The. Big. Error.

[Ozimax]

Nothing technical here, just a warning story from a numbskull Aussie.

We're coming to to the end of a 10 week journey through New Zealand. It is an incredible country, and after 27 trips to the Shaky Isles, I can safely say there's few other countries like it.

Forward to yesterday. We visited Cathedral Cove (any Chronicles of Narnia fans out there?). I've been using my Mavic Pro for about 4 months now. Hundreds of flights and some pretty amazing 4k footage of, well, everywhere in New Zealand. I even received permission to fly in a "no-fly" zone last Wednesday and got some outstanding footage.

Back to yesterday (Thursday 5th April). We landed at Cathedral Cove around 4pm. The crowds were starting to thin. I had a few practice flights in the actual cavern, but waited for people to leave. At last around 5pm the cavern was empty, the sun had gone down hence the lighting was even. I steadied myself (on battery #3), and flew a perfect line, starting outside the cave, right through to the other side. Nailed it. Lighting. Crowds. Flying.
I then nailed a flight back through the cavern in the reverse direction. 100%. We then started trudging back up the 40 minute steep walk to the parking lot. Returned back to the motel. Dinner. Time to empty the net and check out the day's footage...

I forgot to press "record".

People, you can be a world champion drone pilot, a Superbowl winner, an NBA MVP or even the president/prime minister, but if you forget to press the record button, you're a dill.

This is the second time this has happened on this trip. Hopefully my lesson is learned. The most important part of videography with a drone is pressing the record button.

Apart from that, all is good. Thankfully I still have enough gray matter to remember a special day in a special part of the world.

 

[Plawa]

If it helps... been there, done that. The worst part is not having anyone else to blame

 

[Marko5584]

I remember the time I saw Elvis and Nixon together in a spaceship, but I forgot to press record...

 

[Ozimax]

If it helps... been there, done that. The worst part is not having anyone else to blame

Nah, doesn't help at all...

 

[Jake 61]

You are not alone. I spent longer looking at a shot, worried about crashing into a waterfall, before just going for it.
When I got home I could have cried.
No guts, no glory. And no video.

 

[chezedog]

I forgot to press "record"..

My sympathies. I had a "forgot to press record" issue on my second MP flight ever, and it irritated me so much, I never forgot again!

 

[Nathan Hoover]

Oh man, what a pain. Been there done that before too.

Interestingly, the new Skydio R1 follow drone eliminates this problem by starting recording on take off and stopping on landing. Wouldn't work in general for the Mavic since it takes stills too, but they could enable a "auto video" mode in the app which you could use if you really wanted to be sure.

I LOVE NZ as well. Have spent months of my life there and would love to get there with my Mavic and R1.

 

[BluesDragon]

Had a similar incident happen to me last weekend. There's a couple of guys that do Paragliding near me. Loaded up the Lil' Dragon and headed over to where I know they launch from. Talked a bit and asked them if I could do some recording. Kept my distance, as they were staying low practicing some touch and goes and whatnots. Near the end of my recording session, one of them was coming in straight towards the MP. So I lowered my altitude to get below him. Then realized he was landing. Landed the MP and watched this beautiful footage of him landing right up about 20ft from my MP. Ran up to him, all excited, "That was sweet!! I'll edit the video and bring you guys a copy next weekend if I see you in the air again." Got home and loaded everything into my edit program and found I had missed the whole landing... except when I ran up to him.. hitting my stop record button... only I didn't stop recording... I started! I was so angry at myself for making such a boneheaded mistake. Still got some good video... just missed out on what I thought was the best part of it.

BTW: Always enjoy the Narnia series...

 

[nikkolaa]

I experienced also a lot of record-button-touch not effective, usually when stopping and restarting immediately to shorten sizes of video files.

Sometimes I noticed it soon enough, sometimes I've missed really good shots too..

I then realized later on that this could be the effect of the autofocus resync, initialized when video is stop? Or when started, like with a reflex camera when it needs time to focus automatically?

Anyway, now I'm checking constantly if I'm recording, especially during the first seconds after activation of video.

But it still happens,...

 

[Ozimax]

The DJI app (to me at least) is good but flaky. I've now taken to using the actual physical buttons on the RC because sometimes a press on the screen of my iphone 8 doesn't seem to register. (I know, it doesn't take away from the fact that I should always check to see if the footage is rolling.) Of course there is also the sound ("ding") that the phone makes when recording is started, but again the software is flaky. Sometimes all sounds just stops mid flight for no apparent reason, and sometimes the entire video side of the app disappears.

 

[RayOZ]

When you are in photo mode, and press the video button on RC, sometimes, it just swaps to video mode, but doesn't start recording. So you might have pressed the physical button and think recording in on, it might not be. Happened to me a few times. And it starts recording when I thought I was stopping.

 

[KDog]

Do you record to your phone? I’ve made this same mistake before but I always review my footage on my phone before I leave location, just in case I didn’t press record if there’s some issue I didn’t notice while I was concentrating on piloting and filming. Has saved me on more than a few occasions, not just failing to record, but also those micro-tremors the gimbal sometimes gets, or just failing to frame the shot how I wanted.

Anyway, always good learning. I’d love love love to get over the ditch with the Mavic. Haven’t been over for a few years though. Such incredible scenery. Can you link your film when you’re done?

 

[Gunglejim]

Missed out on a few good shots because I forgot to push "Record". A friend made a sticker on his labelmaker and gave it to me. He said sticker on the RC and I have, works wonders and never forget to click on "Record" anymore. LOL

 

[Drone on]

Been there. Had it been a Mavic air, this would raise the question, which internal memory matters most?

 

[Tbredhed]

I feel for you, we were in Portugal last week and i was filming the cliffs in the Algarve, I got some great shots. I came back changed batteries with the intent of getting some shots of the beaches and the fishing boats returning, forgot to press record, 25 minutes of Seagull free flight and zero footage.

 

[Mossiback]

Been there, done that. Now I always look at the video time display to insure it is counting up.

 

[Youser]

When I was flying my Hubsan drones I used to monitor my flight time with video recording timer. Made a habit of hitting the record button even if I wasn't looking to film good footage.

 

[chadrob30]

Litchi. Auto record on takeoff. Done.

 

[Mossiback]

Litchi. Auto record on takeoff. Done.

Make sure to check your focus.

 

[Gunglejim]

Litchi. Auto record on takeoff. Done.

DJI GO app has the same, but don't always want to record or have more
video to go through when Editting.