Question regarding best mode for getting close to waterfalls with Mavic Air

[Sputnik756]

I have had my Mavic air for almost a year now. However I still feel like a brand new pilot with it because I don’t get much practice. I live in South Florida and it’s almost impossible to find a place to fly this thing with a clear sky where it’s legal.
In any case, I have a question regarding taking video with the Mavic air. Last year, I was in a Norway and took some aerial drone shots of some waterfalls. It was probably literally only my third flight with the drone so it was a lot of trial and error. I wish I had more time to practice before I went on this vacation. Of course I see everything in retrospect.

My biggest problem though was trying to figure out a way of having the drone fly smoothly towards the waterfall when you personally are far enough away from it and perhaps can’t judge 100% exactly how to fly the drone manually without readjustments. More you readjust obviously, the more choppy the video is.

I thought perhaps the tap to fly feature would work with this, but without the object sensing it didn’t seem intuitive to do this on some of the tighter waterfalls.

Just wondered if anyone else has had any experience with this and if there is a better way of doing this. Basically, I’m looking for a way to fly the drone to a point of interest smoothly where it may have to make some movements or adjustments along the way. Maybe this is not even possible, but I guess that’s what I need to know.

For instance is there a way of the drone following a track, say, along a curve in a river? (Without using an active track following a boat or something.)

 

[brett8883]

I have had my Mavic air for almost a year now. However I still feel like a brand new pilot with it because I don’t get much practice. I live in South Florida and it’s almost impossible to find a place to fly this thing with a clear sky where it’s legal.
In any case, I have a question regarding taking video with the Mavic air. Last year, I was in a Norway and took some aerial drone shots of some waterfalls. It was probably literally only my third flight with the drone so it was a lot of trial and error. I wish I had more time to practice before I went on this vacation. Of course I see everything in retrospect.

My biggest problem though was trying to figure out a way of having the drone fly smoothly towards the waterfall when you personally are far enough away from it and perhaps can’t judge 100% exactly how to fly the drone manually without readjustments. More you readjust obviously, the more choppy the video is.

I thought perhaps the tap to fly feature would work with this, but without the object sensing it didn’t seem intuitive to do this on some of the tighter waterfalls.

Just wondered if anyone else has had any experience with this and if there is a better way of doing this. Basically, I’m looking for a way to fly the drone to a point of interest smoothly where it may have to make some movements or adjustments along the way. Maybe this is not even possible, but I guess that’s what I need to know.

For instance is there a way of the drone following a track, say, along a curve in a river? (Without using an active track following a boat or something.)

You can make a waypoints mission and then set it to manual rotations. Set the speed to 0 ad so you manually control the speed using the fly forward stick. It will fly forward through the waypoint mission. You could also set the speed so it will automatically fly through the waypoints.

Note: GPS isn’t perfect so don’t make waypoints too close to obstacles. You can always crop the video to get in closer

 

[Sputnik756]

I’ll try that. Thanks for the advice. I haven’t worked with waypoint too much yet just because I haven’t had a whole lot of time as I mentioned. But I’ll give it a whirl.