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Hello friends, Im panicking right now, can I get mission type flying with Air 2S?

nomnomnom

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I just bought the mavic air 2s thinking that its a really cool drone with all the tech. But the only way I want to fly is to fly with missions and way points. Its the only way to get really smooth footage. Is this possible? Many years ago I used to do this with an app called litchi. Is this possible with 2S? Or maybe another app? If I cant do this, can I return my 2s or am I screwed?
 
I just bought the mavic air 2s thinking that its a really cool drone with all the tech. But the only way I want to fly is to fly with missions and way points. Its the only way to get really smooth footage. Is this possible? Many years ago I used to do this with an app called litchi. Is this possible with 2S? Or maybe another app? If I cant do this, can I return my 2s or am I screwed?
If all you ever want to fly are Missions, chances are Litchi is not updated to work with the 2S, others may have more info, as I cannot recall if it worked well with the Air 2.

Personally I find Missions boring, and to me they create more of a potential for loss if something goes wrong. But thats just me.
 
If all you ever want to fly are Missions, chances are Litchi is not updated to work with the 2S, others may have more info, as I cannot recall if it worked well with the Air 2.

Personally I find Missions boring, and to me they create more of a potential for loss if something goes wrong. But thats just me.
thanks do you have any recommendation on how I can get smooth video footage more than 2-3 seconds? Its not realistic to expect your finger to push at the exact pressure for multiple minutes. One finger twitch and the footage is ruined. Also, you cant even fly in a curve smoothly with just fingers.

Does the DJI app assist this in any way? Last I flew was 3 years ago. Im really shocked that 10 years in and we still don't have the technology to shoot smoothly
 
thanks do you have any recommendation on how I can get smooth video footage more than 2-3 seconds? Its not realistic to expect your finger to push at the exact pressure for multiple minutes. One finger twitch and the footage is ruined. Also, you cant even fly in a curve smoothly with just fingers.
Cine Mode works well for me when trying to capture a smooth flight video.. your mileage may vary
 
Practice will make a BIG difference. Some of the top UAS cinematographers still Free Fly all their shots. The ideal way is to have a 2-man crew with one flying the aircraft and the other flying the "camera" but that's not possible most of the time.
 
I just bought the mavic air 2s thinking that its a really cool drone with all the tech. But the only way I want to fly is to fly with missions and way points. Its the only way to get really smooth footage. Is this possible? Many years ago I used to do this with an app called litchi. Is this possible with 2S? Or maybe another app? If I cant do this, can I return my 2s or am I screwed?
There’s no MA2s SDK support yet. It may be awhile or it could be pretty soon. Hard to say with DJI.
 
Lately it seems to be a good 6 months between a new model is relased and 3rd party apps get support for it.

Its not realistic to expect your finger to push at the exact pressure for multiple minutes. One finger twitch and the footage is ruined. Also, you cant even fly in a curve smoothly with just fingers.
You totally can do both, just takes some practice. Mission often looks poor since it doesn't typically care about the movements being smooth in the first place.
 
I just bought the mavic air 2s thinking that its a really cool drone with all the tech. But the only way I want to fly is to fly with missions and way points. Its the only way to get really smooth footage. Is this possible? Many years ago I used to do this with an app called litchi. Is this possible with 2S? Or maybe another app? If I cant do this, can I return my 2s or am I screwed?
You can check the roadmap here:
No mention of air 2s. No one knows for sure if they ever relase a sdk for mini2/air 2s.
A shame, because it is so small job for dji, if you don't count all stupid support questions they get :)

If I were you I would get a mavic 2, since it supports waypoints and it's a very good drone.
 
Don't use your thumbs, pinch with thumb and forefinger. Much finer control.

Also look at buying longer sticks for your controller. Longer sticks = more fine movement.

Also consider active track, point of interest, etc... to keep the camera on a point of interest when flying. Little jiggles of the drone won't be nearly as noticeable.

As for your "10 years on" complaint you're really asking for an enterprise level drone capability instead of a prosumer drone. The problem is that waypoints are usually handled on the drone itself, which requires computing power, which means either a more powerful processer which draws more power which means less fligh time, or less capabilities elsewhere. Drone manufacturers usually aim for features that most people will use. Waypoints are a common request but given the option to do that or like obstacle avoidance, and only enough CPU power to do one, Avoidance is probably a much more useful feature.
 
wow I just googled what cine mode is and this is the first test result

its horrible! Can I see some of your cine mode footage? Were you able to turn smoothly?
All you managed to do it seems was find a video you could complain about, several other members posted other videos they feel look fine.. If you view those and still don't like the results, I don't see how running a "mission" is really going to improve your results much..
 
Don't use your thumbs, pinch with thumb and forefinger. Much finer control.

Also look at buying longer sticks for your controller. Longer sticks = more fine movement.

Also consider active track, point of interest, etc... to keep the camera on a point of interest when flying. Little jiggles of the drone won't be nearly as noticeable.

As for your "10 years on" complaint you're really asking for an enterprise level drone capability instead of a prosumer drone. The problem is that waypoints are usually handled on the drone itself, which requires computing power, which means either a more powerful processer which draws more power which means less fligh time, or less capabilities elsewhere. Drone manufacturers usually aim for features that most people will use. Waypoints are a common request but given the option to do that or like obstacle avoidance, and only enough CPU power to do one, Avoidance is probably a much more useful feature.
Not true. Waypoints takes about 1% cpu, if even that. Dji seems to leave plenty of space in the root file system as well.

Active tracks,/vision sensors on the other hand takes plenty cpu load, even a separate fpga is sometimes needed.
 
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You can get smooth video. It takes practice. Here’s a guy doing a really smooth 1+ minute shot with a Mini 2!


I’ve only been flying for a few months and am slowly getting better. :)
Thanks this is useful. Is there at least a way to tell the drone to just move forward with constant speed, without fixing my finger at a position?
 
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One of the things I love about the MA2 is the precision I can fly it with. I have been flying budget drones since last July and I just got my MA2 2 weeks ago. I was shocked that I was easily able to create long sweeping shots just by using throttle forward and a bit of yaw. Even looking at my flight data they were perfect arcs.

You can change the yaw rate and fine tune the movement of the gimbal to prevent sudden stops and movement.

I'd say if I could get smooth shots anybody can.

I can't tell you specific points in the videos, but in each of these I have sweeping arcs that I did "free hand".

Locking in on a poi with active track is a cool tool also. I need to find a place to film where that will be interesting. I messed with it using my house and mailbox and it gave great results.

 
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The problem is that waypoints are usually handled on the drone itself, which requires computing power, which means either a more powerful processer which draws more power which means less fligh time, or less capabilities elsewhere.
Just no, handling waypoints is absolutely trivial, all the current aircraft are more than capable of it, and even base level consumer DJI products from almost 10 years ago had it.

you're really asking for an enterprise level drone capability
Not at all. DJI have decided to now restrict that functionality to enterprise models but that's purely a commercial/marketing decision, there's no technical reason for it.
 
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thanks do you have any recommendation on how I can get smooth video footage more than 2-3 seconds? Its not realistic to expect your finger to push at the exact pressure for multiple minutes. One finger twitch and the footage is ruined. Also, you cant even fly in a curve smoothly with just fingers.

Does the DJI app assist this in any way? Last I flew was 3 years ago. Im really shocked that 10 years in and we still don't have the technology to shoot smoothly
Like all of the rest of us, we learn by trial and error how to make our flights smooth. Worst thing happens if you jiggle your thumb, you can just edit out the bad footage. I have Mavic 2 Pro and do use the Waypoints 2.0 but it is not a significant part of my films. The better you learn to fly, the smoother you will get over time and practice. Don't sweat the small things.

Dale
Miami
 
I just bought the mavic air 2s thinking that its a really cool drone with all the tech. But the only way I want to fly is to fly with missions and way points. Its the only way to get really smooth footage. Is this possible? Many years ago I used to do this with an app called litchi. Is this possible with 2S? Or maybe another app? If I cant do this, can I return my 2s or am I screwed?
Wow, this thread really blew up!

Yes, the A2S is a really cool drone with a lot of tech, just not the tech you want right now. It's going to take some patience for dronelink and maven - once they GET the software dev kit from DJI - to come out with an update. Litchi already said it's a non-starter.

I, myself have been wanting to fly some waypoint missions to document some construction going on in my town - I think some timelapse stuff would be really swanky.

You may be the happiest right now returning the drone and buying one of these drones: Mavic Mini 1, Mavic 2 (Zoom/Pro), Mavic (Air/Pro), Phantom 4 (Standard/Advanced/Pro/ProV2), Phantom 3 Standard/4K/Advanced/Professional), Inspire 1 (X3/Z3/Pro/RAW), Inspire 2 and Spark. All of which are supported by Litchi.

If you decide to keep the A2S and truly yearn for automated smoothness, I would suggest you experiment with the built-in tracking and quick/master shots we already have. And, as others suggested, more flying (practice) makes perfect. Which is awesome, you get to fly more=have more fun!!

Best of luck, and safe flying!
 
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