Red Rock Canyon with Mavic Mini

[Paleomanjim]

 

[RkyMtnHigh]

Great video! Looks very familiar...we used to live right down the road from there in The Lakes area of Las Vegas, near Fort Apache and Sahara. Beautiful desert landscapes out that way.

 

[SkyeHigh]

Love the scenery, just a shame the Mini panning is so jumpy.

 

[Geekser]

Nicely done!

 

[Dale D]

Love the scenery, just a shame the Mini panning is so jumpy.

The jerking yawing of the mini is so bad. From other videos I have learned that these cannot be adjusted in the settings.

 

[SkyeHigh]

The jerking yawing of the mini is so bad. From other videos I have learned that these cannot be adjusted in the settings.

It’s such a shame. I would be tempted, where possible, to do a dissolve between some of the shots to remove the sudden yaw movements. You would, of course, lose some footage but it would make the overall movie so much more relaxing on the eye.

 

[Dale D]

It’s such a shame. I would be tempted, where possible, to do a dissolve between some of the shots to remove the sudden yaw movements. You would, of course, lose some footage but it would make the overall movie so much more relaxing on the eye.

I think if you feel comfortable, you should move on to the Mavic Air 2 , or temporize with the Mavic 2 Pro until the Mavic 3 comes out. I believe both drones have settings for the gimbal up/down speed, the sticks, and the YAW. I have all of mine slowed way down accordion to the settings website videos of Vic VideoPIC. (You Tube). Also agree to delete the yaws with transition and cut out the wild yawing. It ruins the entire video and is an absolute turnoff.

 

[Paleomanjim]

Thanks folks. I appreciate your comments and feedback and am listening to your advice. The jumpiness is mostly the result of increasing the speed of the video in Edit. I can do better, but it does take a lot of time. And had I played this video at normal speed it would have been around 20 minutes long, to boring imo. Also, I have only had the MM 3 weeks and am still getting use to the stick movements, this being my first drone. I believe that I can reduce much of the jumpiness by using more roll to steer and less yaw on the sticks. Because the camera Gimbal stays horizontal regardless of the roll (unless it is in FPV), I think there is a tendency to use yaw instead of roll to steer, and the yaw of this aircraft is clearly more sensitive and jerky than roll. I fly full size planes as well as 3D planes and always use both rudder and aileron to make coordinated turns. My tendency is to fly low and between canyon walls where they exist, so on my next run I will try to use more of the roll to steer and less of the rudder. I found myself having to stop a few times to avoid hitting rocks because I was trying to use the minimum amount of yaw to steer and avoid jerky movements which was clearly not enough to change the direction of flight enough. So, it is a work in progress. Fortunately I live less than 10 miles away from Red Rock so I will be back to try again. The area is full of slot canyons and deep gorges and has the potential for awesome drone footage. I'll keep trying until I get it right. Any thoughts on the relationship between yaw and roll in making the camera movements smoother? My guess is many folks are using yaw to steer when perhaps they should be using more roll. Kind of the opposite of RC plane pilots, many of whom get in the habit of using no rudder all but instead steer the plane by bank and yank (roll and elevator). It works, but it is sloppy and not right!

 

[Dale D]

Thanks folks. I appreciate your comments and feedback and am listening to your advice. The jumpiness is mostly the result of increasing the speed of the video in Edit. I can do better, but it does take a lot of time. And had I played this video at normal speed it would have been around 20 minutes long, to boring imo. Also, I have only had the MM 3 weeks and am still getting use to the stick movements, this being my first drone. I believe that I can reduce much of the jumpiness by using more roll to steer and less yaw on the sticks. Because the camera Gimbal stays horizontal regardless of the roll (unless it is in FPV), I think there is a tendency to use yaw instead of roll to steer, and the yaw of this aircraft is clearly more sensitive and jerky than roll. I fly full size planes as well as 3D planes and always use both rudder and aileron to make coordinated turns. My tendency is to fly low and between canyon walls where they exist, so on my next run I will try to use more of the roll to steer and less of the rudder. I found myself having to stop a few times to avoid hitting rocks because I was trying to use the minimum amount of yaw to steer and avoid jerky movements which was clearly not enough to change the direction of flight enough. So, it is a work in progress. Fortunately I live less than 10 miles away from Red Rock so I will be back to try again. The area is full of slot canyons and deep gorges and has the potential for awesome drone footage. I'll keep trying until I get it right. Any thoughts on the relationship between yaw and roll in making the camera movements smoother? My guess is many folks are using yaw to steer when perhaps they should be using more rudder. Kind of the opposite of RC plane pilots, many of whom get in the habit of using no rudder at but instead steer the plane by bank and yank (roll and elevator). It works, but it is sloppy and not right!

I have no clue about Mini except what I read constantly about the inability to slow down the YAW and stick reactions in the settings of the mini. So if you are an experienced pilot already you owe it to yourself to treat yourself to a Mavic Air 2 (my former one which I loved) or even a Mavic 2 Pro. I really envy your proximity to fly in slot canyons and red rocks. I love that country. Unfortunately had to cancel a trip totally dedicated to Moab, Monument Valley, Sedona in April,2020 due to virus. Spent thousands in deposits and got it back.

 

[SkyeHigh]

It’s tricky alright. Coordinating roll and yaw takes a lot of practice to master especially when you can’t personally experience the effect yourself as you would in a full-size aircraft. At least it holds its vertical position with no loss of height in the process.

From what I read in the forums the Mini isn’t quite so smooth as the larger models such as the Mavic Pro’s and Air2.

Very envious to have such scenery so close by. Looking forward to getting back to the US once the pandemic is over.

Keep up the great work!

 

[Paleomanjim]

Thanks again, the desert can be beautiful, and Red Rock just has a lot of character to it with the eroding cliffs and colors.
The Mavic Air 2 looks good, might be in my future. We plan to travel to Hawaii in December so the small MM might be best for that.
I did a short test run with the Mavic Mini this morning using just Roll and no Yaw stick movements to see if that reduced the jerkiness on the video. It worked great, better than I expected. Even when played back at 4X the video was perfectly smooth. Using Roll only allows the Mini to drift right or left from a straight course while maintaining the exact heading. In other words, one can follow a straight sinuous course without the need for rudder. This will be useful for more or less straight mountain runs, ridges or gorges. Might get a chance to try this out at Red Rock next week for comparison.

 

[SkyeHigh]

That’s great news. Looking forward to seeing more of your work!