Need some help Please

Normex · Jun 16, 2019

Greetings all,
A friend of mine has planted corn in a 50 acre size field and he asked me if I could verify his field whether his
herbicide that he had done a couple weeks ago is working good. What would be the best way to achieve this with my Evo ?
View point ? would allow me staying straight then I could set up again coming back. I would go at an altitude of 30 feet approx.
The field is level so no danger of grounding. I would fly and video line that would cover at least 100 ft at a time so maybe I would
need to do 20 fly lines of a bit less than 1/2 a mile. I calculate roughly I will need my 3 batteries to achieve this.

If anyone here needed to achieve the same what mode do you take ? Oh what fun it is to undertake this
adventure.

Many Thanks.
Norm

CraigCam · Jun 16, 2019

Consider upping your frame rate and use the 720 240frames? That would allow for faster passes that could be slowed down in post for greater detail. Lighting is of course critical so time of day for sun angle relative to field is a factor. What distinguishes the weeds from the crops? Is it possible prop wash would bring out the weeds in movement because the corn stalks are more solid? This also may be a time where the 2x zoom makes sense? If you go with real time look then I’d use the slowest speeds so you can follow progress on a second monitor if you have that option. Good luck.

Normex · Jun 16, 2019

At present the corn is less than 6 " high and anything that grow other than the corn itself is a weed so It is easy to see if anything grows.
The challenge is not in the filming or the light but to stay in a straight line for 1/2 a mile hence with view point ?

Ansia · Jun 16, 2019

Why not use waypoints? This will allow your drone to fly on it’s own and will let you focus on camera. Also, I would do a timelapse instead of video. This will allow me to verify and zoom on the photos later. I would also fly at 150’. At that height is low enough to capture detail, high enough to shorten the flight time and will not affect the crops below from prop wash.

Normex · Jun 16, 2019

Doesn't viewpoint allow to fly straight and at 30ft there is no propwash and lastly how can flying at 150ft vs 30 shorten flight time?

Ansia · Jun 16, 2019

Normex said:
Doesn't viewpoint allow to fly straight and at 30ft there is no propwash and lastly how can flying at 150ft vs 30 shorten flight time?

I don't know if there will be prop wash at 30ft. I haven't used viewpoint, but to my understanding it will only fly in the direction you set it. With waypoints, you can create a patterns on the field, which will allow you to fly sideways, backwards, etc without having to tell the drone to do so, just move yaw and the camera. At 150ft the field of view will always be larger than at 30ft. It's like when you are taking a photo of a large group, where you have to step back to get everyone inside the frame. If you can cover more ground, then it will take less time to cover the entire field.

Normex · Jun 16, 2019

Forget the prop wash as it might be an issue at 5 feet or less. I tried waypoint and I have to fly where I intend to go first then
it can do what you mention from what I've seen so far. Unless I could do the waypoints online seeing the field on my computer then
apply it to the drone once close to the field. ? So I would need to record it on my SD card. Lots to learn on this one but would be nice.
I need to be at the minimum (30ft) with focus at 6 times to see if any weeds are there. At 150 ft there is no way to see if there are weeds
sprouting then it would be too late and the crop is very badly affected.

jcommstudios · Jun 16, 2019

Normex said:
Forget the prop wash as it might be an issue at 5 feet or less. I tried waypoint and I have to fly where I intend to go first then
it can do what you mention from what I've seen so far. Unless I could do the waypoints online seeing the field on my computer then
apply it to the drone once close to the field. ? So I would need to record it on my SD card. Lots to learn on this one but would be nice.
I need to be at the minimum (30ft) with focus at 6 times to see if any weeds are there. At 150 ft there is no way to see if there are weeds
sprouting then it would be too late and the crop is very badly affected.

@Normex We flew 180 acres of olives a while back. Altitude was about 30 feet. Made all the passes manually and mapped and logged each pass as we made them. We also ran each portion of the field and stopped down the video and restarted on each pass to be able to identify the location. Shot 60p but gave it to the client at 30p as an h264 (mp4). The client was able to pause where he wanted to in his media player. If the plants are only 6" you could fly much lower w/o any magnification and I don't think the prop wash would be an issue. Take someone with you that can log each pass and assign a clip number for each one. Make sure you start with a fresh card so the file #s start at 001.

Normex · Jun 17, 2019

That is impressive JComm and did you use the EVO ? As I have only my Evo with 3 batteries.
I was looking at it a bit more and maybe Waypoints might be the way to go mind you my friend is only interested to
see if his insecticide is doing its work and if not he wants to know where understandably.

jcommstudios · Jun 17, 2019

Normex said:
That is impressive JComm and did you use the EVO ? As I have only my Evo with 3 batteries.
I was looking at it a bit more and maybe Waypoints might be the way to go mind you my friend is only interested to
see if his insecticide is doing its work and if not he wants to know where understandably.

@Normex Yes we flew the EVO. 3 batteries on a calm day will give you about 1 hour and 15 minutes of flight time. Should be plenty to do 50 acres. Waypoints might work for you but I would think flying manually with the technique I mentioned above would be quicker and more efficient. Just make sure you have a crew that logs each pass and stopdown and restart the video on each pass in each direction. Good luck!

butch · Jun 17, 2019

I did a similar log over small timber using waypoints. It is amazing what you can see at slow speeds, wildlife of all sorts. I set the waypoints offline, then went to the location and launched evo. I viewed the card on my computer and can stop and go and see eveything up close and personel.
butch

Normex · Jun 18, 2019

Hi , I tried the waypoint this morning where on the Evo's receiver I drew 10 parallel spaced evenly and saved it. Inputed the alt and speed.
Now I I set up near where the Evo would do its thing and pressed start. There was a a small message stating it was loading for approx. 1 minute
then another message that it timed out ! grrr so what am I doing wrong this time ?
THANKS jcomm.

jcommstudios · Jun 18, 2019

Normex said:
Hi , I tried the waypoint this morning where on the Evo's receiver I drew 10 parallel spaced evenly and saved it. Inputed the alt and speed.
Now I I set up near where the Evo would do its thing and pressed start. There was a a small message stating it was loading for approx. 1 minute
then another message that it timed out ! grrr so what am I doing wrong this time ?
THANKS jcomm.

@Normex Like I suggested fly it manually! I don't even fool with waypoints on the EVO. It goes to the waypoint, stops, readjusts and then continues on. Uses more power than you would flying the pattern yourself.

Normex · Jun 18, 2019

I tried manually but in a bare field except for the first pass I need to have the lines parallel to each other with approx. 30 feet between. You can initially but your line
gets so crooked it is almost unusable hence trying with the waypoint. It works off line when drawing but like my post said it times out when trying to load the waypoints.
Maybe I'll try contacting Autel on this one as I'm so close.

jcommstudios · Jun 18, 2019

Normex said:
I tried manually but in a bare field except for the first pass I need to have the lines parallel to each other with approx. 30 feet between. You can initially but your line
gets so crooked it is almost unusable hence trying with the waypoint. It works off line when drawing but like my post said it times out when trying to load the waypoints.
Maybe I'll try contacting Autel on this one as I'm so close.

@Normex Not sure if you are aware of this but the new beta app has a new waypoint feature. Here is a link to a pretty good description of it.

Jagerbomb52 · Jun 18, 2019

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