Best way to follow a water skier?

[Tkoglin]

Will the “Follow me mode” work to film a water skier or is it best to film while manual flying?

Any tips would be appreciated ?

 

[BB Baggins]

One consideration is travel speed of the skier as there is a limitation on the Active Track modes that would most likely be too slow for the typical water skier. Just a thought.

 

[Squamer]

I am someone who spends a lot of time filming wakeboarders/skiers. Honestly best thing I find is to learn how to fly well. Get good thumb control down, slow down all your settings so nothing is jerky and then the biggest one for me is I make a little dark towel nest so I can see the screen well. Its not easy even with sun screens to be able to see all the time when the boats moving around and the position of the sun is changing. I have tried all the active tracks and most work well for wake surfing etc at lower speeds but they just don't keep up at 30MPH.

 

[Tkoglin]

I am someone who spends a lot of time filming wakeboarders/skiers. Honestly best thing I find is to learn how to fly well. Get good thumb control down, slow down all your settings so nothing is jerky and then the biggest one for me is I make a little dark towel nest so I can see the screen well. Its not easy even with sun screens to be able to see all the time when the boats moving around and the position of the sun is changing. I have tried all the active tracks and most work well for wake surfing etc at lower speeds but they just don't keep up at 30MPH.

Do you keep the drone pointed at the boat and let the skier go back and forth in the shot or do you follow the skier back and forth?

 

[Brockrock]

Here is a video that I put together a couple of years ago of my niece wake boarding up in Maine. It's definitely amateur, but it's good for making a few points.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

This was all hand flown from ashore, and although one of the tracking modes may work, I don't think you would get the variety of angles to the boat and skier that make for a nice presentation. So, hand flown - IMO - is the best option.

Filming a water skier will definitely make you a better UAV pilot. It is a very dynamic type of operation, and unless you are actually on the boat, you will not know exactly what it is going to do, and if you plan on going one way, and the boat goes the other, it could be some time before you're on it again.

Assuming maybe a twenty minute flight, you will generate about that much footage, but in the end, after going through it all and editing out the parts that are jerky and/or off center, you will only have maybe 4-5 minutes of usable footage. So, my suggestion is to stop the recording very briefly multiple times during this twenty minutes in order to generate multiple smaller files. I have found this makes it much easier to review and work with the footage after.

 

[Treetopflyer]

Great advice and tips Brockrock! Great video! I bought the Mavic to film yachts for sale for the company I work with, this to be an added feature vs boring still shots. It’s a lot harder than I thought, shooting a moving target! Been flying RC for 30 yrs but this is entirely different! I have found its best to have a designed plan before starting and what really works well is communication between the boat and a spotter standing beside me while I concentrate on flying the plan! Thx!

 

[Tkoglin]

Here is a video that I put together a couple of years ago of my niece wake boarding up in Maine. It's definitely amateur, but it's good for making a few points.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

This was all hand flown from ashore, and although one of the tracking modes may work, I don't think you would get the variety of angles to the boat and skier that make for a nice presentation. So, hand flown - IMO - is the best option.

Filming a water skier will definitely make you a better UAV pilot. It is a very dynamic type of operation, and unless you are actually on the boat, you will not know exactly what it is going to do, and if you plan on going one way, and the boat goes the other, it could be some time before you're on it again.

Assuming maybe a twenty minute flight, you will generate about that much footage, but in the end, after going through it all and editing out the parts that are jerky and/or off center, you will only have maybe 4-5 minutes of usable footage. So, my suggestion is to stop the recording very briefly multiple times during this twenty minutes in order to generate multiple smaller files. I have found this makes it much easier to review and work with the footage after.

Thank you!

 

[Dropyn]

Some more inspiration for you. I used a DJI Spark.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

 

[Squamer]

Do you keep the drone pointed at the boat and let the skier go back and forth in the shot or do you follow the skier back and forth?

Minimize moving as much as possible. I will mix it up of different angles behind, off the side, at a 45. Waterskiing in my opinion is just less interesting to watch from above, wakeboarding where they are getting air I mix up the shots much more. Follow ChrisRogers on Instagram. He shoots a ton of water sports by drone and shows good angles

 

[Ken-Mav-Mtl]

I am getting some experience at filming waterskiers, and I find that manual controls work best for me. I try to set the Mav at a fixed height (usually about 3-4 meters above the surface of the water.

It helps if you are filming on a set course of 6 buoys and a set course speed (anywhere from 28 - 34 mph). That way the only control to focus on would be the right stick. Hover about 100 ft from the start of the course and once the screen picks up the skier, full throttle until you can adjust speed to remain behind the skier as he/she goes thru the gates. You need to be in sport mode to have the acceleration and speed to catch up to and follow the skier.

Once the skier has finished the course I hover the Mav about 100 feet past the last buoy, always in the same direction, with the skier returning back thru the course. I simply give full reverse and once the skier is just about to enter the field of view, go full reverse and try to maintain the same course while adjusting speed to keep the skier in your field of view.

On the 2nd (return) pass, you see what happens when you forget to switch to Sport mode. The target speeds past the Mav until you switch over to Sport mode and try to catch up. Note that by the time I got up to speed, all I captured was the rooster-tail wake in the last 2 seconds.

I guess I was lucky because the Mav punched right thru the wall of water without any damage (which is the reason I muted the 2nd clip due to my off the cuff comments). Manual control and lots of practice needed!