Blade Chroma with CGO3 4k

[Old Man]

Thanks for posting!

The Chroma works the same way in Smart and Angle modes. Smart mode is for the beginner or someone that wants to capture the smoothest imagery possible. Angle opens up the speed range a little and puts more responsibility for directional control in the hands of the operator. It's up to them to drive the aircraft and establish orientation. The doors really open up in Stabilized mode, and you have to apply a little effort to get into it. You can't just flip a switch. Things go to outright wild in Agility. Hang on and enjoy the ride, but get some altitude before exploring this mode. A couple differences between the Chroma and Typhoon. The Typhoon is larger and has a little shorter flight times. Currently I haven't flown longer than about 17 minutes on a Chroma battery but I haven't yet flown down to voltage minimums either. The Chroma can be flown considerably faster than the Typhoon. Both shoot excellent video.

That feel of confidence is so true. I had the Chroma out over a boat harbor today with no hope of ever getting it back if something went wrong. Aside from coming to the geo fence limit it went perfectly. Winds were light at 5-8mph but none of that reflected in the video. I haven't flown in winds stronger than about 10-12mph yet but so far all is well.

 

[Old Man]

Starting to get this one figured out. We don't get days in the Gorge with so little wind very often, which can make for a pretty smooth river.

 

[RCJardin]

Port of Hood River
I downloaded the full 1080p file and it looked really impressive on my new Sony Bravia 4k TV (in HD).

 

[Old Man]

Thanks for looking I thought it presented some of what the unit could do fairly well.

Glad you had the screen resolution and good bandwidth.

A problem with high resolution video (this one in 1080) is that people with slow internet or less than 1080 screen resolution can only view at their lower resolution with a lot of start and stop buffering. Some may not be able to run a 4k video at all. I saw this happen on a friends laptop that only had 720 resolution with an old, old video card. Freeze frames really bad.

 

[RCJardin]

I downloaded the 1080p original file and ran it from a USB stick on the 4K Sony Bravia. The video looked really good in 1080p with just a little moire flicker on the fence posts probably due to the sharpening level on the camera. The pictures were very impressive and for anything other than full broadcast spec I am sure they will be well received. Certainly subjectively they seem to look better than the flickery X5 Inspire recorded files.

 

[Old Man]

Important Chroma Info Update; Flight Log Data

I just came across a You Tube video that references the ST 10+ transmitter for Yuneec products with information that is applicable and very handy for owners of the Chroma. It directly affects the number of micro SD cards you should have. Although they may be different in color, black versus white, the Yuneec ST-10+ and Chroma ST-10+ transmitters are the same. Both have a micro SD card feature under the transmitter battery.

This is something very important and well explained in the two videos. I'll suggest anyone considering the Chroma watch the video and take advantage of the additional flight log data and video storage that's available to them for just a few dollars investment.

Horizon does not provide anywhere close to all the information the consumer could make use of for this quad, which is a bit of a marketing blunder, IMO. As more and more of this quads capabilities get exposed it becomes much more of a tool than a toy or entry level photo platform. There's far more functionality and versatility than initially meets the eye. Enough so that if I destroy or lose this one in the river I would obtain another. My thanks to the video authors for their investigative diligence and willingness to produce and share such informative videos.

 

[Old Man]

For those so inclined, a shop named Carolina Dronz seems to be a pretty good place for after market Chroma stuff. I've only used them once to obtain the carbon Chroma props but their service was really good. Also available for the Phantom it seems. They include a business card with your order, which is pretty nice because it includes a physical address. That can be hard to come by the way a lot of websites are set up these days. It actually give me a bit of that warm and fuzzy feeling when I place an online order to know where the physical location of a vendor is.

I won't go into all they have but it's worth a few minutes of your time to take a look.

www.carolinadronz.com

 

[Motopreserve]

Nice find. Seems they have some decent stuff. And in with you - an actual brick-n-mortar location is a welcome change of pace.

 

[Burt]

lovely videos here

 

[Cosmin Vonu]

Hi guys, I've purchased a Chroma 4K after looking around on these forums as well. Really happy with the quality and my first time flying it last Saturday. Check out the test video with slow motion included, cheers

 

[Old Man]

Congratulations!

Something I took awhile to discover with mine was the numerous camera functions available in the transmitter. If you haven't already done so, next time you turn everything on go into the camera selection menu and select CGO-3 Pro. Making that selection opens up full control of white balance, ISO and shutter speeds for still photos. On really bright sun days you'll find selecting a negative white balance factor to be very helpful for toning down brightness. Your selections will be visible by the appearance of what you see through the camera. Set your shutter speeds to about double what your video frame rates are. There are also 5 different "scene selections" you can use for color presets. Just tap the transmitter screen to open up the menu after selecting CGO-3 Pro. Virtually every button and "wheel type image you see come up is an adjustment tool. Tremendous versatility!

Another neat item; should you encounter a situation where you want to fly inside a building, once you power up enter the transmitter tools menu to turn off the GPS and fly in an altitude hold mode. Altitude hold is very good. Of course you won't have a functional RTH but it's highly doubtful you'll get far enough away to need one. be sure to raise the GPS mast when electing to fly in altitude hold mode when GPS is turned off, the compass is co-located with the GPS and you'll still want it functional. Use Angle mode when flying without GPS. If you already know how to fly well you can use Stability mode but remember there is no altitude hold in that mode. The user controls altitude at all times with the throttle stick, GPS on or GPS off doesn't matter, you are fully manual in Stability. It's a pretty fun aircraft like that too.

The Chroma has turned out to be a lot more than I thought it would be. It's very reliable and small enough to toss in the front seat of the car to have available on a moment's notice. I fly over water quite a lot and have thus far had no reason to be nervous about it.

 

[Bartman]

thanks for sticking with this thread Old Man! You may be Old but you're still Da' !

 

[Old Man]

Thanks buddy!

One other tip I've been meaning to get into this thread.

Back in the beginning I lamented on the lack of instructions from Horizon. Took awhile but I found the same ST-10+ transmitter is used by Yuneec's Typhoon 4k quad. The Typhoon has a somewhat comprehensive user manual that contains all the functionality of the ST-10+ and how to make the most use of the camera. There are also files that reference how to accomplish firmware updates on the Yuneec site, although I do not know if Typhoon updates would be applicable to the Chroma. So download the Yuneec Typhoon 4k manual in order to have a lot of very useful information. All the functionality of the 4K transmitter translates to the Chroma.

Perhaps Horizon knew about the manual but forgot to tell anyone...?