to start a career flying in full size helis I would strongly suggest the following:- Always use a pilot with at least 1000hrs on type. People die every year doing this stuff.
I think the video says it all about how much faster and more accurate the zen is over the other stuff out there.:tennis: You need to look at the background because the foreground will have parallax movements.
On the day it will also have a wind breaker to stop the slipstream from hitting the side of the mount and preventing direct sunlight getting into the lens.
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The flight will be one and a half hours but I doubt that I will be required to shoot more than 20 mins. in total. Most clips are only about 15-20 sec long on a pro. production.
I don't want to get into how to modify the Zen for other lenses. DJI spent a lot of time setting up each mount before they sent it out so that they would not encounter problems with people playing around with it. It is not as easy as it may at first seem. If for example you were to put a lens hood on the front it would not just change the pitch balance but roll and yaw as well. If you move the center of mass by more that a few thousands of an inch then it will screw up the initializing calibration. The movements are like a precision swiss watch. Perfect balance like this you can never achieve with something like a PH due to the way the roll axis works. This thing is almost friction free so it sees very small changes of balance. No free moving cables etc.
As the inertial loads at the yaw and roll axis are a lot higher than the pitch ones. I can see no reason why some other longer lenses could not be used.
I don't want to get into how to modify the Zen for other lenses. DJI spent a lot of time setting up each mount before they sent it out so that they would not encounter problems with people playing around with it. It is not as easy as it may at first seem. If for example you were to put a lens hood on the front it would not just change the pitch balance but roll and yaw as well. If you move the center of mass by more that a few thousands of an inch then it will screw up the initializing calibration. The movements are like a precision swiss watch. Perfect balance like this you can never achieve with something like a PH due to the way the roll axis works. This thing is almost friction free so it sees very small changes of balance. No free moving cables etc.
As the inertial loads at the yaw and roll axis are a lot higher than the pitch ones. I can see no reason why some other longer lenses could not be used.
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Benjamin Rowland
Member
Let's see it.
View attachment 5010 There is not much room in a 500, this one is an Argentine Air Force example. My brief was to shoot some of the agricultural land that has been released back to the people in the last few years, which is a part of the UN Buffer Zone between the Turkish and the Greek Cypriots following the 1974 invasion.
The camera installation was a rush job as our time slot was running out fast so I forgot to install the wind breaker. (essential at higher speeds) I have dropped in a couple of out takes where the pilot crossed my line of shot revealing the doorway, so that you can see just how much these things vibrate and jump about. I lost the monitor view shortly after T/O which I have not yet discovered why. So shooting blind most of the time. I need to slow down the Tx stick input values and get some sort of remote video start and stop as it was impossible to reach the camera from where I was sitting. I did learned enough to know that I will be using this a lot in the future. Obviously raw footage direct from the camera. Vimeo does not seem to like AVCHD 50P conversion. :tennis:
One of the toughest shots is to tilt upwards and reveal the horizon which looks bad if when you get there, it is not level. No problems with zen it comes back every time. Tip - when setting stick inputs have your tilt and pan on the right stick and the roll on the left. When one wants to move the camera to see what is to the left of the screen then you would normally apply left pan/yaw but if you want to see what is below the shot then you would pull the stick back which is the reverse of what you would do if you were flying the model. This is the way that most pro jibs/cranes etc. work.
The camera installation was a rush job as our time slot was running out fast so I forgot to install the wind breaker. (essential at higher speeds) I have dropped in a couple of out takes where the pilot crossed my line of shot revealing the doorway, so that you can see just how much these things vibrate and jump about. I lost the monitor view shortly after T/O which I have not yet discovered why. So shooting blind most of the time. I need to slow down the Tx stick input values and get some sort of remote video start and stop as it was impossible to reach the camera from where I was sitting. I did learned enough to know that I will be using this a lot in the future. Obviously raw footage direct from the camera. Vimeo does not seem to like AVCHD 50P conversion. :tennis:
One of the toughest shots is to tilt upwards and reveal the horizon which looks bad if when you get there, it is not level. No problems with zen it comes back every time. Tip - when setting stick inputs have your tilt and pan on the right stick and the roll on the left. When one wants to move the camera to see what is to the left of the screen then you would normally apply left pan/yaw but if you want to see what is below the shot then you would pull the stick back which is the reverse of what you would do if you were flying the model. This is the way that most pro jibs/cranes etc. work.
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MombasaFlash
Heli's & Tele's bloke
That is VERY impressive Denny. Watching the footage one has no idea how hard the Zen is working until the helicopter doorway comes into view.
Second-hand market for everything else just crashed.
I can't help wondering why DJI spent such a lot of effort on the gimbal and then stick with stoneage skids that always come into shot?
Second-hand market for everything else just crashed.
I can't help wondering why DJI spent such a lot of effort on the gimbal and then stick with stoneage skids that always come into shot?
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MombasaFlash
Heli's & Tele's bloke
True. I lock off the pan axis when filming solo but with the Zen being so 3-axis capable the simple skids are a rather silly restriction for a two-operator setup.