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DJI Drone Fail Over Iceland Waters – chasejarvisTECH

WARNING: CONTENTS OF THIS VIDEO MAY BE OFFENSIVE TO SOME, ESPECIALLY PHOTOGRAPHERS WHO HAVE FELT THE PAIN OF GEAR LOSS.

In the days before my trip to Iceland, I had the chance to play with the DJI Phantom, an affordable, out-of-the-box quadcopter for budding aerial videographers. As I establish in that test flight post, the footage you yield from the DJI Phantom + GoPro combo may not be pro quality, but it’s perfectly serviceable for BTS material, AND it gives a person the opportunity to cut their teeth on a rig that comes in under a grand (or just slightly over, if you include the camera).

Ever the hacks, we tried to circumvent the GoPro limitation and mount a Sony RX 100 II, for three reasons:

1. The RX 100 II has image stabilizations (many commented on the shakiness of the GoPro footage on our first test flight).
2. It has a nice sensor and shoots RAW images.
3. Built-in Wifi. Our plan was to use the iPad Mini with the Sony app and control the camera shutter from the ground.

Seem pretty reasonable, right?

When you watch the video, know this: It brings us no joy to lose expensive gear, ever. I don’t encourage people to go out and perform needless hacks and unsanctioned upgrades, especially if you’re not insured, like we were. In our case we had a legit interest in yielding some higher end footage with a DJI Phantom we had invested in.

Couple UPDATE points… any assumption that i was just goofing around at tourist site just plyaing with my camera couldn’t be further from the truth. we had chartered the entire site for the shoot, been out on boats there at the site earlier – were working with the management there, paying high fees to be there with permits for very specific objectives. We also sought to potentially recover the unit out of concern for the environment but were discouraged from pursuing that option because of danger to divers due to swift current, big tides and huge floating chunks of dangerous ice.

Thanks again for going on this journey – and others – with me. And I hope you don’t mind my sharing all the stuff – even things like this that suck.

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82 replies on:
DJI Drone Fail Over Iceland Waters – chasejarvisTECH

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  1. Pingback: Aerial Photography - Seaport Digital MegaMast Review - DIYP
  2. dog treats yogurt says:
    December 10, 2014 at 11:38 pm

    Everything is very open with a really clear clarification of the issues.

    It was definitely informative. Your site is extremely helpful.

    Thanks for sharing!

  3. Rui Neves says:
    July 17, 2014 at 4:45 am

    Have you thought about what might have caused the crash was the weight of the camera.
    I’ve tried it with a fishing sinker 300 grams in Phantom 2 vision plus and shortly after lifting becomes unstable and collapses. The characteristics is more or less the same weight of your camera SONY.
    I made the experience on land and at low altitude and had no damage.

    Thank you

  4. Marcin Dobas says:
    May 7, 2014 at 8:56 am

    Hello. Please let me know how long can fly Phantom 2 with RX 100 ?
    How long and / or how high ?

    Have you tried this ? or taht flight was your first flight in that configuration ?

    All the best

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