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Obstacle Avoidance at Twilight

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Feb 21, 2021
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I have an EVO 2 Pro that I just got. I once crashed a DJI by flying it at night without disabling the obstacle avoidance sensors. I didn't know that was a thing. The drone just got really confused by the darkness, started flying randomly without controller input, and slammed into a house. Is this a thing with the EVO 2 Pro? I have a twilight shoot in a few days, and I'd really like to leave the obstacle avoidance sensors on, but not if they're gonna make my drone schizophrenic like what happened with my old DJI. Should I leave them on, or turn them off?
 
I have an EVO 2 Pro that I just got. I once crashed a DJI by flying it at night without disabling the obstacle avoidance sensors. I didn't know that was a thing. The drone just got really confused by the darkness, started flying randomly without controller input, and slammed into a house. Is this a thing with the EVO 2 Pro? I have a twilight shoot in a few days, and I'd really like to leave the obstacle avoidance sensors on, but not if they're gonna make my drone schizophrenic like what happened with my old DJI. Should I leave them on, or turn them off?

I have done a lot of low light flying since getting my EVO II and I can tell you I haven't had any problems with it either on or off, but I also didn't have any problems with the DJI drones leaving it on in low light situations either. The DJI drones would warn me that it was low light and obstacle avoidance could be affected but it never affected the drone to the point of instability.

As far as the EVO II goes, I've flown it in complete darkness, around street lights, during sunsets, etc. and not one problem so far. I don't even think it complains about the low light or obstacle avoidance. The only thing that caught me by surprise was the super bright lights on the bottom which turn on automatically when flying in low light; it took me a moment to figure out how to turn them off. The other thing you will want to do is turn off at least the front two lights in low light so that you don't get a color cast from the lights into your video or photo.
 
I have an EVO 2 Pro that I just got. I once crashed a DJI by flying it at night without disabling the obstacle avoidance sensors. I didn't know that was a thing. The drone just got really confused by the darkness, started flying randomly without controller input, and slammed into a house. Is this a thing with the EVO 2 Pro? I have a twilight shoot in a few days, and I'd really like to leave the obstacle avoidance sensors on, but not if they're gonna make my drone schizophrenic like what happened with my old DJI. Should I leave them on, or turn them off?

The only way I flew safely at night is using a well tested waypoint mission.
 
The only way I flew safely at night is using a well tested waypoint mission.

In a well lit city its really not bad; some of your best footage can be obtained at night. Well lit being the key words here. You don't want to go flying around at night near power lines or cell phone towers.
 
I have done a lot of low light flying since getting my EVO II and I can tell you I haven't had any problems with it either on or off, but I also didn't have any problems with the DJI drones leaving it on in low light situations either. The DJI drones would warn me that it was low light and obstacle avoidance could be affected but it never affected the drone to the point of instability.

As far as the EVO II goes, I've flown it in complete darkness, around street lights, during sunsets, etc. and not one problem so far. I don't even think it complains about the low light or obstacle avoidance. The only thing that caught me by surprise was the super bright lights on the bottom which turn on automatically when flying in low light; it took me a moment to figure out how to turn them off. The other thing you will want to do is turn off at least the front two lights in low light so that you don't get a color cast from the lights into your video or photo.
Wow, thank you for such a prompt and helpful reply. I really appreciate it. Yeah, it was a Mavic Air, and it just went nuts. I replaced the blades (only real damage) and took flight again during daylight hours, and there was no problem. Maybe it's just a quirk with that particular DJI model? In any case, the DJI is just a backup now, with the EVO 2 Pro as my main drone.
 
Wow, thank you for such a prompt and helpful reply. I really appreciate it. Yeah, it was a Mavic Air, and it just went nuts. I replaced the blades (only real damage) and took flight again during daylight hours, and there was no problem. Maybe it's just a quirk with that particular DJI model? In any case, the DJI is just a backup now, with the EVO 2 Pro as my main drone.
Sure no problem, glad to help, its really a fantastic drone so far; it may be my main workhorse drone soon and I'll move my DJI P4 to backup status. By the way the camera in lowlight is one of the best drone cameras I've ever used; even better than the Inspire 1's M43 camera. Below is an example of what it can do at night.

Camera Settings:
Image format: RAW
Shutter Speed: 1/20s
ISO: 800
Aperture: F2.8
WB: Daylight
Post Processing: Lightroom

Project-02092021-AP-LowLightTest (1)a.jpg
 
In a well lit city its really not bad; some of your best footage can be obtained at night. Well lit being the key words here. You don't want to go flying around at night near power lines or cell phone towers.

Is tempting... Let me try that. I always want to do a hyperlapse (done before with my camera) of part of the main road.
 
Is tempting... Let me try that. I always want to do a hyperlapse (done before with my camera) of part of the main road.

I've tried drone hyperlapses in the past during daylight....I never liked the results, the camera just wasn't steady enough for me to want to use the resulting footage even with image stabilization applied in post. I haven't tried one with the EVO II yet; maybe it is more stable than the DJI drones for this.

It is an awesome concept though, and very visually interesting if you can get enough stability during the hyperlapse. Ground timelapses are one of my favorite ways to open a real estate video. I might have to test the hyperlapse feature on the EVO II. A night hyperlapse would be really interesting if you had well lit points of reference to show the drone's forward movement.
 
Sure no problem, glad to help, its really a fantastic drone so far; it may be my main workhorse drone soon and I'll move my DJI P4 to backup status. By the way the camera in lowlight is one of the best drone cameras I've ever used; even better than the Inspire 1's M43 camera. Below is an example of what it can do at night.

Camera Settings:
Image format: RAW
Shutter Speed: 1/20s
ISO: 800
Aperture: F2.8
WB: Daylight
Post Processing: Lightroo
 
That's absolutely gorgeous! Thank you for giving me your settings too! Just playing around, I'm finding that ISO 800 is the sweet spot
Sure no problem, glad to help, its really a fantastic drone so far; it may be my main workhorse drone soon and I'll move my DJI P4 to backup status. By the way the camera in lowlight is one of the best drone cameras I've ever used; even better than the Inspire 1's M43 camera. Below is an example of what it can do at night.

Camera Settings:
Image format: RAW
Shutter Speed: 1/20s
ISO: 800
Aperture: F2.8
WB: Daylight
Post Processing: Lightroom

View attachment 9833
That's absolutely gorgeous! Thank you for giving me your settings too! Just playing around, I'm finding that ISO 800 is the sweet spot. I need to get a twilight image of a hillside property in Bel Air. It's very well lit, and the pool is a deep iridescent blue with the pool light on.
 
That's absolutely gorgeous! Thank you for giving me your settings too! Just playing around, I'm finding that ISO 800 is the sweet spot

That's absolutely gorgeous! Thank you for giving me your settings too! Just playing around, I'm finding that ISO 800 is the sweet spot. I need to get a twilight image of a hillside property in Bel Air. It's very well lit, and the pool is a deep iridescent blue with the pool light on.

Yes I found ISO 800 at F2.8 and 1/20s to be the ideal combination to get sharp night footage that retains the available lighting without adding too much noise to the final image. In twilight you may even be able to drop to ISO 400.

That property shot will turn out very well with what the EVO II can do. With that deep blue pool you may want to drop the WB to 3600K depending on the ambient lighting. I know it doesn't matter as much when shooting RAW but it helps in post if you don't have a good white reference point that you can use to fix the WB. Good luck with the shoot, I think you won't have any problems with obstacle avoidance.
 
Yes I found ISO 800 at F2.8 and 1/20s to be the ideal combination to get sharp night footage that retains the available lighting without adding too much noise to the final image. In twilight you may even be able to drop to ISO 400.

That property shot will turn out very well with what the EVO II can do. With that deep blue pool you may want to drop the WB to 3600K depending on the ambient lighting. I know it doesn't matter as much when shooting RAW but it helps in post if you don't have a good white reference point that you can use to fix the WB. Good luck with the shoot, I think you won't have any problems with obstacle avoidance.
On the ground twilight shots, I went into Photoshop and white balanced the pool separately by using a layer mask with camera raw filter. I will likely do the same with the drone shots. Thank you again for your invaluable input.
 
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On the ground twilight shots, I went into Photoshop and white balanced the pool separately by using a layer mask with camera raw filter. I will likely do the same with the drone shots. Thank you again for your invaluable input.

Very nice ground shot. Properties in my area of FL tend to average in the $200K range and the real estate agents won't pay a penny more than they need to to get the job done so I don't do much residential real estate anymore (and almost none will pay for twilight shots these days). Since they are paying so little here, I'd probably go the Lightroom route and just brush in a WB adjustment for the pool to skip the Photoshop round trip and use the Auto Mask feature to keep the WB adjustment brush confined to the pool's surface.

The PS method will probably yield better results since you are working with unadjusted RAW data vs the Lightroom method where you first have to counter the WB that was applied via the global setting, but when you are working a job that pays pennies on the dollar speed is everything.
 
I have an EVO 2 Pro that I just got. I once crashed a DJI by flying it at night without disabling the obstacle avoidance sensors. I didn't know that was a thing. The drone just got really confused by the darkness, started flying randomly without controller input, and slammed into a house. Is this a thing with the EVO 2 Pro? I have a twilight shoot in a few days, and I'd really like to leave the obstacle avoidance sensors on, but not if they're gonna make my drone schizophrenic like what happened with my old DJI. Should I leave them on, or turn them off?
I think E2 turns OA off in low light automatically at launch time. If I'm not mistaken it even shows a message.
 
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I have an EVO 2 Pro that I just got. I once crashed a DJI by flying it at night without disabling the obstacle avoidance sensors. I didn't know that was a thing. The drone just got really confused by the darkness, started flying randomly without controller input, and slammed into a house. Is this a thing with the EVO 2 Pro? I have a twilight shoot in a few days, and I'd really like to leave the obstacle avoidance sensors on, but not if they're gonna make my drone schizophrenic like what happened with my old DJI. Should I leave them on, or turn them off?
With DJIs have noticed issue with low/no light & OA is more of a problem during takeoff/landing unless your whole flight is going to be down low or around obstacles. Something have noticed with DJI is that they can be side blind, especially compared to E2P. Tip is to fly using OA as an extra safety tool vs. relying upon it.
 
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With DJIs have noticed issue with low/no light & OA is more of a problem during takeoff/landing unless your whole flight is going to be down low or around obstacles. Something have noticed with DJI is that they can be side blind, especially compared to E2P. Tip is to fly using OA as an extra safety tool vs. relying upon it.
Thank you. Yeah, it was a weird experience, and fortunately no one got hurt, and no significant property damage occurred. Just a couple of broken propellers. As for using OA as an extra safety tool vs. relying upon it, yes... always.
 
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What kind of obstacle avoidance sensor are used on the DJI versus EVO? If the DJI is using visual processing and EVO uses ultrasonic, it would explain why the DJI crashed while EVOs are ok at night.
I just had to look it up. The both use binocular visual processing. In addition, the EVO 2 Pro uses dual down-facing ultrasonic sensors on its belly for precise hovering, and the Mavic Air dual down-facing infrared sensors that help create a 3D map of the environment below.
 
After much research in the DJI forums, I think I figured out what happened with the DJI. I did not wait to get the GPS locked in. Without the ability to see, and without GPS, it had no way of know where it was. So it went crazy. Theoretically this can happen with any drone, but I guess it's really a thing with the Mavic Air. No worries now. The EVO 2 Pro locks in on GPS really well where I will be flying this twilight flight. Thanks to everyone for their input.
 
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