Best settings to use while waterskiing / tubing? Noob here, help and patience appreciated!

[Stompy]

Hello there,

I bought a Mavic which is arriving in a couple days. One of the activities I plan on filming is waterskiing / tubing.

I'm wondering what would the best settings be to film this and fly safely at the same time? I guess I'll need to launch the Mavic from the boat and I wonder what settings should I use such as RTH, etc. I was thinking just practicing hand landing and stop the boat and catch the drone when I'm done filming, but what if the drone loses signal? Where will it go? Clearly the place where it launched from is not an option as the boat will no longer be there.

Also, would ActiveTrak work with this? Should I do that or manual fly all the way?

I haven't gotten my drone yet so I'm sort of a complete noob.

So yeah, any of you guys done this before and can shed some light into this? Got the Fly More combo so would hate to crash a 1k+ drone.

Thanks!

 

[Deleted member 43289]

I’m a newb too but before any one with expertise chimes in I can say active track should work fine once up in the air and you’re sure there’s no obstacles around. Definitely don’t try and handle the controller while tubing that would be dumb. If the MP loses signal to your controller mid flight the settings should be set to have it hover if that happens, double check those settings before take off and you’ll be fine. Just get to a place with proper signal and continue or land. I would try and either have someone on the boat do it while it’s your turn to ski/tube if you can trust them or just try active track on them before you go yourself to make sure it follows properly. Returning to home depending on the type of water you’re on, I would suggest landing it nearby on solid ground and grabbing it after you get off. If no land nearby you’ll have to try and land it on the boat. If it’s too unstable for a safe landing then your last option I would say is to hand grab while on the boat. Just watch your timing and don’t let a prop clip your fingers! Hope this helps a little.

 

[TerryJ]

Hello there,

I bought a Mavic which is arriving in a couple days. One of the activities I plan on filming is waterskiing / tubing.

I'm wondering what would the best settings be to film this and fly safely at the same time? I guess I'll need to launch the Mavic from the boat and I wonder what settings should I use such as RTH, etc. I was thinking just practicing hand landing and stop the boat and catch the drone when I'm done filming, but what if the drone loses signal? Where will it go? Clearly the place where it launched from is not an option as the boat will no longer be there.

Also, would ActiveTrak work with this? Should I do that or manual fly all the way?

I haven't gotten my drone yet so I'm sort of a complete noob.

So yeah, any of you guys done this before and can shed some light into this? Got the Fly More combo so would hate to crash a 1k+ drone.

Thanks!

Order nd filters now! They will be a must have to get smooth video in super bright water sports type of conditions. Just keep your shutter speed twice what your frame rate is and you'll always have nice buttery smooth video. If you shoot in 30 frames per second 4k youll want your shutter speed to be at 1/60th. This is crucial to getting good video on our mavics.

 

[Stompy]

I’m a newb too but before any one with expertise chimes in I can say active track should work fine once up in the air and you’re sure there’s no obstacles around. Definitely don’t try and handle the controller while tubing that would be dumb. If the MP loses signal to your controller mid flight the settings should be set to have it hover if that happens, double check those settings before take off and you’ll be fine. Just get to a place with proper signal and continue or land. I would try and either have someone on the boat do it while it’s your turn to ski/tube if you can trust them or just try active track on them before you go yourself to make sure it follows properly. Returning to home depending on the type of water you’re on, I would suggest landing it nearby on solid ground and grabbing it after you get off. If no land nearby you’ll have to try and land it on the boat. If it’s too unstable for a safe landing then your last option I would say is to hand grab while on the boat. Just watch your timing and don’t let a prop clip your fingers! Hope this helps a little.

Awesome. Thanks!

Order nd filters now! They will be a must have to get smooth video in super bright water sports type of conditions. Just keep your shutter speed twice what your frame rate is and you'll always have nice buttery smooth video. If you shoot in 30 frames per second 4k youll want your shutter speed to be at 1/60th. This is crucial to getting good video on our mavics.

Thanks for the tips!

Sadly, I sent the drone to a friend on the US who will bring it over to my country soon and I now have no time to order the filters and make them arrive in time. I did thought of getting filters but unfortunately I was low on budget and decided to skip that for now, my bad, I guess. What would the optimal settings be for a sunny day, flying above the water with NO nd filters whatsoever?

And by the way I have a lil doubt here, if I want to manual land as opposed to auto landing via RTH or whatever, is it simply lowering the drone till it reaches the ground and then simply pulling the left stick down so motors shut off? If that's the case, wouldnt the bottom sensors sense the ground and therefore try to keep going up once it senses the ground, making it impossible to actually touch the ground? or does the sensor somehow know it's the ground and not a random tree, building or any other obstacle? Not sure if I made myself clear tho.

 

[Congoblue]

To land you bring it down till it senses the ground and hovers a few feet up, then pull the left stick down and it will initiate landing. You can hand catch by putting your hand out flat under it while it is hovering - it will fly upwards when it detects your hand, but if you pull the left stick down it will land on your hand. Keep your fingers flat or the props will do painful things to them.

Launching and landing from something moving is hard. I'd be doing lots of filming off the shoreline first till you become proficient. They have recently added a modified Return To Home mode called Return To Controller so you can tell it that the home point has moved. But there is a high risk of losing it in the water.

 

[Stompy]

To land you bring it down till it senses the ground and hovers a few feet up, then pull the left stick down and it will initiate landing. You can hand catch by putting your hand out flat under it while it is hovering - it will fly upwards when it detects your hand, but if you pull the left stick down it will land on your hand. Keep your fingers flat or the props will do painful things to them.

Launching and landing from something moving is hard. I'd be doing lots of filming off the shoreline first till you become proficient. They have recently added a modified Return To Home mode called Return To Controller so you can tell it that the home point has moved. But there is a high risk of losing it in the water.

Gotcha on the landing part, thanks for the explanation!

As to the second part, the boat wouldnt be moving at all, it's a personal boat so it will be fully stopped until I catch the drone. So hand landing is simply putting my hand below the drone so it thinks its the ground, once it senses the hand (aka "ground") it will hover for a bit and then initialize landing ,right?

 

[Congoblue]

For hand catch you have to pull the left stick down after it's sensed your hand. Takes a bit of practice as you have to hold the remote one handed.

 

[Stompy]

For hand catch you have to pull the left stick down after it's sensed your hand. Takes a bit of practice as you have to hold the remote one handed.

Wouldnt it be easier to just turn the sensors OFF and make it go down till it reaches my hand?

 

[Irish-apple]

Personally and please take this nicely >
I think your off your face on drugs or something
>>your about to pay a thousand plus for a drone
>>your first flight is going to be over water
>>tubing / ski / etc
>>AND YOUR WORRIED ABOUT FILTERS ?????

I hope you get your drone up and doing what you want to do but mate please say you have experience and I just am after reading it wrong
>>?

 

[Congoblue]

Wouldnt it be easier to just turn the sensors OFF and make it go down till it reaches my hand?

No that's lots of fiddling about. It's quite easy to do with a little practice.

 

[Stompy]

Personally and please take this nicely >
I think your off your face on drugs or something
>>your about to pay a thousand plus for a drone
>>your first flight is going to be over water
>>tubing / ski / etc
>>AND YOUR WORRIED ABOUT FILTERS ?????

I hope you get your drone up and doing what you want to do but mate please say you have experience and I just am after reading it wrong
>>?

I never said my first flight was gonna be over water, I of course will make test flights on normal terrain and once I feel comfortable, only then will I take it over water to film waterskiing/tubing footage.

And I'm not about to pay anything, I have already paid the drone in full.

Regardless, thanks for your 2c, I guess.

No that's lots of fiddling about. It's quite easy to do with a little practice.

Gotcha! Huge thanks.

 

[kakao]

Order nd filters now! They will be a must have to get smooth video in super bright water sports type of conditions. Just keep your shutter speed twice what your frame rate is and you'll always have nice buttery smooth video. If you shoot in 30 frames per second 4k youll want your shutter speed to be at 1/60th. This is crucial to getting good video on our mavics.

Looking at my settings I can only see option of 24fps with 4xxx and 24 and 25fps with 3xxx resolution.
There is no 30fps option in settings as far as I can see ...?~?

 

[Congoblue]

The fps settings you get are different depending on if you've got it set to PAL or NTSC mode.

 

[kakao]

The fps settings you get are different depending on if you've got it set to PAL or NTSC mode.

That could be it, as we Aussies are on PAL ..

 

[Ray&Paula]

For hand catch you have to pull the left stick down after it's sensed your hand. Takes a bit of practice as you have to hold the remote one handed.

You're absolutely right...... Pull the left stick down and hold until it lands and the props stop.