Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2018 May 9

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May 9

Drones, video footage, and wind

Hello,

I currently have a somewhat simple drone, and am looking for an upgrade. The problem is that i can not find much detail with respect to how well various drone models can handle wind when taking video footage.

My current drone is a Contixo F18. It is a very nice drone actually, but the camera is fixed to the body of the drone. For this reason, video is rather shaky if you get a gust of wind. The drone is generally well capable of flying in up to 20 mph winds, and i can take pictures just fine... if i wait for the right moment on a windy day.... but making viable video footage with those wind speeds is nearly impossible.

How well do some of the higher end drones do with wind? Do heavier drones deal with it better (inertia)? Do multi-axis gimbals really help and remove any bumpiness, or at the end of the day, is a 20mph wind gust going to wreck any video regardless? (Part of me considers the possibility that a drone is just a really expensive leaf in the wind, to some extent)

Specifically, how high wind gust can the following models deal with and still have no effect on the footage?:

- DJI Mavic Air
- DJI Phantom 3 (and Pro)
- DJI Phantom 4 (and Pro)
- Yuneec Typhoon H (and Pro)

Thanks for any and all details regarding this kind of information, it would be very helpful, since i am not finding any technical data on this.

216.173.144.190 (talk) 19:56, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

A friend once remarked to me, "If you ever see a helicopter hovering perfectly still, that's a very skilled pilot." —Tamfang (talk) 06:09, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

For high quality video in windy conditions, the experts often use a miniature computer-controlled plane rather than a helicopter-type drone. I've seen one of these behaving very stably in windy conditions, but I don't know how they compare with the drones you mention. Dbfirs 07:20, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

A video demonstrates a drone that keeps station using accelerometer and magnetometer data. This article by an airship company president provides figures and comments that drones work in light winds but won't be able to station keep reliably until better energy storage comes along, since power required increases with wind velocity cubed. DroneB (talk) 08:55, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Thank you all so far for your input! I am still a pretty new pilot as of this year. So far, these remarks lead me to believe that i just need to wait for less windy days to get better footage (Although it looks like wind response is a technology that is being developed). Perhaps the summer season will offer more calm days, since in spring the earth is rapidly changing temperature etc etc. Does anyone have information please on the specific model families i listed above? Is there SOME smaller level of video stabilization that some of these drones can offer? Thanks!

216.173.144.190 (talk) 13:09, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

I have zero knowledge in the subject, but one avenue you might want to experiment with is googling for video stabilization post processing. 85.76.74.235 (talk) 17:22, 10 May 2018 (UTC)