Camera Systems

William Tolbirt

William Tolbirt

New Member
Hello -- I'm on the fence about building a custom camera drone or buying a consumer product. I love building and working on custom rigs but I've come to realize that no matter how much money I throw at them, they are just a platform to carry an action camera with no way of controlling the camera during flight. Action camera's were never intended to be used for remote controlled aerial filming and they are a huge pain in the ass to work with. So my question is; Do any companies make complete FPV aerial filming systems that give you full control of the camera settings and operation during flight? Basically I want a camera system similar to the Phantom 4 that is designed to be used on a scratch-built multirotor. Does such a thing exist?
 

John Doecliff

John Doecliff

Member
Yes, black magic designs has the pocket cinema camera that was a very popular camera for drones because it would shoot in raw. They came out with the micro cinema camera for drones that would be capable of being controlled with an additional radio controller via pwm or sbus. The biggest thing about this camera was that it was going to have a global shutter so jello would be eliminated. The release date kept getting delayed and when they finally did bring it out it did not have the global shutter. Its still a noteworthy camera although it doesn't shoot in 4k which seems like what everybody wants these days.
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagicmicrocinemacamera
 

William Tolbirt

William Tolbirt

New Member
John Doecliff said:
Yes, black magic designs has the pocket cinema camera that was a very popular camera for drones because it would shoot in raw. They came out with the micro cinema camera for drones that would be capable of being controlled with an additional radio controller via pwm or sbus. The biggest thing about this camera was that it was going to have a global shutter so jello would be eliminated. The release date kept getting delayed and when they finally did bring it out it did not have the global shutter. Its still a noteworthy camera although it doesn't shoot in 4k which seems like what everybody wants these days.
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagicmicrocinemacamera
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I've seen these. They are crazy expensive -- as they should be for something on that level. I need something on a hobbyist level. Like what comes on the Autel Robotics X-Star Premium. That whole rig is about $800.00. I wonder how much of that price is copter and how much is camera system? Certainly someone can make an integrated system like that for people who scratch-build.
 

John Doecliff

John Doecliff

Member
I wouldn't say crazy expensive but yes if you just want some basic 1080 video without all the extras its a little over the top. Plus the whole point of a camera like that is to shoot in raw and color correct in post production which is beyond what most people want or need to do. I noticed that you can buy a complete replacement camera and gimbal for the phantom on amazon. That would be a good way to go but DJI's stuff is so proprietary that its doubtful you could make it work on a custom rig. I used a go pro for a long time and its not a horrible choice. If you have it on a gimbal with tilt control its not a bad system despite not having any control once its in the air.
 

Old Man

Old Man

Active Member
If you're serious about this stuff and desire to perform truly professional work using a pro level rig, camera of your choice, call Aerial Alchemy.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 



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