2 Zoom Followme with free gimbal. Super smooth

[surfbird]

So I finally got to try out if the free gimbal mode makes it smoother in virtualstick mode.
And it does This is a zoom, I will try it on my mini2 next time. The only hickups is due to my code setting the yaw to zero. Dont need to have that.
Personally I couldn't fly this smooth manually. The gps tracker is on my helmet.

 

[vindibona1]

So I finally got to try out if the free gimbal mode makes it smoother in virtualstick mode.
And it does This is a zoom, I will try it on my mini2 next time. The only hickups is due to my code setting the yaw to zero. Dont need to have that.
Personally I couldn't fly this smooth manually. The gps tracker is on my helmet.

What is "free gimbal mode"?

 

[surfbird]

DJI Mobile SDK Documentation

developer.dji.com

 

[Dale D]

So I finally got to try out if the free gimbal mode makes it smoother in virtualstick mode.
And it does This is a zoom, I will try it on my mini2 next time. The only hickups is due to my code setting the yaw to zero. Dont need to have that.
Personally I couldn't fly this smooth manually. The gps tracker is on my helmet.

That is truly amazing ! I am very impressed. Both with the kite surfing and the tracking. Great job.

 

[vindibona1]

DJI Mobile SDK Documentation

developer.dji.com

Thank you for providing the link. I must have inherited my parents genes from Rio Linda. I don't even know what "free gimbal" is. Looking at the link to the SDK my eyes pretty much glaze over. Could you please provide some more detail of what free gimbal is, does and how to achieve it?

 

[Cymruflyer]

Is that one of those hydrofoil boards? I see almost no splash, so smooth, so I am thinking this must be why. Great capture.

 

[Dbez1]

That’s so cool! Slalom skiing without a boat! You’re right too, the video was extremely smooth.

 

[surfbird]

Thank you for providing the link. I must have inherited my parents genes from Rio Linda. I don't even know what "free gimbal" is. Looking at the link to the SDK my eyes pretty much glaze over. Could you please provide some more detail of what free gimbal is, does and how to achieve it?

In free gimbal mode the gimbal act like it's an steadycam. Whatever you do with the drone, the gimbal keep yaw, pitch, roll unchanged (until the end stops, and the you get gimbal error)

The problem with virtualstick is that when the drone's yaw change, the gimbal follow after it. Even if the yaw change is due to a wind gust or fast acceleration of the drone.

This is the biggest flaw with virtualstick, because it almost impossible to make a smooth film, or like circle an poi without get a shaky image. If you fly manually it's actually much better, don't why they designed it like that.

Normally free gimbal is only available for inspires and expensive drones, but I found a way to enable it for the mini2 and mavic2.

This make most difference for the mini2 since it so light, it's kind of pushed around more in the wind. With free gimbal it gets dead stable. It's pretty amazing how good it is

My next followme will be with my mini2. I can upload the result here... My trials shows big improvements, almost as stable as the video above.

Thanks for all positive comments!!

 

[surfbird]

Is that one of those hydrofoil boards? I see almost no splash, so smooth, so I am thinking this must be why. Great capture.

Yepp hydrofoil.
I wanted to show the light, effortless feel of hydrofoiling. It's amazing, completly quiet.

 

[Cymruflyer]

Yepp hydrofoil.
I wanted to show the light, effortless feel of hydrofoiling. It's amazing, completly quiet.

I can well imagine.

How do you enable the Free Gimbal with the Mavic 2 Pro please?

 

[Josiah S]

Can you enable it with the mavic air 2 also?

 

[vindibona1]

In free gimbal mode the gimbal act like it's an steadycam. Whatever you do with the drone, the gimbal keep yaw, pitch, roll unchanged (until the end stops, and the you get gimbal error)

The problem with virtualstick is that when the drone's yaw change, the gimbal follow after it. Even if the yaw change is due to a wind gust or fast acceleration of the drone.

This is the biggest flaw with virtualstick, because it almost impossible to make a smooth film, or like circle an poi without get a shaky image. If you fly manually it's actually much better, don't why they designed it like that.

Normally free gimbal is only available for inspires and expensive drones, but I found a way to enable it for the mini2 and mavic2.

This make most difference for the mini2 since it so light, it's kind of pushed around more in the wind. With free gimbal it gets dead stable. It's pretty amazing how good it is

My next followme will be with my mini2. I can upload the result here... My trials shows big improvements, almost as stable as the video above.

Thanks for all positive comments!!

Ok... I now understand what it does. I'm not sure I understand how to get it to do that. How difficult is it for someone with no programming skills? Can it actually be done with a Mini 2?

I believe I can get a similar thing with my VR goggles and DroneVR. While it operates on the gyros in the phone, the gimbal points where you look. I can look up/down, left/right and the gimbal follows. The only drawback to that is that it doesn't have a "return to 0/0 function" I don't believe. I haven't worked with the Gogggles much because up in the goggles I need a VO to stay legal, at least when it's not just a few feet from me where I can put my eyes on it immediately if needed.

Thanks for cluing me in that something like this is possible for my M2P. Now I just have to figure out how to do it because, as you pointed out, smoothness is an issue.

 

[surfbird]

Can you enable it with the mavic air 2 also?

Air2 works. Havnt tried 2s
Phantom4 does not work, so it seems like they started to support this in firmware with the mavics I guess.

How to enable it:
In my app it's easy: api.drone.set_gimbal_mode_free(True)
It's not released yet, and it wont be for some time.

Behind the hood it sends dumldore gimbal commands directly to the drone. Documented here:

dji-firmware-tools/comm_dissector/wireshark/dji-dumlv1-proto.lua at master · o-gs/dji-firmware-tools

Tools for handling firmwares of DJI products, with focus on quadcopters. - o-gs/dji-firmware-tools

github.com

I would say it's quite an advanced hack that need some programming skills to do. I havn't tried it enough for saying it's healthy for the gimbal. Sometimes it goes bananas, but that mostly when it tries to move beyond the end stop.

 

[Josiah S]

Air2 works. Havnt tried 2s
Phantom4 does not work, so it seems like they started to support this in firmware with the mavics I guess.

How to enable it:
In my app it's easy: api.drone.set_gimbal_mode_free(True)
It's not released yet, and it wont be for some time.

Behind the hood it sends dumldore gimbal commands directly to the drone. Documented here:

dji-firmware-tools/comm_dissector/wireshark/dji-dumlv1-proto.lua at master · o-gs/dji-firmware-tools

Tools for handling firmwares of DJI products, with focus on quadcopters. - o-gs/dji-firmware-tools

github.com

I would say it's quite an advanced hack that need some programming skills to do. I havn't tried it enough for saying it's healthy for the gimbal. Sometimes it goes bananas, but that mostly when it tries to move beyond the end stop.

Ok thanks for telling me. I don't think I'll do it if it's to advanced or if it is hard on things though...