I received the following questions from another forum user while I was on holiday in Indonesia. I asked him if he minded if I answered them in the thread, for the sake of others and he obliged my request:
I am using Agisoft photoscan for mosaiiking images taken from my Phantom 2 with 2D gimbal and Gopro 3+ Black (all stock from DJI) and also an F550 with Canon sx260 or S100 (with CHDK, for intervalometer) which are fixed-mounted looking down.
I have the Sony RX100 III, which I want to mount on the F550 and I see that you have a solution for that for the Phantom. Is it a fixed mount ? absorbs vibrations ?
The mount is fixed, as in it is not motorised. I've designed a few attachments for tilting, but this has to be done on the ground after a shoot is planned. It is also dampened, to reduce the impact of vibrations on both the aircraft and on the camera sensor. The RX100 is a popular fixed camera for the Phantom 2, as without a gimbal it can take great stills, so long as the mount is dampened or the aircraft is very stable. It's weight allows for TX gear in addition to the camera, so photos can be triggered when you want.
1. How do you mount your Sony on the Phantom ? Do I have to take apart the current gimbal and Gopro as they are interconnected with cables into the Quad.
I use the Phantom 2 Vision, which has a very basic mount that is easy to unplug. I would've assumed that the gimbal cables for the various goPro gimbals would be too, but I could stand corrected.
2. Do you use the TimeLapse function from Sony :
https://www.playmemoriescameraapps.com/portal/usbdetail.php?eid=IS9104-NPIA09014_00-000003 But somehow i can't get it to download (i am in Israel).Do you use Intervalometer to generate your images ?
No. My camera is a Samsung NX-1100. It can shoot continuously so long as the settings are correct and the shutter is pressed, so I made a little gizmo for this:
That you can buy here3. How do you extract the stills from the Video ? which SW do you use ?
I use ffmpeg, which is a command line utility, although you should be aware that taking frames from video results in lossy images, that are not ideal for Photoscan. I wrote a Maxscript to handle the frame extraction, since the command lines are little complicated.
4. What are your impressions from the Sony (1" CMOS ) ?
I've seen good results, but for this kind of work an APS-C sensor would be better. It allows for faster shutter speeds, which means that your drone can be moving more when you capture.
Thanks,
Dave
Any time!