Hints for Indoor Drone Videos

[spamgnome]

I'm going to be doing some indoor drone videos of a CRE site. I haven't done this before, so looking for any advice on drone and camera settings. I have a Mavic Air 2. These are my thoughts so far:
- Tripod mode
- no ND filters
- collision avoidance ON

Thanks!

 

[skiptv]

Stay at least 6feet below the ceiling, the vortex of air being pulled down from the props create negative air pressure above the drone, this negative pressure if within 6 feet or less of the ceiling will 'suck' the drone right into the ceiling. When that happens most people panic and cut the power, the suction stops and the drone falls like a rock.

 

[iReviewFrozenDinners]

I recently flew an Air 2 indoors for a gig and was expecting the worst in terms of interference and prop wash, etc. This was in an old brick building with tons of radio interference, also was close to a bunch of cell tower equipment and it was a tricky shot in general that required tracking and following subjects backwards and then flying outdoors through a window and then back inside again. While dodging power lines and birds

Calibrate all of the instruments first and do as many practice runs as you can. I ended up disabling my obstacle avoidance because it was just getting in the way, but depending on how much room you have to fly around in you might not need to. If there's a ton of metal around, watch out for compass errors, but honestly the Air 2 handles pretty decently indoors. I do wish it had a manual attitude mode, but it don't and it doesn't look like you can hack it in like you could with some of the older mavics, but I could be wrong. Also if there are people around, prop guards might not be a terrible idea if the drone gains sentience and goes rogue.

On a sidenote, is this a big warehouse type thing? Why do you have to use a drone for this and not a handheld camera?

 

[skiptv]

Also get prop protectors. this way if you hit a wall you will gently bounce off

 

[spamgnome]

I recently flew an Air 2 indoors for a gig and was expecting the worst in terms of interference and prop wash, etc. This was in an old brick building with tons of radio interference, also was close to a bunch of cell tower equipment and it was a tricky shot in general that required tracking and following subjects backwards and then flying outdoors through a window and then back inside again. While dodging power lines and birds

Calibrate all of the instruments first and do as many practice runs as you can. I ended up disabling my obstacle avoidance because it was just getting in the way, but depending on how much room you have to fly around in you might not need to. If there's a ton of metal around, watch out for compass errors, but honestly the Air 2 handles pretty decently indoors. I do wish it had a manual attitude mode, but it don't and it doesn't look like you can hack it in like you could with some of the older mavics, but I could be wrong. Also if there are people around, prop guards might not be a terrible idea if the drone gains sentience and goes rogue.

On a sidenote, is this a big warehouse type thing? Why do you have to use a drone for this and not a handheld camera?

Excellent advice. Sounds like your gig was more challenging than mine. It ended up being a non-event. It was a warehouse, but not especially tight quarters, so in the end not that challenging. Thanks!

 

[spamgnome]

I recently flew an Air 2 indoors for a gig and was expecting the worst in terms of interference and prop wash, etc. This was in an old brick building with tons of radio interference, also was close to a bunch of cell tower equipment and it was a tricky shot in general that required tracking and following subjects backwards and then flying outdoors through a window and then back inside again. While dodging power lines and birds

Calibrate all of the instruments first and do as many practice runs as you can. I ended up disabling my obstacle avoidance because it was just getting in the way, but depending on how much room you have to fly around in you might not need to. If there's a ton of metal around, watch out for compass errors, but honestly the Air 2 handles pretty decently indoors. I do wish it had a manual attitude mode, but it don't and it doesn't look like you can hack it in like you could with some of the older mavics, but I could be wrong. Also if there are people around, prop guards might not be a terrible idea if the drone gains sentience and goes rogue.

On a sidenote, is this a big warehouse type thing? Why do you have to use a drone for this and not a handheld camera?

Also, you asked why not a DSLR. Simple answer is that the client wanted a "virtual video tour," so a drone was the quickest & best way to accomplish it.