My first attempt (well the best one of the several attempts today that captured a launch)...
Any Tips on Using Drones to Video Launches?
- Thread starter BigMacDaddy
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Drone launch videos are very cool.
Based on the ones I've seen, it looks cooler from a bit higher, and you have a bit more chance to rotate the camera up to partially track the launch.
Thanks - I just got the drone a few days ago so have not fully tested the range (including height) that it can work to. It does have a gimble so can rotate the camera. If nothing else I may use it to look for where errant rockets land...
GlueckAuf
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If the drone is recording the launch from a high altitude, the rocket should be powered by a smoky propellant. Aerotech‘s nearly smokeless Blue Thunder and low-smoking Redline formulas, for example, might allow the launch to go virtually unnoticed. Conversely, White Lightning will contrast very well with turf, while Black Jack will do well against snow, barren fields, or sand.
Imagine the smoke removed from this photo. What would you see?
Imagine the smoke removed from this photo. What would you see?
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Welcome to the world of drone photography, something that can easy make rocketry hobby very inexpensive ;-)
Judging by the shaking, your drone was either struggling to maintain position in heavy cross-winds, or someone was attempting to fly it manually (vs. flying it one of the pre-programmed modes)?
What drone are you flying?
There is absolutely no way one can track the vertical acceleration of a rocket with a drone camera. Even the ones that support physical pan and tilt via a 3D gimbal, react far too slowly to the inputs. You can have fun with adjusting horizontal angles, but vertical ones - fuggetaboutit!
What works best for me right now (using DJI Mavic Air 2):
1). Get plenty of spare batteries (2+, or just buy DJI's Fly More Combo), and always charge them fully and have them with you. You will fly more than you think.
2). Get the drone 300-500" in the air, aim for the launch pad. Start recording early. Don't try to time the launch.
3). Static perspective can get stale. Enable one of the pre-programmed object-tracking modes, and let the drone fly itself. Stay focused on video aspects of the engagement only: angles, lighting (don't shoot against the sun), focus.
4). Once the rocket takes off, locate it with the naked eye, then re-acquire the subject with the drone video camera. This way you can record both the take-off and the landing (the latter can be particularly helpful to those looking to retrieve it later).
5). Keep track of battery consumption, wind direction, and remote control range under varying conditions (physical obstacles in the field, interference from power lines, WiFi routers in people homes, etc). Flying back against the wind will exhaust the battery way faster than you may have expected, leading to a crash landing.
All in all, drones are super fun.
Just practice flying them before you get to a launch site, and always ask for permission to fly the drone during launch, first.
Some folks are very sensitive about this.
HTH,
a
Oh man that is a day I wish I was there. Everything cut low! No wind! Wowsers.
Oh, and you would have been there to drone-video my flight.
Oh, and you would have been there to drone-video my flight.
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Oh man that is a day I wish I was there. Everything cut low! No wind! Wowsers.
Oh, and you would have been there to drone-video my flight.
It should be this way later this year again, October-ish?
If we're actually allowed to fly there... sounds like that hasn't been a frequent occurrence lately.
Thanks so much -- great advice and great video. I was manually flying it - have not learned the programable modes / patterns yet.
It is a cheap DJI clone -- Eachine E520s PRO -- https://www.banggood.com/Eachine-E5...ldable-RC-Drone-Quadcopter-RTF-p-1719191.html (although I got it for about 1/2 the price it is listed for right now). I have 3 batteries so around 40-45 minutes of total flight time.
Funkworks
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If the rocket's maximum vertical speed is known, one can get an average speed. And with an average speed, assumed constant, one should be able to set a camera far enough horizontally, that tilting it upwards will track the rocket.
Not a real tracking per say, but by launching both the rocket and a camera's vertical angle at the same time (with one switch that triggers both), one should be able to make them match.
For a camera on the ground, a rough approximation as to the camera's angle speed, starting from 0deg, gives (setting up an ODE with trig and solving):
\[ anglespeed=72^{o}\frac{v}{d}exp(-0.6\frac{v}{d}t) \]
At t=0 when rocket speed is the fastest:
\[ anglespeed=72^{o}\frac{v}{d} \]
where:
v is the rocket's vertical speed (assumed constant or averaged), and
d is the horizontal distance from the pad to the camera.
So if a rocket flies at a constant speed vertically at 50 m/s, and the camera was at 45 meters away, that gives:
\[ anglespeed=72^{o}\frac{50 m/s}{45 m} \]
\[ anglespeed=80(deg/s) \]
So setting the camera's initial vertical tilting at 80 deg/second (and then slowing it down) might keep the rocket in its view. (I don't have a drone and field to confirm this, I'm mostly just playing with math and LaTex).
In any case, I suppose controlling a camera's tilt speed isn't easy, but if I was equipped to set a gimble's speed, I wouldn't give up on trying to track the rocket. I'd start with these equations , tune constants 72 deg and -0.6, and hope the camera's field of view would be wide enough to account for errors in accuracy.
Something like that. All very approximate, but a starting point.
I could be misremembering, but I feel like I've seen videos that tilt the drone camera up as the rocket ascends, and the camera is able to keep the rocket in view a bit longer. Full tracking of the flight is not practical and not necessary, just a tiny bit of a feel that there is tracking of the launch is nice.
OK, I found a couple of videos. Both are cued to the correct time.
Here's one attempt:
Here's a very good tracking shot:
Certainly, filming from farther away makes this more practical, and tracking the camera much above horizontal is of dubious value once you start filming the rotors.
OK, I found a couple of videos. Both are cued to the correct time.
Here's one attempt:
Here's a very good tracking shot:
Certainly, filming from farther away makes this more practical, and tracking the camera much above horizontal is of dubious value once you start filming the rotors.
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