What do these have in common? Why is there a Drone on the Pew group? Well, I was recently asked by @galenkp and some others if the drone could be used to send pictures or video of long range targets like some of the range cameras.
The answer is a resounding Yes. Here is a pic of my drone used. A Mavic 2 Pro.
I chose this drone because of it's range (5 miles), it's "intelligent flight" modes, it's sensors to help avoid trees, buildings, rocks and such and of course because of it's high resolution camera which can take 40Mb RAW images, 10Mb jpgs, and do 4K video. One of it's special flight modes is "Tripod" mode, which allows it to hover automatically (hands free) even in a decent 10-15mph gusty wind and stay quite steady. It has many other features that others may like, but those were key to me.
One of the other key features for me was that the drone be fairly light and portable so I can take it on hikes, when traveling, etc. Here is a shot of it folded up for storage/travel.
I've also added a few accessories to mine. One of the first was fold up extension legs. These give the drone more height when taking off or landing from tall grass, sand, snow, etc. yet easily fold up for storage or if not using. I think less than $20 and well worth it to help keep spray stuff off the camera lens.
One of the other things I added was a "Smart Controller". The normal controller has a place to connect your cellphone with a cable and some arms that fold out to hold it. I'm really happy with this controller which includes it's own screen, and is a little brighter than most cellphones. It gives me much longer battery life, and then also doesn't leave my phone drained when I'm out and about. The little antennae fold down and the joysticks unscrew and store in the back for travel.
Benefits:
Some of the benefits of using a drone for target visuals include:
- The range, this is dependent on the drone, but this drone can easily reach 2-5 miles video/picture transmission. Much farther than I can shoot accurately!
- Ease of setup, instead of having to carry one camera down to the target and then setup a nearby receiver, I just fly the drone down to the target (and back).
3, Ability to take still pics and record video. The other range cameras I've seen don't have this, but could likely be recorded with some screen capture apps? - If shooting with others, ability to easily move the video/picture to multiple targets.
- If shooting different ranges, no need to run down range and move range cam, just take off the drone and fly to next target.
Drawbacks:
- The only potential drawback I can think of is if you are a poor shot and shoot your expensive drone. It's going to be a costly repair or replacement.
No big deal if the drone battery runs out, just walk/drive down and pick it up.
First off, this was my first time testing and I learned several things, (mistakes) lol. This was only 50 yards, and I'm glad I practiced before taking it out to the real range. I will probably do another one of better quality at some point. To that point, I must have hit the wrong button or forgot to hit the right button twice when I started. I (thought) had recorded a nice slow fly-in and thought I was recording the first 5 shots while hovering, but apparently not. Oops. You can get an idea of what it looked like at the beginning of the video where the drone is hovering in the same place, then landing to video from the ground. The return flight is a little fast and choppy, I originally didn't plan to keep that, but decided to since I messed up the fly-in video.
Here's the video link.
Even though the recording while hovering worked just fine and would be great if you just wanted to fly down to the 500 or 1K yard targets and get a post-shooting view of one or multiple targets, the way I will likely use the most is by flying down to the target, landing, and then turning off the rotors while I just video from the ground.
This has the added benefit of a nice, stable picture, but even more important, should extend the battery life (30 minutes) by at least 2-4 times.
This is more in line with my shooting times. This also allows you or partner to actually watch the holes in paper or marks on steel as they occur.
I didn't think of it until after this video (lesson learned from the test), but you can also record / listen to the sound. I normally have the sound turned off because you hear a lot of rotor noise when the props are going. But by landing and turning off the props, you can also now record what your pistol/rifle sounds like from downrange and record the sound of it hitting paper/steel and the delay time. Very cool. Definitely will do that for the next video.
Enjoy!
@ksteem
If you look into your drone settings you should be able to have a little bit of an optical zoom. Or is it digital zoom...
With my mavic 2 zoom I can definitely use the eight power zoom feature to really close into targets and look inside caves for prospecting that normally I'd have to rappel get to.
Awesome job and I am definitely following your work!!!!
Thank you very much for your post from me and puppy dog.
Ah, that's the thing that made choosing between the two of them so hard for me. My Mavic2 Pro only has 2x digital zoom by pinching the screen for stills (with quality loss), or if shooting video can get 1.4x without loss by shooting in 4k "Crop mode". For me the higher resolution stills and low light capability just edged out the nice multi-zoom capability of your Zoom.. It literally took me weeks to decide. I wish they would add that capability to the next model!
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So. it's all good, but is there a zoom? I wonder because when smacking steel at long range there can be metal fragments flicking around and whilst at a kilometre or more I'm able to impact the target all day long but damage incurred from a random piece of metal would buggerise my drone, and day I reckon.
This is a very cool thing though, and I'd say one would get some great slow-mo footage of the impact on steel.
Good post, most appropriate in this community too.
My model does not have a zoom feature, but the Mavic 2 Zoom model does :) Camera is not quite as good for low light, but still very acceptable and even has a super high res mode for stills that combines multiple shots into one.
For these shots, I pulled the drone in as close as it would go with the object sensors active. That keeps me from actually running into the target, and ended up being about 6 feet away. So yes, maybe still some danger from splatter or ricochet.
Considering it saves me the money from buying a range cam setup, and that I've had it for a couple years now, I wouldn't be quite as upset if it got damaged. I did get the full extended warranty with it when I bought it, but I'm sure it would be a non-winning battle trying to claim a gunshot damage. Maybe not for folks that add a tag onto their homeowners insurance like many do...
and yes the video definitely good quality to do some slowmo in post processing. Look for that later this summer! I can't wait to get out and try this at 500-600 yards, my spotting scope doesn't quite give me a good enough view at that distance and this will give me the same view out there as it did here.
Kris: My drone is malfunctioning can you replace it under warranty?
Manufacturer: Hmm, that's no good, I'm sure we can. What happened?
Kris: I shot it a little bit with my 22-250
Manufacturer: Get...Out!
I can see a definite use for the drone for this purpose and with it at 6 feet away probably little risk of splatter...The lead basically goes to powder on steel anyway, especially at the speeds it's impacting at.
Rotfl
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Oh boy, my wife is going to hate this.... I'm blaming you! :-)
Lol, That's me, serving to strain err. I mean prove how strong relationships are across the world.
Haha! I'm going to tell my wife how funny this is! :-)