Mavic 2 Pro and DJI Go 4 Tracking?

[Trask55]

My daughter has a Friesian horse and has asked me to take some video of her riding the horse at the beach this summer. My plan is to gradually acustom the horse to the drone starting at the barn where she boards him. I live in NW Oregon and it rains all the time so I'm thinking to start the process in the covered arena at her barn. I've only had the Mavic 2 Pro a few weeks and have yet to fly it because of the rain.

Is the tracking capabilities of this drone good enough to track a horse with and without a rider? How about in lower light conditions such as in a covered arena? The arena has lighting and is open on 3 sides but when taking action pictures with my Nikon D800 and a F2.8 lense I usually have to shoot with a ISO of close to and including 6400 on cloudy days. Would this type of lighting cause any problems for the tracking and collision avoidance system of the drone?

Any other words of wisdom working around horses with a drone would be appreciated. I grew up around horses and my 30 year old daughter has been riding and competing in Dressage shows since 5th grade. We even took the horse to compete in a show in one of the hotels in Las Vegas this fall. Her Friesian is literally stunning (most common word used to compliment him by admirers) and even has his own Facebook page. This spring and summer I'm hoping to add videos to his Facebook portfolio and make him famous.

 

[bumper]

The drone will track horse with or without rider, no problem. Good idea to take your time in acclimatizing the horse to the drone. Depends on the horse, some may feel less easy about it when constrained in their stall. Maybe try flying in the barn breezeway as far from the stall as possible to begin with.

 

[Bramavic2]

I'm also new to drones, and found that trying to follow objects while shooting very difficult, if not done automatically through the dji go app. The auto tracking works fairly well, but is far from perfect and it seems the collision sensor work in a limited way when this auto modes are on so you have to be very aware of the surroundings.
I would say that auto tracking in an open environment as a beach should be super easy, as you don't have to worry about obstacles around and can even record from far. If you are posting the videos to social media, you can record in 4k, and zoom digitally maintaining 1080 ou 720 quality. Recording from far would require much less skills and would be much easier on the horse. Free software as Davinci Resolve can do that easily and you find plenty of tutorials in the internet.
Although you already bought the drone, it seems a tool like this camera below might be a better tool for working with animals and close environments:

 

[Bramavic2]

Just saw a tweet that shows some of the dangers of tracking in places with obstacles:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1220163639132545025

 

[Not A Speck Of Cereal]

I think you'll have trouble with GPS lock on the arena, especially if it has a metal roof (you might even have compass interference in there). Definitely try (and practice several times) with an empty arena first. But one accident with the horse and a drone that lost the GPS lock means a loss of all confidence you had built up.

If you do have problems getting enough satalittes for a good GPS lock, your only recourse in the arena is full ATTI mode, which the Mavic 2 does not come with from the factory. There are other threads on how to achieve full ATTI mode with this drone, but then you need to learn to fly without GPS lock.

Good plan to socialize the horse with the drone.

I also think you'll have problems not just with tracking, but with decent video / photography inside the arena (my last girlfriend was an equestrian, so I've tried). You will probably still want to wait for better weather and do the actual photography outdoors (I live in the Seattle area, so I know your rain complaints, but the sun is on the way -- I promise!).

Chris